30th June 2011
Dear All
Attached is Missive 31, sneaking in just before the end of the month, which does mean I'm back on track. But, if the last few days are anything to go by, Missive 32 might be the Christmas edition!!!!
Hopefully not!
love
Roger
Mes chers amis
This is the week this is!! ~ Missive 31
“And in the end it’s not the years of your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”
Abraham Lincoln
“Two roads diverged in a wood and I –
I took the one travelled less and that has made all the difference.”
Robert Frost
““Come to the edge,” he said. They said: “We are afraid.”
“Come to the edge,” he said. They came. He pushed them, and they flew ......”
Guillaume Apollinaire
Somewhat anachronistic, for want of a better word, as this month’s offering has obviously been written at differing times, in fact it might well appear to jump all over the place – two years and more ago, tonight, tomorrow and the future –hopefully, it will all become crystal clear!!
Pen to paper with trembling hand as the search began ~ Chapter 2
Once the decision had been made, without going totally public, we felt we needed to tell as many of our close friends and relations as we could, not only so they didn’t find second hand, but I think also subconsciously so it would be more difficult to change our minds! I also felt it important to tell colleagues and governors at work, colleagues in the wider Gloucestershire education sphere, and in the mounting excitement anyone who would listen, but with the proviso that it was kept under wraps until actual dates had been decided, to at least give the governors a chance to begin to get their heads around finding a replacement for me. And ...... as I said in the last chapter amazingly for once the “educational bush telegraph” didn’t do its work and my imminent departure remained a secret for rather more months than I had originally intended.
The leap into the unknown had originally been planned for the end of the academic year, but as the period between leaving and becoming an early retiree depended on the sale of Linda’s parent’s house in York, the time for giving in my notice loomed rapidly, prospective buyers were conspicuous by their absence, as the country entered a deep and somewhat worrying depression. Without this security the whole plan was in danger of floundering before it even started, and maybe the dream just wasn’t meant to be!
We did however continue to surf the web and look for suitable areas and properties, which proved to be plentiful and at that time extremely good value for money the pound being still reasonably strong against the euro. So to move things on a little we made our first tentative sortie to view some possible properties, to see if the web descriptions really were accurate and you did get all it said for your money!! But as we intended to be cash buyers we needed the money in the bank before being able to commit ourselves, so we weren’t in the position to make a firm offer.
But, France is an enormous country, six times the area of the UK, so just how do you go about deciding where to live!! We thought about a stab in the dark, with a blindfold and a pin in a map, but it seemed too arbitrary and what if we had ended up with the hole in the map in the middle of the Champs Elysees, the budget certainly wasn’t going to stretch that far, and we would not be swopping the hustle, bustle and frustrations of work for the rural tranquillity and calm of the French countryside that we had witnessed on numerous holidays over the years. But these holiday destinations also didn’t help as we had a tendency to visit places all over France and even tour around with the tent or later the caravan on our two to three week summer holidays, so hadn’t fallen in love with one particular place, but rather France and its lifestyle in general.
We needed to do something to keep the momentum going, so we went back to the beginning, and the first website we had discovered, found the original farmhouse et al had gone, but that there were several other possible places in and around Mayenne, but also in the Vendée region with the same agent which we were to discover some hundred miles further south and if the books were to be believed altogether a warmer and sunnier clime! So we booked a short break, arranged with several estate agents to view properties either near Mayenne or in the Vendée, and booked hotels, the second of which we upgraded to a room with a view of the lake, as we were going to be there for our twenty fifth wedding anniversary. So, off we go crossing from Portsmouth on the evening sailing, and ending up having dinner that evening overlooking the Solent sitting outside a English pub, drinking English beer and eating fish and chips and having one of those “are we mad to be thinking about leaving all this behind” moments!! Well as it was a Brewer’s Fayre and the beer not up to much, I had a Guinness and Linda went Italian and had a lasagne!!
