19. The Work Starts

At this point the diary entries that I wrote during the autumn of 2007 came to a grinding halt. I now have to resort to memory to cover the 18 month period down here from December 2007 to September 2009.

As you might imagine, the pace of events became a lot more hectic as the date for the completion of the house purchase approached.

One subject that rapidly took centre stage was the finance. I’d had an endowment policy with the Prudential – a solidly Scottish company (or so I thought) – and the plan was to surrender it to part finance the house purchase. I quickly discovered (to my horror) that the ‘Pru’ used a call centre that, handily for us (!), was based in the Indian sub-continent.. aagghh! At this point, I started to feel more than slightly vulnerable as we had no communications in the gîte, apart from a ‘pay as you go’ mobile phone..Otherwise, we had to walk up to the telephone kiosk in the village and for email, all we had were the facilities of an internet café in Bayonne 10kms away - during normal shop opening hours. So - not handy.

The subject of house finance rapidly turned into my worst nightmare when I requested the Pru in the sub-continent to transfer our funds to an account we’d opened with an offshore savings bank in the Isle of Man (IOM). This they did but, crucially, they neglected to annotate the transfer with the details of our IOM account with the result that the IOM bank sat on it for a while before returning the money to India – an action which caused me many sleepless nights.

Bizarrely, they then left a message on my mobile to say that as they had no details of the target account they’d returned the funds to India - so they clearly knew whose funds they were. Why oh why didn't they call me before bouncing the funds back to India...? All of this was calculated to have me tearing my hair out.. I would lie awake at night in the wee small hours, literally going hot and cold, totally consumed by the fact that neither the IOM nor the Pru in India could tell me exactly where our much-needed house funds (aka our life savings!) were in the international electronic soup that lay between them.. and all the while this was going on, the non-negotiable house completion date was fast approaching and the pound/euro rate was accelerating downhill into unknown territory with all the speed of a grand piano pushed down a lift shaft!

Now imagine, if you can, calling the IOM or India on a “pay as you go” mobile and being held in a queueing system waiting to locate someone responsible at either end who could do something about the foul-up.. We did manage to track down the funds in the end and have then safely re-directed to the IOM but it took some time before my stress levels returned to normal.

Between the initial signing of the Compromis de Vente and the Acte de Vente (completion) being signed 3 months later, Ye Olde half timbered Pound Sterling started to nose-dive in value against the euro and we just managed to convert our house fund into euros at a reasonable rate before transferring it all across to our euro-account in France. With only days to run, our bank in St Jean de Luz then had to prepare a certified banker's cheque for the full amount for us to present to the Notaire on completion day. It really was a close-run thing and so it was just before Christmas 2007 that we convened at the Notaire’s office to go through the paperwork line by line before finally, miracle of miracles, the Notaire handed us a large jangling bunch of keys..

Afterwards, we drove down to St Jean de Luz to celebrate the house purchase with lunch and a well-deserved glass of champagne overlooking the bay. We’d done it! P-h-e-w...

Time for a break with a spot of slide guitar.. and some stunning scenery from the now-legendary Route 66:

We’d already made contact with Peio, our friendly Basque kitchen fitter and he’d put together an excellent plan for our kitchen as well as putting us in touch with other local Basque ‘artisans’ to tackle jobs like the walls, painting, plastering, tiling, plumbing and the electrics. His Basque Mafia (as I called them) contacts extended over the border into the Spanish Basque country from where he had a Spanish Basque mate who would cut, supply and fit the green granite worktops for the kitchen at an extremely competitive price.

Within a day of completing the purchase, we had the house full of Basque artisans all working as I’ve never seen tradesmen work before. Bear in mind that this was the week before Christmas, it was pitch dark at both ends of the working day and, in line with standard French practice, all the light fittings had been removed by the previous occupier (bare wires sticking out of the walls) and the fabric of the house was stone cold. My first priority was to rig up some emergency lighting so that we could see what we were doing.

Meanwhile, Bayonne was quietly girding its loins ready for Christmas. We had Christmas in the gîte and despite it being not that comfortable, the sight of a large jangling bunch of keys kept our spirits up..

In the meantime, our team set to with a vengeance. Basque was the lingua franca and they only spoke French when Madame or I spoke to them. The painter (in his late 60s) was a real find.. he’d turn up at 7.30am, drop his tools off, switch the electric radiators on and then he’d nip up the avenue to the café on the corner for a quick caffeine fix before returning to start work at 7.45.. He would then work straight through until 5pm without stopping. He took Christmas Day off but at 7.45am sharp on Boxing Day (26th Dec) he was back at work. (Imagine this in the UK!) I’d often ask him if he would like a coffee or a hot chocolate but he’d always decline the offer. I went round the house removing all the numerous picture hooks, mirrors and wall fittings while he stripped the blessed pink wallpaper off. Most of the ceilings had quite extensive cracking of the plaster. He just got his head down and started in the living/dining room and appeared totally unfazed by the magnitude of the task before him – filling in cracks and fissures in the walls, and then sanding them smooth before tackling the cracks in the next ceiling.

