It's cosy here in our big double bed in the roof space bedroom, especially when you can hear the raindrops hitting the transparent roof of the spacious terrace just through that back door over there. At least we hope that's where the raindrop noises are coming from as no skylight or similar is visible from under the continental doona. It’s still pre-dawn, and very dark. Never mind, we should get a bit of daylight by 0630am, in an hour or so (daylight savings invoked, here, at 47 degrees north of the equator).
Mary and I crashed into our bed yesterday several hours before sunset. We were starting to recognize the first signs of incoherence in each other, and besides, we could hardly keep our eyes open. That long haul from eastern Australia to France doesn’t get any easier. And the 300km high speed drive down the Autoroute de Soleil, in driving rain, to a place we'd never been before added to the drain on our brains. Now we've had an enormous, delicious, dream-filled sleep and maybe I’ll go down the stairs soon and make us both a cup of coffee.
Ah, those stairs! In strong contrast to the rest of the structure of our rented semi-detached, the stairs are obviously modern, possibly made by Ikea and possibly assembled by Melanie, our resourceful, charming and youthful landlady, from a flatpack (assembly instructions on her iPhone). The stairs rise steeply from the lower floor to our upper floor bedroom, and seemingly descend twice as steeply in the opposite direction. They creak, or maybe it’s our joints, as we ascend and descend with great care holding on to the single ancient steel banister bolted to the stone wall shared with Melanie’s place.
The stairs.
There’s no way this house would have a twin anywhere. Its thick stone outer walls stood here long before the French Revolution, and windows and doors were created or filled in as successive owners saw the need and found the money. Melanie’s home, which shares a wall with ours, is doubtless similar on the inside, as are the numerous other homes in Flavigny sur Ozeraine. While our temporary home has no twin, it obviously has numerous siblings and they all stand around, stony-faced, side by side or staring at each other along the narrow winding streets.
The houses, nearby. Our front door is open and it’s accessed by the stairs on the left.
That’s our bedroom window at the top centre.
While our bedroom is upstairs, it opens at the back of the house onto a terrace which is at ground level, giving us a small garden, with views across a jumble of the fronts and backs of some siblings plus the stand-out church spire, 100m away as WiFi travels, but 200 metres or so on foot. So the lower floor of the house is at ground level at the front while the upper floor is at ground level at the back. Astute readers will gather that we’re on sloping ground, which is why the village is here, but that’s another story.
View from the terrace toward the church.
Where our bedroom is, on the upper floor, is easily identified as roof space because its ceiling is far from horizontal; so far from horizontal that I’ve already bumped my head on it three times and I’m no basketball player. Mostly clinging to the inside of the roof, the ceiling ascends rapidly the further it gets from the front and back of the house and it also showcases the roof’s eroded oak beams which run parallel with the street and are embedded in the ceiling plaster. These are the sorts of timber features you’d hide if they were in a modern house, in fear that prospective buyers would otherwise shy away. Here, they’re proud of them, and rightly so, just as an old person is proud of obvious longevity, even though it is a little battered.
Downstairs, where I've just made two coffees and done battle with the stairs in the process, has no rear door, as you’d guess if you’re keeping track. Where the rear door in a “normal” house would be there’s a modern, seemingly brand new, bathroom. The rear wall of the bathroom, being underground, doubtless conceals the remains of previous human activity on the village site. Who knows, even JC, here in BC (52, to be precise) to defeat the Gauls nearby, may have left reminders of his presence. If you’re keeping up you’ve probably anticipated, correctly as it turns out, that the bathroom has no windows.
Our main room, the first encountered upon entering from the single formal entrance facing the street, having given up some space to the Ikea stairs, is mainly devoted to cooking and eating activities. If you’re hoping that the cooking equipment is as ancient as the walls, be prepared to be disappointed. The open fire has long gone, thanks to Melanie. Fire is now delivered by cables which can occasionally be spotted in places where they can’t reasonably be hidden within the stones of the walls. Tidy it’s not, but making compromises across centuries seldom is, so there.
Here in the kitchen are many electrical devices, but two caught my attention and piqued my interest. Both of these devices carry the Ikea brand and blend perfectly into the kitchen cabinets and benches which carry the same brand and the unmistakeable signs of user assembly characteristic of that Swedish manufacturer. Is it possible that refrigerators and dishwashers come in flatpacks these days in the modern Europe? And, like other Ikea products, are they constructed by the owners themselves inside their homes using a single, simple tool?
The Ikea kitchen. Ikea fridge at left; Ikea dishwasher at right. Breadsticks, French wine, tomatoes, all genuine and likely consumed by the time you read this.
Oh and the windows all have wooden curtains, which are hinged horizontally and fold out to cover the glass when privacy is needed or outdoor light isn’t. A better idea than the more common outdoor shutters, perhaps, which are much more difficult to close and open.
So far, so good.
Kev
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