I
n France. A week of house clearing. ‘Clearing’, whatever that is in French. My dictionary tells me it’s debarasse, but today I wanted to put an advert in the supermarket telling the French at large that there was a house clearance on. The word Clearance doesn’t seem to exist. That is I wanted to say maison debrarrassement, but ‘debarrassement’ wasn’t in my dictionary. And I’ve no internet so I couldn’t check. Debarrass also means ‘chuck out’ or ‘get rid of’, and I didn’t want people to think that I was getting rid of my French belongings. Although I suppose that is what I’m doing here.
Getting rid of France.
Adieu.
I suppose ‘adieu la France’ would have been quite an interesting thing to put on a card advert in the supermarket. I might have got a load of responses from the French equivalent of the Samaritans – don’t do it Richard – if you’re feeling that bad we’ll buy the stuff off you – hell we’ll organise a charity around you to stop you throwing yourself off the Beaulieu Bridge.
But instead I put ‘je debarasse ma Maison !” at the head of the advert. In retrospect I maybe shouldn’t have added the exclamation mark, but I couldn’t resist it! I am getting rid of my house! That’s what I think it translates as, although I was trying for something a little less tragic. I did go on to briefly list the stuff that is available, but I don’t hold out much hope for the advert. It’s competing with professional French adverts in an obscure part of Intermarche, but it will be interesting to see how French underground marketing works. Hopefully someone will think ‘ mmmm, a badly worded postcard in a supermarket – I bet he has really good furniture for sale’.
It’s Friday night and I’m sitting in my home. I’ve got the heating on (it works), I’ve got a good fire going (I can cut wood), I’ve just eaten (combination of French frozen food and legumes anglaise), I’ve had something to drink, and I’ve got the fantastically pop French radio on RFM – La Meilleur de la Music.
It’s been a full day. And I thought I was going to take it easy. But I suppose I took it full-on in an easy sort of way. Which is how every day should be filled.
I had a good 10 hours sleep to make up for the 5 hours I had in two stages yesterday. But I was up & breakfasted by 9.30am so I could take some time to plan the day and then go with the plan. I went to the supermarket to buy food that would last the next 4 days. Crap food – quick food, snacks, booze, and a couple of real things that meant that I could avoid the supermarket for the rest of the week. I put my for sale card on the board while no one was watching, then went to the estate agent to see if things were still going smoothly with the sale.
You see, days when things go smoothly are fine indeed, and I find myself at the end of one and so things are fine indeed. I spoke to the ever-mumbly Jamie, who continues to disappoint in the area of customer satisfaction, despite my efforts. Sorry Jamie, I can’t understand you and you have no charm – no wonder the French estate agentry is struggling at the moment. He is the only estate agent I have met where you have to make all the conversation. Anyway he was good enough to mumble that everything was going fine with the sale and mmmm vvvvvv thhhhhh rrr. But he did organise me a meeting with the Notaire to give them power of attorney. And said that he might know someone who’d be interested in my furniture – a Monsiuer Mmvvthrr I think.
I started packing things that weren’t lying around. Things in drawers and cupboards that I thought I’d never need. I’ll never need them, but I put them in boxes unmarked in categories like ‘take this’ and ‘ throw this’ and ‘maybe take this’ and perhaps thro this’. Maybe I’ll take them all, but I doubt it. Things don’t seem so important when you don’t need them. But I might need them in the future and therefore they might become important.
How am I going to get my 3 metre totem pole rescued from the Dordogne in the van? I’ve got one small vansworth of house to take away with me and something’s got to give. An artefact, a furniture, an electrical item? Probably most of it. And all of it holds a memory. Perhaps that’s what I’m concerned about. That I’m going to throw away the wrong memories, and take a van load of horrors back with me to England.
I’m here alone this week, but I’m in the house, and it’s the house that I’ve looked after for the past seven years or so. It hasn’t been a home – ‘cept once for a 3 months period – but it’s been a refuge for me. A place to come to refuge all that is elsewhere. Je suis bien refugée ici. I hope I understand this when I read it back because I like that the house has enabled me to feel that.
Even in the middle of winter, now when the trees are bare and the land is brown and grey and colourless. The stillness and tranquillity shines through the fog and drizzle, and I remember the summers. Always over the rainbow. Very often hot and sunny and full of friends and fun and frolics and other f words, and peace and picnics and other p words, and swimming and sunbathing and singing and other s words, and music, and meditation, and other m words, and boules and waterfalls and castles, and wine, and sun, and thunderstorms, and cheese and views, and tranquillity and other letters of the alphabet known or unknown.