Now, if the scriptwriter had got it right, I would now say that on our silver wedding day we viewed the most amazing property, just as the sale of the house in York went through, made an acceptable offer and the dream started. But no, the first house we viewed had us questioning whether the web pages were in fact leading us a merry dance and simply full of fanciful “immoblier” (estate agent) speak! The first house was being sold by a rather officious and paper orientated lady, who worked from home in the middle of nowhere and had us signing al sorts of clauses to safeguard any potential sale. The house was quite pretty, but very small and a slightly oddly laid out and the attached gîte was more of a doll’s house in one of the house cupboards, with a ladder to reach upstairs. The house was in a small hamlet of mostly roofless derelict houses and one other inhabited house which also seemed to be nearly derelict, clustered around the end of a muddy track, and although the garden was a good size for our “good life” endeavours, there was a very large barn right in the middle, cutting out much of the view of the surrounding countryside, which was owned by a different member of the family (we were to discover that this is not uncommon in France and it has been know for different rooms within the same house to be owned by different family members!!) and not included now, and unlikely to be in the future, in the sale of the property. To make matters worse access to barn was over the drive of the house for sale, passing close to the back door and the garage which was striving to keep up (or maybe down!) with the other derelict houses beyond it.
As we drove away avoiding the thick farmyard slurry and water filled pot holes, we were despondent and both fearing a nasty case of “egg on our faces” on our return to England, having to tell all our friends it had all been a terrible and badly thought through mistake, and perhaps worse still having to face further years of meaningless and frustrating paperwork, the escape having resplendently failed!!
But fortunately the next day things looked up and we visited a very isolated but fantastic and very cheap beautifully converted farmhouse complete with a small but adequate gîte, which could be used as an extension to the house if needed, and a further gîte under development in the garden and a romantic ruin thrown in. The nearest neighbours lived quite close in an eight by six shed whilst doing up an old farm building at weekends. During the week they lived and worked in Paris and had a long term project to make the two storey corner of a building into a dream home!! But back to the house we were viewing, it was fantastic, renovated to a very high standard, but with bits still to do, I could quite easily have moved in then and there, and still pine for the bathroom, with an old fashioned hip bath in the middle of the room looking out through a large clear glass window over the surrounding fields, with only the odd herd of cows or farmer to view you wallowing in the bath. It ticked all my boxes, other than perhaps being rather too isolated, the nearest village some kilometres away. But, for Linda it didn’t have the same appeal, despite the immoblier having attended the same Teacher Training college as I did, and one of his School placements was at Linda’s school at a time when she was still a student there!! – too many different levels and subsequently numerous flights of stairs, clear glass in the bathroom window and a number of mind numbing low beams upstairs in the bedrooms, as well as being too isolated and we were beginning to realise, a little bit too far north to catch the better weather. But, it showed that the hunt was definitely back on and there was somewhere “a little bit of France with our name on it!!”
We then went south, on the day of our Silver Wedding, with heightened enthusiasm, although financially at this stage, this trip was only a fact finding mission. The lake view hotel room was pleasant enough, and the restaurant did a very enjoyable Vendéen set menu, but the plumbing and bathroom in general left rather a lot to be desired, we were told that the hotel was just about to undergo a major overhaul and new “salle de bain” were a top priority and we were only too happy to agree!! So, now in the Vendée, we had a couple of other properties lined up to view, but the first wasn’t until après midi, so we had a look around the area, new to us at this time and arriving at Mouilleron en Pareds, near to our rendezvous point with the immoblier, for the afternoon viewing, just as the local bar was putting out their “Menu of the Day” board, we saw this as a sign that we should get some lunch to keep us going for the afternoon. We climbed the attractive outside steps of this tiny town centre bar, ordered a couple of pressions (draught beers) and each choose the menu of the day. As we drunk our beers we conversed with the landlord, who had tired of live in the relatively nearby city of Nantes and just opened up this bar, with his partner doing the cooking. The meal was cheap, three courses and delicious, ending with what I still rate as the best crème brulée I have ever had!! What we had failed to notice was that the meal had vin complet, or wine included in the price, so after the beer and a quarter of a litre of vin rouge, we left the bar pleasantly full and somewhat under the influence!, so it was a mighty relief when we met the immoblier and she suggested that we jumped into her car (normally they like you to follow on the pretext of it being easier afterwards, but I think there is also a certain amount of perverse pleasure derived from watching you try and keep up as they negotiate the windy country roads, they know so well, at breakneck speed!!) and she took us to the viewing!
