Who’s Who in our little patch!!

I guess this is the only way I’m ever going to get into Who’s Who, however I’m jumping the gun a little, because really this isn’t about us but those close to us, physically rather than emotionally!!  We now know most of the people by name but these have been omitted for reasons of privacy!

Our petite tranquil hammeau consists of nine houses, and innumerable plots of land which I shall make no attempt to unravel as French inheritance law divides land up in strange ways which is why we have a plot of 1000m² about a kilometre from our house!  Back in the hamlet, at the moment two of the houses are windowless, although they do have roofs and electricity.  The first shell is the first house at the top of the road, and has just been put up for auction as part of a liquidation sale; a small house (three rooms downstairs and potentially two upstairs, but with a staircase that goes nowhere as there is no upstairs floor) on a small plot which might just be ripe for development.  Certainly the guide price is so low it could leave a potential buyer with a lot of surplus cash for the renovations!   

The second, next down the road, is owned by a couple who live in another small hamlet just down the road.  He is English (but has lived in France for much of the time since 1984 and full time for the last ten years or so) and she French. They got married last year, and their house “in our patch” they are going to do up as a long-term rental, but due to problems with the purchase – basically the first time they bought it the seller didn’t own it (due it would appear to bankruptcy) so they had to buy it again with the renovation money, so it’s a bit on hold at the moment!!  Then attached to this is a pleasantly renovated house, which might have been two initially, owned now by a single lady, formerly married to a helicopter pilot, an actress who has lived there for nine years.  

Behind these three houses is a second row of three houses, both rows may in the past have been cottages tied to the farm at the bottom of the road.  The first from the top in the second row is empty and up for sale, but recently (18 months or so) lived in. It is very small (one up, one down and a bathroom in need of updating!) and built in such a way as it occupies one corner of the next house. The next house is lived in by a friendly French couple, who have lived there for about eighteen months, he an internet estate agent seemingly semi-retired and her a retired nursing auxiliary, the house is fairly small but rambling, with various out-buildings and alterations making it rather like la maison du lapin, or a rabbit warren!  The main living room / kitchen / diner is jammed with heavy ethnic furniture and interesting knick-knacks collected by the owners on various travels.  They have a camper van and have just returned from an extended visit to Morocco.  Previously this house was owned by an English couple who had lived here for something like sixteen years, it appears quite simply and primitively, there having been no heating upstairs and just a log burner downstairs and an earth floor in part of the downstairs.  But with advancing years, worries about health and a growing number of grandchildren, they decided to sell up and move back to the UK.

The house next to this one was owned by  the brother of the Englishman next door and used as a holiday cottage, but he sold it (last year) when his brother and sister in law returned to England, to a young Welsh family (Mum, Dad and seven year old daughter).  The parents of this man own a house the other side of Fontenay le Comte and a number of gîtes and spend their time between Le Vendée and North Wales.  The new owner’s father is busy renovating the house, whilst also getting his gîtes ready for the season, and it will be used as a holiday cottage for the family and possibly a holiday let.

Then there’s us, the house in the middle on the traffic island as it were – roads on three sides and commune owned land and a footpath on the other.  Not really a fair description as one of the roads is a little used parking area – for us, the Welsh family’s holiday cottage and the actress, another road down the side of the house is the road into the hamlet with minimal traffic and in many ways a dead end, and the one along the front peters out into a little used farm track a little way (30 metres) along which is our garden!

In front of us are the final two houses, one a very pretty and beautifully kept gîte, with Gîte de France rating, although seemingly only really used in the high season and holiday times like Easter, as well as by occasional walkers who pass close by on one of the many branches of the Santiago de Compostela pilgrim route.  You can follow from here to Santiago in northern Spain or “backwards” to Brittany.  This gîte is an old water mill with some of the original features evident and built on the edge of what previously had been the mill pond dam, now drained with just the river running through the field which is at the bottom of our garden.

