The House Looks Lovely

Sunday 26th May

One of the things that always amazes me is that things remain the same even when you are not there.  Whether this comes from a longstanding suspicion I have harboured that everything is actually just occurring in my brain, you know, the whole Universe, people and events, just a symptom of my imagination, or whether it is just some exaggerated form of self-doubt I do not know.  I was pleasantly surprised therefore that everything was just as it was a month ago.  The house in France is perfect, well almost, because every time we go we small improvements to be made.  The only difference is that the flowers in the garden have grown and the roses are now in bloom.

The weather was cold, barely above 6% on the way down, and only briefly hitting 10% about six in the evening somewhere near Bordeaux.   Today (yesterday for you) it has slowly warmed up leaving us with some late evening sunshine, and it should be much warmer tomorrow.  It is exactly a year ago since we first met Paul and Lindsey, who we bought the house from, and signed the initial agreement at the Notaires office in Duras.  Even then we barely allowed ourselves to dream it might really be ours someday.  Now, I would be devastated if I woke up one morning and had a Bobby-in-the-shower moment and it had all been a dream.

Maybe that partly explains my sense of relief and almost disbelief that the house is still here each time; a feeling that somehow I don’t deserve it, that someone is going to come along and take it from me.  As a child I don’t think I was ever taught to expect much; the school of hard knocks (and I had a few too) where you knew your place and kept to it.  But also my mother was always telling me how worthless and indeed stupid I was that I never quite believed I deserved anything at all out of life.  Better that I suppose than those pampered kids who expect it all.

Anyway, suffice to say the house is still lovely, and even more so this evening with a clear blue sky and promise of more sun in the next few days.  Hope the weather is not too bad back in England; it is a bank holiday weekend so nothing would surprise me