The house she took us to was rather pleasant with lots of potential, but I found myself worrying that Linda would fall in love with this house, when I had left a part of my heart at the house from the previous day, probably lying in a warm bath overlooking the peace and tranquillity of the fields and French countryside outside! Fortunately, she didn’t, although the facilities were very good, the lunchtime drinking catching up on me and necessitating a nip to the loo!, so we just had the last house to view fairly early the following morning, before having to “hot foot” it rapidly back to the ferry port, to ensure we didn’t miss the boat, as we had an unmissable fairy tale wedding, of one of my previous colleagues, to go to the following day. We once again rendezvoused with the immoblier, this time at their office, something of a rarity as with the growth in internet, many French immobliers seem to work from home, with no proper office and therefore arrange to rendezvous at some prominent locality, such as the church in the nearest village.
Arriving, at the house we were supposed to meet the vendor, in plenty of time to have a good look around, before having to rush off for the ferry. Fortunately as he had not arrived, there was a lot to see outside the house, a large four bedroomed farmhouse, standing in extensive grounds, with numerous outbuildings and fields including one barn that could easily have house two full sized tennis courts with room left over for the spectators! I should indicate at this point, it was initially our intention to “earn a living” after the move, and this property, or what we had seen of it up to then, as the owner still hadn’t arrived for the appointed rendezvous albeit over half an hour after the appointed time, and he had been told we were on a tight schedule! When he finally arrived, at the latest time we had given ourselves to get away some hour and a half late and totally unaware that the immoblier had been frantically trying to track him down, it transpired that in typical French fashion he had “gone fishing” and the time had just pasted him by, and he wasn’t in the least taken aback when we hastily shook hands to say hello, quite simply ran from room to room, shook hands to say goodbye and left, unable at that stage to say more until we got in the car and sped away both turning to each other at the same time and saying “That’s the one!” More sleepless nights followed as we thought about the house, its potential for a gîte, possibly chamber d’hôte (B & B), a small campsite, caravan storage and possibly more!, all without the wherewithal to actually buy it at that time!!
It did however mean that the next holiday required a further visit, and another viewing which we duly booked and for some weeks both still felt the same about the house, indeed with more time to look properly it had even more potential, so with the sale of the York house appearing to be imminent, we took the plunge and made a ridiculously low offer, knowing the house had been on the market for some time. Fortunately, with the benefit of hindsight the offer was turned down, as the offer was not accepted and the house in York wasn’t to sell for almost three more years so the money wouldn’t have been there anyway. Not such a gamble as although in France an offer once accepted and after a seven day cooling off period is legally binding and can incur a ten percent charge if the buyer drops out, failure to be able to secure the necessary money is just about the one exception to this rule. But again with hindsight, fate played its part and in the end it wasn’t to be and would have meant we had bought lots of potential, spent most of our expected money, although this ended up as less than expected the housing market being so flat, and needed to generate income to be able to live and do the required works. Quite simply we might have been in a chicken and egg situation of not being able to afford the work until we had generated some income from that part of the house and land that required the work!! We were sad, but really had a lucky escape and it was probably no bad thing that by the time we arrived in the Vendée to see that house had been sold. However, it took several months before we were able to drive past it and show some visitors what might have been.
Time then started to drag, we needed to make a decision about our future and uncertainties about finance made it difficult to give up our well paid jobs and set off into the unknown. The academic year ground slowly to an end, the frustrations and concerns I had about education in England didn’t lessen and Linda continued to feel the same about elements of her job, so rather like the people in Guillaume Apollinaire’s quote above, that summer we went to the edge, made the decision to jump and hoped when the time came we would fly, but it was mighty scary!!!
