Must have been quite drunk and tired last night because I enjoyed a long sleep that woke me up at 9.30, with a little gentle tap on the head. Well a heavyweight hose on the head to be truthful, which I like to strive towards when at all possible.
By the time I’d read a bit and showered and dressed, I heard footsteps up the driveway and an entourage of Tronches were coming to see me. Or whatever a collective of Tronche’s are called – a whole Tree of Tronches perhaps. The word had got around that I had things to sell.
I greeted each one in turn – the daughter, the daughter-in-law, the son, the mother and the father. Each one of them asked the same questions ‘Are you selling everything?’.
Yes everything.
‘What, everything in the house?’
‘Yes everything in the house and the barn’
‘what about the table & chairs?’
‘Yes absolutely the table and chairs. Everything is being sold if possible’
‘What about the fridge and cooker?’
‘For sale, as is everything. Everything is being sold’
It went on like this for a while until they must have started to believe me and then began asking me the price of things. Bugger! I hadn’t really thought of that. I had expected people to make an offer, and overlooked the fact that they might need some starting guidance.
The daughter-in-law who lives at the top of the hill wanted the mattress. I don’t know how much a mattress is in france. I bought them cheap six years ago – I think they were about 150 euros each. ‘I’ll swap it for a nice bottle of wine’ I said.
‘Don’t be silly’, she said, although I didn’t understand the words.
‘Okay then, I’ll take 25 euros.’
‘Well it’s a fine mattress’, she replied and I thought there was going to be a fine haggle on. ‘in good condition and just right for my husband who’s suffering from sciatica and needs a good mattress like this to help him recuperate’.
The husband came limping in and shrugged his shoulders and started bemoaning the fate of the sciatica sufferer, of which I shrugged back to show sciatic sympathy and endear him to me so that I could strengthen my haggling position. He lay down on the mattress and rolled around a bit showing impressive signs of pain. ‘C’est bon’ he said.
‘I’ll give you 50 euros’ she said. Okay, fine, perfect I said, wondering how I managed the most successful haggle of my life. And it was an instant hangover cure.
The transaction done, they set off on their way and I got onto the tasks of the day which were to put everything in boxes. I’ve got loads of boxes, it’s terrific. I bought a lot of boxes with me, and there are many boxes in the house – every time I open another cupboard a few boxes fall out. Hard plastic, cardboard, big, small, foldable, flexible – I’m in box heaven. Which is just as well because I’m in a junk hell so the Yin is certainly giving the Yang a run for its money.
So all the junk has got to find its way to the right box. Well not all the junk of course because I’m sorting through it and being rigorous in my selection criteria. Which stays, which is thrown, which is to be packed to take, and a not sure yet pile. Some things are easy to decide on – damaged baking trays and cases of pencils and out of date drugs. Other things I’ve had to struggle to come to terms with the fact that they won’t be joining me in the next life. I was going through the cutlery to decide which I’d take with me, taking some time about it until I realised that it was pointless. None of it is particular exciting or good quality and I’ve got more than enough cutlery in England and Germany already. So it was all put into an old metal washing-up bowl (not a box!) to take to the recycling.
Things got a little easier once I’d realised the futility of keeping everything. I want to leave here with a vanfull of the things most dear to me, like the little stuffed elephant toy that made it over here safely all those years ago and has been quite happy sitting in the drawer of the dressing mirror ever since. Maybe I’ll put it in the maybe pile for a while until I come to my senses – or until I see how full a vanfull is. Most of the stuff fitted nicely into a box of destiny. All the drawers are now empty and the dust inside them is probably wondering what a big new world it is in there.
I went to sort through my tools left in the old van. But first I took the number plates off for identification purposes. I thought the van would look better left here as an old French van, so I screwed on a French plate that I found in the barn. 748 EW 19. I thought better of moving the steering and pedals across to the left, despite the discrepancy in the licensing identity, but the van looked French enough to be left abandoned and unloved in a field in france to rust away beneath the walnut tree.
