C'est Modnifique!: Adventures of an English Grump in Rural France, page 28
He went back out into the yard and there was the sound of a tap running and water sluicing about. Serge wiped sweat and dust from out of his eyes. 'OK, when I first saw this pile of junk I was disappointed. But look here…' he pulled at a heavy walnut door. 'This is the front of a Louis XV armoire. If the rest of it's here, like the old boy says, then we can reassemble it, oil it up and give it a few coats of wax. No one will ever know. Some of this stuff is eighteenth-century. There are loads of doors, cornices and legs. There could be as many as five or six armoires here. I could sell each one for about fifteen thousand francs [roughly £1,500 – Serge still did all his calculations in francs despite the introduction of the euro]. So you don't need to be much of a mathematician to calculate that there's a small fortune's worth here.'
The reality of what he had stumbled on was beginning to get through. 'This can't be it, can it, Johnny, the moment I've dreamed of, the day God smiles on me and makes me a rich man?'
I didn't have a chance to answer him. The farmer had returned and was standing in the doorway waiting for our verdict with an expectant look on his face. 'Well, yes, this could be of some use, I suppose,' said Serge, instantly changing his deportment to one of pessimistic disinterest. 'But it's all a bit far gone, to be truthful. I'm not sure what we could do with it. We might end up burning most of it.'
The farmer held out a small cloth bag. 'Here are the pegs,' he said. 'I knew I had them somewhere.'
'Me and my colleague here, we'll shift all this junk ourselves,' said Serge. 'Load it up and get it off your property today for no charge whatsoever. How does that sound?'
The farmer looked disappointed. 'OK. Look.' Serge pulled out the wad of notes and peeled off some twenties. 'Take this… one hundred euros. That should about cover it.'
The farmer didn't move. 'A lot of this furniture has got sentimental value to me and my family. I grew up with it. It's like old friends in a way.'
'All right then, to save any argument…' Serge peeled off four fifties. 'Here, take this – two hundred euros, and that's my final offer. It's not worth us bothering for any more than that.'
The farmer's face went blank. He shuffled his feet and looked back outside to where his pig was waiting. I picked up from him a strong impression that we had outstayed our welcome.
Serge looked irritated. 'All right, I'm not an unreasonable man. So how much do you want for it, bearing in mind that it's all in bits?'
The farmer turned back to us, deadpan. 'I couldn't take less than one thousand euros.'
Serge looked like he'd been slapped in the face. 'One thousand euros!' He attempted a mocking laugh but it stuck in his throat and came out more like a cry of pain. He turned to me with a theatrical expression of disbelief, as if asking me to verify how ludicrous it was. His face was white, drained of all blood. I could sense a mixture of battling emotions, as his habitual tightness fought against his greed to possess this potential goldmine of highly desirable furniture. Finally the greed won. He began to peel off a string of fifties. 'OK, let's not quibble about this. Call it five hundred and you've got yourself a deal.'
The farmer put his hands behind his back. 'A thousand or nothing. My ancestors scrimped and saved to buy all this. I'd be betraying the traditions of my family if I took less.'
Serge was flabbergasted: he clearly had not expected this sort of resistance. Teetering on the edge, he was unwilling to concede but tempted by the huge profit he hoped to make. The end was inevitable. He caved in.
'All right, but against my better judgement.' He looked sick. 'Here you go then, one thousand.' He grimaced as he slapped the last few notes into the farmer's hand. The old boy carefully recounted the money and then folded it up into a wad and placed it in his shirt top pocket.
'You'll have to excuse me, but…'
'You need to get back to your pig, I know,' said Serge.
The farmer smiled and tapped his top pocket. He gave me a wink and went out, leaving us to it. Serge was in a state of shock.
'Did I just hand over a wad of money to that old peasant?' He shook his head as if trying to clear his brain. 'For God's sake don't tell anyone about this. I must be losing my touch.'
'But you reckoned this stuff is worth a fortune,' I reminded him. 'Surely your conscience will be clearer now you've paid a fairer price.'