Meanwhile, the tiler-cum-plasterer (another Basque in his late 60s) was revealing himself to be another master craftsman.. He started work in the out-dated kitchen by ripping out all the old appliances, units and sinks and then he attacked wall tiling with what looked and sounded like a road mender’s pneumatic drill. The kitchen soon resembled a Beirut film set as the floor filled up with chunks of plaster, brickwork and the air was thick with dust. The pristine design for our new kitchen that Peio had created for us on his PC screen seemed a million miles away. The tiler/plasterer started peeling back the paper on the ceiling as it needed re-papering. However, it soon appeared that the paper was actually holding the ceiling up and so he recommended that he put a false ceiling in. After we’d okayed it, the next morning when we visited he’d singlehandedly put up the supporting framework for the false ceiling and he was already busy attaching the plaster board.

Meanwhile the painter was working like a dervish and had made a beautiful job of repairing the cracks in the living room ceiling.

When the electrician appeared, it turned out that he was Madame D’s son from the gîte! It’s a small world in the Pays Basque. Soon he’d channelled the walls for the additional wall lighting and extra power outlets that we wanted.

The kitchen fitter had brought all the kitchen components in from the garage and had started assembling everything. The painter had finished the kitchen and had repaired the cracks in the bathroom ceiling, the landing ceiling and the hall ceiling. He’d also put the undercoat on in the bathroom and was now filling in the thousand and one little holes and cracks in the hall, stairs and landing. What a worker - he was unstoppable.. He’d arrive at 7.30am in time for a quick coffee and then off he'd go to work..

As I write, it’s just going dark (it’s 5.50pm) and the wind is getting up – every now and again you hear a bang as a gust of wind rattles the shutters. It’s been very blowy all day – the weather forecast yesterday was for 70mph onshore winds. I’d’ve liked to have gone down to the sea front at Biarritz to see the big rollers coming in but that will have to keep for another day.

Soon, many walls had been replastered, floor tiles had been laid, new ceilings fitted and skimmed with plaster, light fittings installed, kitchen units built and gradually it became clear that there was more work behind us than in front of us.

This was the first time we’d been involved in a total refurbishment of a house from top to bottom and it was very rewarding to watch it all gradually coming together exactly as we’d imagined it.

The bathroom was the last room to be attacked and it was blitzed! The noises coming from upstairs were indescribable as our tame tiler set to with a vengeance and his trusty four foot long pneumatic drill. Soon he’d chiselled off all the wall tiles and removed the bath, the wash hand basin, the toilet and the bidet.. After removing all the rubble he re-plastered the walls..

I was continually amazed at the pace of their progress when compared to British workmen. We’d spruced up the kitchen of our Herefordshire cottage just prior to selling it and our tiler there stopped every hour on the hour for a mug of tea and biscuits. Here, in Bayonne, they never took a break and just worked and worked and worked. After the bathroom had been repainted, the new shower unit went in, along with a new WC, wash hand basin and the heated towel rail and suddenly the bathroom was finished.

I was becoming a regular at the rubbish disposal centre which was fortunately only a 5 minute drive away and the house started to look empty as I took away heaps of discarded packing material and countless cardboard boxes.

Gradually, there remained fewer and fewer jobs to do as we approached completion. We agreed a date by which it would all be finished and so at that point I called our removals company in Hereford and asked them to deliver all our things from out of storage on 1st February 2008 – which was only 5-6 weeks after we’d taken possession.

The house looked perfect and we were delighted with it. The new TV was delivered – followed by the man from Orange who hooked up our phone, TV and internet access. We had a large wardrobe delivered in kit form and soon that was assembled up in our bedroom. We also bought a wardrobe unit from a depôt vente in St Jean de Luz.

All that remained to do now was to start sweeping up the plaster dust that was everywhere but this little job took us weeks to get under control!

18. The run-up to Completion & Christmas 2007

29th November 2007. Today as we drove over to Spain to do some shopping in Irun, we passed through the most south-westerly town in France – Hendaye – and I had to smile when I saw the town sign - for underneath it was a list of various exotic places with which it is twinned.