For absolutely no discernable reason that I can fathom now or could at the time, I then spray painted the front hubcap silver.
The tools were easy to decide on, because all tools are useful tools. They just needed a bit of sorting before they could be packed efficiently into wooden boxes. The longer job was going through the millions of nails and screws and washers and brackets and rawlplugs and hooks and drills and assorted plastic shapes and bicycle repair stuff and knobs and knockers. And try to put them in order. Put them in order means separating the grande melange into their respective groups, but they are such an integrated society that any attempt at forcing a system of Apartheid on them proved futile. So I threw out all the rusty nails from the rusty tins and threw out the other rusty things that defied description and probably have had a use in their time. No, that can’t be right. Old tins of rusty things have always been old tins of rusty things, that’s what they were when they came into existence and that’s what they were last year and this year and will be next year and for ever. They’ve never had a use in their time other than to be opened when you are looking for a decent thing of the right shape and right size without a kink in it, then shut again when you realise it was just an old tin full of rusty nails.
So old tins of other bits n bobs were also emptied and are to be thrown. The tins were kept of course. One mustn’t lose one’s tins in life. I shall find new bits and bobs to put in them.
Madame Tronche came by again with the old man to measure the cooker because she saw an opportunity to replace her old one that was faulty. Unfortunately it was a few centimetres to wide – dommage all round – but it gave us all a chance to play another round of ‘What! You’re selling everything? Yes everything’.
I took the mattress up to sciatica man, but it was the woman wearing the trousers and doing the lugging and talking and questioning. We got through quite a few topics just carrying the mattress in from the van, and by the time they’d discussed which was the right way round for a mattress on Boteng Day (some French pagan festival) I was telling her my life story. I must admit to being ignorant of the fact there is a right SEASON to turn one’s mattress, but there it was plain as day on the label, l’hiver. The other side is l’ete she explained as he nodded in agreement while stroking the back of his leg (not an easy thing to do I would think). Apparently it’s got different padding characteristics for winter and summer settings (the mattress not the leg …although?). No wonder she paid me 50 euros. If I had known the mattress could do tricks then I would have demanded that she paid me double and send it to circus school. Or a Swiss furnishing school ha ha.
I thought to leave them as quickly as the situation warranted. But not being familiar with the situation this wasn’t intuitive, so I imagined 8 minutes was about enough.
Back at the house I could get back to work on going through the paints and cans and tins of sticky, squeegee, noxious, greasy, pasty stuff. Another easy decision. I kept everything that was still squidgy if it was meant to be squidgy, still sticky if it was meant to be sticky etc etc, until I was left with a collection of not very much. The rest is to be dumped. Hooray this is easy. So liberating to get rid of that which you’ve never used, or have bought too much of. Too much wood stain. Too much putty. Too much sealant. Too much paint. Why do we need this stuff in our lives? How much putty does a man putt in a lifetime? Only so many windows of the right type of casement at the right time.
Anyway, having rationalised my DIY hoard considerably, I now feel confident that I can get the remainder in the van for the journey home.
Sebastian came round with mother and stepson. He didn’t know the rules to “everything?” but he soon latched on. He might be interested in the sofabed and the table and chairs but he’s got to run it by Christel first. I think he was also impressed by my keen pricing. I can’t remember the keen price I settled on at random but I hope he can should Christel be d’accord with the promise of new tat. Perhaps he’ll learn from his mother and haggle me up to a better price.
Into the evening and it’s the usual rush to get to the phone box to chat to my wife (she’s lovely), then back to light the fire, and cook, and make sure the chickens are safe – oh no not that bit, that’s for the neigbours. I made an impressive fire, bolstered as it was with half a bag of coal. How the coal got here I don’t know but I found 6 bags of it, so I’m determined to use it up before I go. It works very well with a hint of wood to start it off and is still going now at 11.30 having been lit at 8.
Which reminds me. I need to get to bed. Better fill my hot water bottle.