'Conscience? What's that got to do with it? Conscience? This is business. And besides, I don't think I've got a conscience, or not that I ever noticed.'
He pocketed what was left of his money and I followed him out to fetch the van. We pulled it round the front of the barn and began to load up. Some of the pieces of furniture were so heavy we puffed and blew as we staggered under their weight. I could see now why the farmer and his son had knocked them to bits. In their original form they would have been virtually impossible to shift.
The van was soon full and groaning under the burden of the heavy oak and walnut sides and doors. We drove to Serge's place, unloaded it and stopped for a quick lunch. When we got back to the farm the family were nowhere to be seen. Most of the pig had vanished. There was just the head, the neck and a couple of haunches left in the trough. All the innards had gone, no doubt salted away for further preparation. The dog had disappeared as well. His chain hung empty from the barn wall. I prayed his slavering jaws were chewing on a tasty piece of piggy somewhere and he'd be too preoccupied to spring out and bite us.
The dust had settled in the tumbledown outbuilding and although the remaining pile of furniture still looked pretty daunting, the end was in sight. 'Another van load should do it,' said Serge, spitting on his hands.
We sorted through the remaining oak boards and pieces and I kept a weather eye out for the German shepherd. I couldn't imagine the farmer letting a dangerous dog loose to roam about, but I wasn't entirely convinced. There was a fruitwood door with worn brass hinges leaning against the wall. This lifted Serge's spirits somewhat. He reckoned it was part of an eighteenth-century buffet that, once reassembled, could be worth at least double what he'd paid out.
When we lifted it up to pack it in the van, I noticed an oval opening in the wall with a crumbling brick surround and rusting iron bars. It appeared to be some sort of cellar and I got a shock when something moved deep down in the darkness. For one terrible moment I thought this might be where the dog was kept when he wasn't out on the chain frightening people. But then two hands grasped the bars and a face materialised. It was wild and grubby, framed in a shock of dark curly hair. Two brown eyes looked into mine. I blinked, and the face was gone.
À LA MOD
My So-Called Tranquil Family Life in Rural France
Ian Moore
ISBN: 978 0 85765 907 1 (ePub), 978 0 85765 906 4 (Mobi)
Comedian, mod and professional grump Ian Moore has had enough.
Tired of being unable to park anywhere near his cramped house in a noisy town he doesn't like, he hatches a plan to move his wife and young son to a remote corner of the Loire Valley in search of serenity and space.
Several years later, Ian finds himself up to his neck in bilingual offspring, feral cats, promiscuous horses, dysfunctional spaniels and needy hens; he's wrestling with electric fences, a foreign language, a mountain of animal waste and a wife who collects livestock like there's a biblical flood on the horizon, all while trying not to dirty his loafers.
But despite the ups, downs and increasing demands of Ian's showbiz career, the Moore family persevere in true Brit style to create a unique, colourful and ultimately rewarding life in their new home – à la campagne and à la mod!
GRAPE EXPECTATIONS
A Family's Vineyard Adventure in France
Caro Feely
ISBN: 978 0 85765 715 2 (ePub), 978 0 85765 714 5 (Mobi)
'Delicious.' I licked my lips. The wine filled me with joy. A picture of a vineyard drenched in sunlight formed in my mind. Sean drew me rudely back to the lounge of our semi-d.
'How can they be in liquidation if they make wine this good?'
When Caro and Sean find the perfect ten-hectare vineyard in Saussignac, it seems their dreams of becoming wine-makers in the south of France are about to come true. But they arrive in France with their young family (a toddler and a newborn) to be faced with a dilapidated eighteenth-century farmhouse and an enterprise that may never, ever make them a living.
Undeterred by mouse infestations, a leaking roof, treacherous hordes of insects, visits from the local farm 'police' and a nasty accident with an agricultural trimmer, Caro and Sean set about transforming their 'beyond eccentric' winery into a successful business as they embark on the biggest adventure of their lives – learning to make wine from the roots up.
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Ian Moore, C'est Modnifique!: Adventures of an English Grump in Rural France