Of course I haven’t had any bad times here. Even with the badder times in England such that they were don’t really compare. Perhaps the mildly difficult compared to the happy. The only mildly difficult here has been the rats really. And they kept themselves to themselves and weren’t to know that I didn’t like them here and so I had to trick them that the nice corn was heavily poisoned and would kill them in a frenzy of orgiastic pain until the inevitable death of the colony ensued. That was mildly difficult keeping it from the guests.
I went to the Notaire at 1530, which is how they like to do their times out here. The Notaire was in an unfamiliar ville but I found it from the memory of the map Jamie had gvn me and the X that marked the spot at the end of a cul-de-sac. It was classic sting operation. In amongst bungalows the nice lady met me to allow me to sign over my legal rights to her for the purposes of the house sale. Now I understand how it works. The estate agent pretends to make a sale to someone so that a friend can pretend to be a notaire and is encouraged to be a power of attorney so that she can sign something much more significant and everyone in the scheme becomes richer beyond their wildest dreams.
It was an efficient operation. I liked her. She couldn’t speak any English but she had impeccable dress and an enchanting perfume. I signed everything she asked of me. It meant I wouldn’t have to come over again to sign anything for myself – her hand had become mine for the purposes of this transaction. I was entrusting my life to her in this aspect.
I’m sure her unremarkable house in amongst the bungalows weren’t there last year. It just seemed to be her home. Oh well, I need to debarrasse my house this week so I suppose I shouldn’t fret. I looked her in the eye and I think she’s human. The Notaire is one of me!
I parked the van in the town square because there was a rumour of free WiFi being leaked from one of the hotels. Such a rewarding moment when you find it. It meant I could use my phone to send and receive email and do Internetty-type things. I’ve clearly not been in France long enough yet to appreciate that I don’t need my daily dose of MobileWebChatTweetPornPopupTubebay, but at the moment it’s the only link to outside world I’ve got and so it’s a comfort of sorts. But there was nothing of significance in that Web World of Wonder, and I realise it’s not an essential thing to me or the Earth as a whole. Here, I feel beyond all that. I just want to chat to my wife on occasions.
So I got back home and Jamie had rung to say that some ppl were interestd in my frntre. They were due round NOW, so I didn’t have time to do anything except pour myself a beer and stare out the window. I did both in equal measure.
Except when the beer became three. Only then did they turn up. In two huge cars, like Apprentice contestants but without the film crews, fortunately.
I gave them a quick tour of the furniture delights that could become features in their own home if only they looked beyond the Mexicanish naffness that was nevertheless perfectly respectable solid pine furniture.
I gave them my number. They will call me.
Now I sit in the squalid comfortableness that is the large yellow sofa that Jenny and I bought in a furniture shop in Hove. It’s done quite a journey this sofa, but not more than Jenny’s done I suppose. The sofa hasn’t had to venture into the metaphysical like Jenny has, but they both at one time had to endure the A20 on their way down to Sioniac.
So I shed a tear tonight. I know now that this week will be the last time I see the house, the neighbours, the town, the region . . .etc. And beyond all the sofarial thoughts of Jenny I contemplate all that could have been and all those possibilities that could have existed were the dials set a little bit differently. Because we bought the house together as a together decision that was possibly more mine than both because she was just happy that I was just happy and it didn’t really matter if she was just tagging along because all was just a wave of happiness … .. ..etc
Well you know the sort of thing,
So the house has been very adaptable to everything I threw at it. Holidays, renovation, partying, festivals, summers, winters, and other seasons. A lot of different people types have passed by this way and I don’t know anyone that complained.
Tonight I listen to the radio. It’s too obtrusive, but I have it on because I have no other access to the outside world. Perhaps there’s been a revolution somewhere and the world is healing, They would announce it in French and I would think they were advertising toothpaste or tampons, and I wouldn’t know whether to rejoice or to duck. But I figure that all the time they play the FunkyTown and BoogieWonderland and stuff like that I’m safe. Somewhere my wife is safe in Germanland, and I’m happy and she’s happy and we know we’re together really even though we can do everything except touch and smell. Oh and taste, if we’re to allow all the senses. Let’s not.