The "cratur"

One of these was “Peebles”.. The mention of this most worthy town in the Scottish Borders seemed totally incongruous here and conjured up in ma heid visions of hoary old Scotsmen, clad in tartan and wearing hairy tweed underbreeks, descending on Hendaye en masse in charabancs demanding to be directed without further ado to the fabled stocks of “whusky at five poond a bottle ye ken..” (these do exist by the way!) We spent a few hours in Irun which is the first town in Spain across the border. It reminded us both of the towns of northern Italy – it was a lot more sophisticated than border towns usually are. We’re fortunate to be living so near to the border – it gives us another string to our bow.

The day wouldn’t have been complete though without – yes, you’ve guessed it – an extra virgin cold pressed unleaded hot chocolate so we stepped into a small café and Madame had one while I had one of those hard-hitting black Spanish coffees that are guaranteed to inhibit the blinking reflex for at least 4 days. Tasting Madame’s chocolate, in my opinion it was as good as one of those “authentic” ones they serve in the chocolatiers in Bayonne with the added bonus of being, with Peebles in mind, much cheaper (a third of the price).

Friday, 30th November 2007. This morning we went to St Jean de Luz to go to the bank after which we had a short wander around the indoor market and the fish market. They finally seem to be getting into gear now ready for the Christmas season. There were oysters of all different sizes, fresh scallops still in the shell, amazing displays of bread of all kinds, tempting arrays of yellow corn fed chicken, plump poultry, local Brebi cheese made from ewe’s milk and a thousand and one other delights.We went through to the fish market and there were masses of fresh fish straight off the boats gleaming under the lights – monkfish, rouget, sole, turbot, hake, salmon, trout, sea bass, skate, prawns, crayfish, lobster, crab and so it went on. All of which served to underline to me what limited imaginations we have in England and also how poorly we are supplied. Is it us or is it the shops? I wonder though even if all this bounty was available in England, just how many people would still be roasting turkeys and boiling pans of sprouts into submission on Christmas morning. I suspect the majority would be. (“And what’s wrong with turkey..?” I hear you ask..) Nothing, but why not try something new..?

I’m reminded of a story by S (aka Major Bloodnok), a former Army colonel I used to work with. He has a small cottage in Brittany and one day he was at the weekly market there waiting in line at the cheese counter. When it came to his turn, the stallholder offered him a taste of the cheeses he was unfamiliar with. There were a couple of English ladies behind him and each time he tasted a new cheese, they’d say to him, “Is it like Cheddar..?” (as if that’s the yardstick!)

My favourite Major Bloodnok story though goes back a few years to when he was staying at a hotel somewhere in northern France. A dusty Rolls Royce with GB plates pulled up outside and a gentleman got out along with his wife and daughter.

Entering the reception area, he spotted a waiter and asked in broad Yorkshire tones, “Garçon, d’you serve wine here..?”

Taken a little by surprise, the waiter thought for a second before answering, “Oui, monsieur, but of course..”

“Well, in that case,” the Yorkshireman continued, holding up three fingers, “I’ll have three wines…”

Meanwhile, back in the Basque country, when we came home, we met Madame D outside in the lane. I asked her if I could wander up to the barn for a last look at the pig before it went to “Hawg Heaven” on the Saturday.. She said the French equivalent of “Too late mate - he was killed this morning.” She said if I wanted to see him he was up in her son’s garage. I went up there for a look and there he was in all his glory – he had been split in two by the butcher and was tied spatchcock fashion to a door that was leaning against the wall while his head was elsewhere “helping the police with their enquiries”. In reality, the head was being used to make sausages. He was one big pig though.. I think even minus the head there was a good six feet of him.

Saturday, 1st December 2007. Today was the day of the big local derby game (rugby union) between Bayonne and Biarritz and we drove by the Stade Jean Dauger in Bayonne. If someone were to start an international creative parking competition, I’m convinced that the trophy would be held in perpetuity by the Basques. There were cars parked on roundabouts, on the dividing strip in the middle of a dual carriageway, and just about everywhere and anywhere a car could be parked. Occasionally you’d see a car parked and wonder just how it had been put there.. There was no sign of any police or traffic wardens in the area. (I’ll leave you to compare and contrast etc) People were just left to get on with it and consequently it all seemed to be running smoothly. Bayonne had been heading the French Top 14 rugby table a week or two previously but while the game was a close encounter, it was won, predictably, by Biarritz who had just too much quality in the end.

On returning home, we found a carrier bag full of freshly made black pudding and sausages sitting on the doorstep.. We tried them that evening and the sausages were especially good..