Therefore, it happened that I took trembling pen to paper, or in fact fingers to keyboard and to the school governors wrote:
Although I know that this letter is not going to come as any surprise, it is none the less somewhat difficult to write. It is with a great degree of sadness, tinged with excitement and trepidation; I would like to offer my resignation from the post of Headteacher at Moat Primary School, with effect from 31st December 2008. Leaving Moat School and the community of Matson is going to be a real wrench and I know that I am going to miss everyone an awful lot and will take with me a lot of great memories of a very busy 7 ½ years. Coming into what could have been a hornet’s nest of issues and resentment, I was able to “appoint” a truly fantastic, supportive and dedicated staff who really made my job, most of the time(!!), very easy. Then, there are the children, who I know that I will miss immensely, and although Moat has had its fair share of challenging children, the vast majority are children who are keen to learn and a credit to themselves, their families and the school. Even those who have caused a few extra grey hairs, usually have every reason to be angry and whereas some children are amazingly resilient to their lot, we are all different and we all deal with things in different ways. All children, whether they know it or not(!!), should be thankful to attend a school where they are so obviously nurtured and lovingly cared for by such a caring staff, a point that was not lost on the last two OFSTED Inspections, but I don’t intend to start talking dirty!! Suffice to say, as you all know, there are a number of serious concerns that I have about the way that education in this country is heading and, perhaps in the nick of time, a series of events have come together to allow me to pursue a life changing opportunity to become a “French peasant farmer,” and certainly won’t, as so many people have asked(!!), be retiring, at the very least I shall have to keep the kitchen garden growing, that’s if I want to eat!! I had hoped to be able to give a longer period of notice and apologise for this, but although the sale of the house in York remains unachieved, it seems only fair to put a stop to the uncertainty and make the big step, quite literally into the unknown, allowing you time to seek a replacement for me, a task that I wish you all the best with and one I will help with where appropriate. Please also be assured, that I still have lots to do in the months I have left at Moat and will continue to serve the school as best I can until my departure. I will look forward to hearing all the Moat and Matson news when, hopefully, you visit us to share a glass or two of French wine and eat our home produce whilst sitting in the Vendee sunshine!! And who knows the hair may not simply grow back but perhaps the grey hairs will fade and I’ll no longer look old enough for retirement and the few years younger than Jeni (Chair of Governors) that my birth certificate confirms!!! Love and the very best of wishes, |
The deed was done, at least it was as soon as my racing heart and trembling fingers managed to combine and find the send key on the computer keyboard. Life was about to change radically, so I had to pour myself a stiff drink – a French whisky seemed the obvious choice!!
The House!
Not wanting to tempt fate, this section wasn’t written until we well and truly had the keys in our hands and the house was ours! It’s now rather uncharacteristically early (balmy nights, all the excitement and some itchy bites having driven me out for a sunrise walk!) on the morning after the day before and we have already spent half a day in a new house; Linda stripping out some of the dangerous wiring and me removing some of the maison d’arrete (prison) like fencing around the courtyard and caging on the windows! The water has been reconnected although nearly thwarted by a 50 cents piece, not a bad debt owing to the water board, but used to seal off the supply when the house became empty. It took the water board man rather a long time to discover why turning the valve on didn’t have the desired effect, and only after he had jumped down into manhole in his rather unsuitable suede shoes and dislodged the offending coin pouring water over said shoes was the mystery solved. Fortunately, he was a jolly chap, took it all in good spirit and even sided with Linda when she asserted our parking rights with the neighbour who has admittedly had it her own way for many years, so was simply ensuring her rights. Hopefully this will be a misunderstanding and a little posturing and not be the start of a life time feud, which the French are somewhat known for!!
Since getting the date for the Act de Vente (completion) about a week ago things have been very hectic, not as though they weren’t beforehand!, but suddenly the reality that the sale was going through and was all but finished put a new dimension on things. Linda quickly and efficiently sorted out turning on the water, renewing the electricity meter, transferring the money to the Notaire prior to completion date and making an appointment to sort out house insurance, the latter two legal requirements in France before the house can become yours. Although it did transpire that the insurance requirement is only really necessary if you are taking out a mortgage, to protect the bank’s assets.
It’s now a couple of days on and we have spent some time at the house, it really is quite amazing how much rubbish can be generated for a completely empty house. It’s been a case of lots of tidying through removing the old electric wiring, stripping wallpaper with difficulty on some of the walls (after removing so many staples and drawing pins from the walls, it was a bit like being back at school moving into a new classroom where the previous incumbent had been good at the displays and nothing ever fell off even when a sudden gust of wind blew through the room, but hopeless at taking out the fixings afterwards!), taking out some dilapidated shelves and a cupboard, removing rubbish and a multitude of cable clips, stripping cladding of the old, somewhat worm ridden beams, visiting the tip, knocking out an old sink, cleaning the hearth – basically non-stop muck and activity.