And, almost finally, the “big” house, which although tall, obviously the main house and quite imposing is actually not very big.  It is lived in by a delightful old French couple, who also own the gîte and have made us very welcome, instigating a series of apero’s (early evening get togethers), the first at their house to welcome us to the hamlet, which is how we have started to glean so much information about our neighbours!   They also own much of the surrounding land and a large number of outbuildings, some more attractive than others!  They also, despite we think being in their 70’s, although we were originally told 80’s, work very hard at keeping everything as it should be, including tidying up after the fauchage man (village handyman) when he has tidied up!!  When we moved in they were very welcoming, but were quick to tell us certain things about what needed doing to our house!!  But it was simply their chance to have their say, about things we knew needed doing and by and large have been done or are in the pipeline.  We have worked very hard in the nine months or so since we moved in and before that in the garden and they appear to be suitably impressed, (but less so with our command of French!) although now much of the work is completed we will not be working so hard!!  That’s when our new hidden courtyard will come into its own as “le petit pause” as madam calls our tea breaks can become “grand” without her seeing and passing some comment!!!   

But, that’s not really quite it, as I said above “almost finally,” as relatively close, up the road and to the right is a large farmhouse and associated buildings, lived in and worked by one of six of the previous farmer’s children.  The farmer also drives the school bus during term time and is married to an accountant and they have, we think, three children – a boy late teenage /early twenties, an older teenage girl and a boy of about 10 or 11, seem all to belong!  Then, just around the corner, the retired farmer and his wife live in a spectacular, architect designed house overlooking an enormous flooded stone quarry which we think they own and is now no longer used for stone but for irrigation water, much (we are told) to the annoyance of the local water company, as they undercut their price!!  This couple are extremely friendly (when we first met him he lent us a handheld translator to help us with our French!) and invited us in for a drink on Easter Sunday when all 23 of their family were visiting, some of the younger ones were pleased to use their England and although the retired farmer speaks some Dutch and German, he maintains that English is too hard to learn!  To which I tell him that’s my problem with French!  However, the first time I saw him in his green boiler suit he looked like something out of the Walton’s, and limping in such a fashion that he rather drags a foot, so as to make me joke that he looked like a mad axeman – on the second occasion he was carrying a large curved sickle, which rather added to the effect!!!  He also seems to be fairly accident prone, and although retired won’t stop wielding sickles, strimmers, chainsaws and the like, and is often bandaged up or sporting various cuts and bruises often on his head and hands.  So now if we walk by and he’s in charge of a dangerous implement, we try not to draw attention to ourselves, not fearing for ourselves but worried he might wave to us with disastrous consequences!!

So that’s a little who’s who of those within spitting distance of our new abode, the only others being a large house that the owners use very infrequently at weekends and holidays which is next to a long low ex-mill building that has been converted into an amazing holiday cottage, sold just before we moved by Parisian owners, who seemed to have integrated better than most Parisians.  Generally, the Parisian’s are the butt of many a French joke, in much the same way as the English are prone to talk about the Irish, the only difference being the French mean it and usually accompany the “joke” with a angry spit.  It’s supposedly so bad that Parisians would, when car registration numbers identified the area the owner came from, register their cars in the area of their holiday home to avoid being run off the road!!   The new owners are also apparently Parisian, so we’ll have to wait and see.  Then, about a three minute walk past these houses, there’s a somewhat untidy farm which is actually in the next commune, the river being the boundary, and the owners of this we know nothing about.  But, just past this and back over the river so back in our commune is one final “nearby” house, owned by good English friends, previously Lancastrians, although I suppose still Lancastrians through and through – you just have to hear them talk!!  That’s fine by me but the wrong side of the Pennines for Linda!!!  But it certainly leads to some good banter and as they are rugby fans, but as far as I’m concerned the wrong “code” that adds to the repartee!! 

And, as they say “That’s All Folks!!” or should that be “That’s All of the Folks!!” – well at least for the time being as a new house has just been granted planning permission and been marked out ready for the diggers!  It’s situated just above the two rows of houses and along a bit, a reasonable size for a family, so some young blood may be on the way!!