Sunday, 2nd December. I walked the pooch up the lane this morning – it was another of those beautiful mornings that we are lucky to get down here in the Basque country. The sky was deep blue, the sun was shining and, from the farmhouse chimney, blue smoke was rising slowly and drifting up and along the valley as various parts of the pig were smoked. There are still quite a few trees with leaves remaining and these stand out sharply – burnt copper against the intense blue of the sky. I think we’ll go to Biarritz again this afternoon. We never tire of walking along the promenade watching the great waves rearing up and crashing in an explosion of white foam. And yesterday there were surfers out there still…!

I was just watching a football programme on French TV and it gave the scores from recent matches like this:
Nantes 1 St Etienne 2
Cartons Jaunes 2 Carton Jaune 1
Carton Rouge 1 Carton Rouge 0
For a second or two, I thought that these were results from the French equivalent of the Conference League and that Cartons Jaunes were a team like Total Network Solutions who, I think, play in the Welsh League. Then there was a ker-ching as the centime dropped.. Carton means ‘card’ in French and ‘jaune’ means yellow and ‘rouge’ means – well, you know what that is doncha! Oh I geddit!

Monday, 3rd December 2007. A great weight was lifted from us this morning. And I hope I’m not speaking too soon.. After weeks of procrastination, delays, incompetence, lost cheques and waiting for cheques to clear from various financial institutions we finally transferred the bulk of the funds across to France this morning at an exchange rate which, while not great, was an improvement on the quoted rate last Friday.

This whole situation has been causing us both sleepless nights for weeks.. It also shows up that while we are supposedly in the electronic age, some of our systems and procedures are still firmly rooted in the Victorian age. For example, the bank in England wanted instructions in writing by post - and no, a fax wasn’t acceptable – to transfer money from our UK account to our account in France. Similarly, the building society in the Isle of Man where we held a tax-free savings account for non-UK residents needed a form completed by hand in ink authorising them to send funds to a newly designated account. I felt like asking them and the bank if mere paper would suffice for the letter or would they prefer that I wrote on parchment with a quill pen? Roll on the 20th century..

Anyway, all that is now behind us hopefully - apart from a cheque from the Prudential that’s gone AWOL.. and the Pru has gone deep and silent on the issue.

Friday, 7th December 2007. Went to the bank today and our account showed that our house funds had arrived – even the cheque that the Pru owed me. I had to threaten them with legal action to get any sense out them..

Probably not a good time for the Man from the Pru to call. A well-aimed freshly made black pudding can do a fair bit of damage..

17. Noël

I was just saying to Madame the other day that so far we’ve seen no reference to the approach of Christmas in any of the shops – no towering displays of marzipan or jars of mincemeat or John Lennon singing “So this is Christmas”.. or Easter eggs in Woolworths. (now - unbelievably - closed for good in the UK I heard)

So imagine my surprise this morning when I heard on the radio the unmistakeable sound of 'Jingle Bells'…! It made me think – well here we are with less than 2 months to go to Christmas and still no Christmas Lights.. The French just don’t have a clue do they.. (irony!) I would guarantee that, for the last few weeks, supermarkets back home will already have been fully set up with dedicated aisles for such traditional English Christmas essentials as German Stollen bread, French marzipan, Belgian chocolates, Turkish delight, Italian panettone cakes and the like (we contribute the spuds!).. and deep freezes full of turkeys the size of small boulders..

One afternoon we went into Bayonne to a “Depôt Vente”. This is where you can take things to sell – mainly furniture.. The Depôt Vente sets the price and then takes a percentage of the proceeds. We went there looking to see what they had in the way of armoires. There were some in stock and while they were certainly cheaper than we’d seen in antique shops, it was fairly clear why. I think these are the kind of places that you need to drop in every week to see the new stock as it arrives - except that, like stuffing mushrooms, life is just too short for some things.

After this, it was starting to feel like evening so we came back. Madame had bought some chestnuts so we had these roasted with a cup of tea (living dangerously!).

For the French holiday on 1st November, we planned on going to Les Aldudes - a village buried in the Basque mountain country that straddles the entrance of a valley that, while it runs deep into Spain, is still French. The valley's chief claim to fame is that it produces arguably the best Jambon de Bayonne in the area. And, of course, many of the other products that the Basque cuisine is famous for.

There is a saying that some lofty Parisian food critics are fond of quoting that the only implement needed in a kitchen in the South West is - a tin opener! While this was meant as a clever put-down, nevertheless I think it does hit on a truth. Much of the great products of the South West can be preserved.. Think of confit de canard, foie gras, haricot beans in graisse d’oie (goose fat), rillettes, cassoulet and pipérade (though personally I have some doubts about this last one) et al... There isn't much that can't be put in a can or a jar - but it's none the worse for that. It's possible to buy all these products via mail order too!