But the sun has been shining, making even the darkness corner seem not too daunting, a new electricity meter is in, wired up to the existing dangerous wiring, so we are now leaving well alone until the electrician has been and made things safe, with the plumbing also booked, so by the next missive things may well have started to take shape and even some walls may have been painted. I did get creative for part of the day and started re-glaze the door into the cave, which once we get the glass tomorrow, will be one thing crossed off the construction list!! Priorities now are to cut a loft hole, so the electrician can put in the wiring and to spray all the woodwork with beetle spray!! After so long waiting, quite the little DIY couple!! Mind you I think it might not be a good idea to start counting the hours we will be putting it, it might simply serve to exhaust us even more, emotionally if not physically!!
The Garden!
It’s all but finished for now, save the bridge to get the caravan over into the garden and onto its gravel area. Sounds grand, but in reality it is just making a rather narrow garden entrance over a ditch, a little wider to make it a little easier to manoeuvre.
The last few weeks have seen the largely recycled fencing put up, a couple of flower borders dug over and edged with stones, the herb border prepared for planting, and some general tidying up of log piles and recycled fence posts etc. Then, over the last couple of days we have made some good progress at clearing out the barn attached to the house. Much of the wood stacked in there had rotted down into a rich compost – great for filling in the bank we cleared at the back of the garden, as well as providing some fire wood and a small pile of stones / rocks that will come in handy in the garden. But now, other than keeping the weeds in check, our gardening days are over for the time being, energy (what’s left of it after 250 hours gardening time!!) being transferred inside after tomorrow!
La Tour arrivée a la weekend!
There will have to be some time off for good behaviour this weekend, as La Tour de France kicks off, or I suppose that should be pedals off in the Vendée and the first stage from Île de Noirmoutier starting over a tidal causeway (let’s hope the organisers read the tide table correctly!) to Les Herbiers passes very close to La Loge and even closer to Le Boutet and our new house (The best and indeed only suggestion to date for a name is Maison Anglais, as that may well be what the locals unofficially call it, at least initially), followed the next day by a time trial at Les Essarts about 20 miles from here and then on day three leaves the Vendée coast and heads north into Brittany, with just 18 ½ stages and 3,145.5 kilometres to go approximately!!
It seems like a good excuse for a party, as it’s not every day that you get to see machines posing as human beings tearing down the nearby roads at breakneck speed with only a thin layer of lycra between some of their body and the tarmac! So we’re getting a trip up on day three, including one of Victoria’s friends from University to go and watch the spectacle, albeit briefly as the leading group rushes by, but more importantly to soak up the atmosphere and to be able to say in years to come “We were there!!” Perhaps, we should leave the car at home, pump up the bicycle tyres, don the lycra and ...... perhaps on second thoughts we’ll need the car for the coolbox and picnic hamper!!!
But, for the avid watchers amongst you, and I know there are some!, we’ll be somewhere on the first day between St Hermine and Mouilleron en Pareds waving two large St George’s Crosses (unfortunately I don’t have a Union Jack!!) on top of a large pole and a French drapeur tricolore for reasons of entente cordiale! Look out for us!!
“Ici devant nous!”
It’s very hot (nearly 11 o’clock and still 25˚) and noisy tonight! I just went outside in the gathering gloom and was nearly run over first by a large tractor and trailer coming down the avenue, lights blazing like something out of a sci-fi film. Then this was followed by a very noisy and extremely large combine harvester, barely leaving me room to duck behind the large oak tree next to our post box, as the giant cutter on the front came perilously close. It was lucky I didn’t take fright and run quickly indoors as coming closely behind this monster was a large quad bike, driven by Alain the local fauchage man, with the liquid refreshment in a large coolbox balanced on his knee. Shortly afterwards Alain returned, minus the refreshments, so it looks as though it might be noisy well into the night, and I need to make sure I’m not owl watching when they have finished, as I have a sneaky feeling that the coolbox didn’t contain orange juice!!
Let’s hope that the combine driver can still drive straight, as there was little room for error and that the noise, as well as the heat doesn’t stop us from sleeping. But a definite case of “Ici devant nous!”, but perhaps I should just move the car a bit further away from the road!! After all we need the car in the morning to go and sign for our new house, the excitement of that might also keep us awake tonight!!
My original “thought!”
OMG, this time tomorrow we will own two houses, a barn and a briar, live in another house and have a total of five gardens and a courtyard!! How mind boggling is that!!
Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love, Roger and Linda
And, next time? Colour charts, dust and bug spray, and hopefully not too many surprises, oh!
and Chapter 3 ~ Thank you Jamie, at the very least!