Post visit report: Well, we had a great day out today high up in the Pyrenees.. First of all, the weather was supposed to be 3C in the morning warming up to 12C in the afternoon. Anyway, we set off and as we climbed up and up the skies cleared and we were gradually able to see the start of the high Pyrenees in the distance – the mountains near us were only about 2-3,000‘ high – further east, I think they go up to about 9,000’ or even higher. As we climbed, the full extent of the Pyrenees started to unfold in front of us.. and just when we thought we’d seen one high mountain, in the distance behind it, we’d see another even higher one - and in the blue misty distance behind that one, another one..

Les Aldudes

.. and yet another one beyond that. And all the time, the valley sides were getting steeper and steeper as we wound our way ever-upwards.. It was difficult to keep one eye on the driving with all this magnificent mountain scenery around us and at one moment, I thought I saw the pale outline of a snow-covered white peak that was higher than the rest, way way off in the distance and I thought, surely not, a snow covered peak so early in the season but on the regional news when we returned home they featured it too. First snow of the year in the Pyrenees..

Stirring mountain scenery and it was difficult to keep my eyes on the road as the country opened up before us. We ran up the valley on an old single track smuggler’s road that climbed up towards Spain and near the top we pulled over to eat our lunch.. I opened my window and looked out across the expanse of a great deep valley – white farmhouses with red roofs were dotted across the valley floor. It was through rugged border country like this that the men and women of the wartime Comet Line (organised by 24 year old Andrée De Jongh, a brave Belgian woman) famously helped Allied airmen to escape down from the Low Countries, through the occupied zone in France, across the Pyrenees into neutral Spain and home via British-controlled Gibraltar. In fact, in Sare, a Basque village close to the border, I recently discovered a newly placed memorial (below) to Victor Ithurria, a highly decorated and legendary figure who served in the SAS with great distinction during WWII before being killed on 25th August 1944..

I saw some large birds flying around in circles and I realised I was watching vultures (griffon vultures..) circling around in the air currents.. As I watched, I saw one furl its wings and dive down to the ground, followed by another, and another. Soon, there must have been 20-30 of them down there. Whatever was down there under a tree was getting a good pecking. Another British pensioner who won’t stop for a snooze after lunch again! We first saw them here a few years ago when we were up high in the mountains.. I remember thinking at the time, if I didn’t know better I’d swear they were vultures. When we got back to the hotel, they told us that, yes, there were quite a few vultures up in the hills.. Certainly makes you think twice about falling asleep in the sun after a good lunch..

We next came to a small village, ie, about 5 houses together, and one of them was a hotel with a restaurant. Out of interest we stopped to look at the lunch menu… it was £8 for a 4 course lunch…! (these are 1960 prices!) Next time we go up there, we might just try it. Anyway, we continued higher up the valley and soon we came to the border. There was no border as such – just a garage and a smoky café.. (smoking still being allowed indoors in Spain)

The countryside looked spectacularly good in its burnt copper autumn colours under a cloudless deep blue sky. After this, we went to St Jean Pied de Port. This is a very old town in the heart of the Pyrenees where Madame’s father’s family originated.

It’s on the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. People still come from all over the world to walk the route. It was getting really warm now and after blocking various pavements for a while we found a tea shop and sat outside in the sun. Madame couldn’t believe that she was still wearing her sunglasses on 1st November..!

Main street of St Jean Pied de Port

Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port

At the moment, there’s still that holiday feel to life down here because we’re still "camping out" in the gîte with a minimum of our belongings. I just have the one English book and that’s “Out of Africa” - which I’ve read twice since we’ve been here - as all our books are in storage. As a compulsive reader, forgetting to pack a box of books in the van was a major mistake.

This is "Tarantella" by Hilaire Belloc.. (try reading it aloud)

Do you remember an Inn, Miranda?

Do you remember an Inn?

And the tedding and the spreading

Of the straw for a bedding,

And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,

And the wine that tasted of tar?

And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers

(Under the vine of the dark veranda?)

Do you remember an Inn, Miranda,

Do you remember an Inn?

And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers

Who hadn't got a penny,

And who weren't paying any,

And the hammer at the doors and the Din?

And the Hip! Hop! Hap! of the clap

Of the hands to the twirl and the swirl

Of the girl gone chancing, glancing, dancing,

Backing and advancing,

Snapping of a clapper to the spin

Out and in

And the Ting, Tong, Tang of the Guitar.

Do you remember an Inn, Miranda?

Do you remember an Inn?

There is another verse but I like this one.