40. Home hunting (4/4)
We'd seen the house twice and decided we wanted to buy it. Nobody else had seen it and the estate agent was quite happy to stop the viewings. Cobwebs, coal sheds and other spirits were not his cup of tea. He preferred the modern built 'perfect for families'. I am still trying to work out what he meant by that. Thank goodness I did not become an estate agent. I would have taken the wrong people to the wrong places and made the wrong comments.
'But there's no toilet. That might be a problem.'
'True. It might. But then again we can have a toilet put in really quickly.'
'Oh. All right then.'
That was it. Decision made.
Everything went so fast that when the people acquiring the house next-door decided to buy 'our' house too, to take the garden and sell the house on (which would have infuriated the ghosts) it was already too late. They were told some English folks had already seen it and bought it on the spot.
We got the keys on our eldest child's third birthday. And from that day onwards the sun kept shining ...
First things first: we had to go on a shopping trip to buy a toilet. To this day I can still remember my wonder and amazement at being able to walk into a sort of supermarket and go to the toilet aisle to choose a toilet, put it on a trolley, load it into the car and take it home! Awesome!
So we picked one. Then spent a weekend digging a big trench in the corridor to find the 'mains' (I did not know what that was but it sounded so cool I kept on digging). We dug all the way to the front door, which was wide open for two reasons: the digging and the sunshine. This attracted the neighbours. Not the garden stealing type but the nosy type from across the road.
'What's that you're digging?' in an accent I could not possibly imitate, that sounded so different, so exotic!
No answer. We were digging for God's sake. But the man did not care and went rambling on.
'This lady, ... stubborn she was ... she always said nobody is ever going to make holes in my house ... and she sent them these men packing... they wanted to make holes in her house! A hole for the water, a hole for the gas pipe, a hole for the electricity. To hell! she would say to them. To hell! You're not going to make any holes in my house! I don't need that modern stuff!'
I stopped digging.
'We're going to upset the old lady's ghost.'
'Just dig! You want a toilet in the house or in the garden?'
Needless to say I went back to the digging. It was a proper trench now, waist high!'
The neighbour was still there, looking down at us, a silhouette against the pure blue sky. He went on and on.
'I remember when she had a bath the whole street knew about it ... the soapy water all the way down the gutter! Right here! We told her ... modern times ... you know .. bath water must go in the sewage (he stressed the word sewage as if this was a highly technical word that required respect). Stubborn, she was, she only liked dogs and flowers, roses ... and baths ... That foamy water in the street ... So you bought the house? You're going to live in here? Might need to make holes in there, you know, cause ... '
My husband shoved a spadeful of damp earth a bit too purposefully towards him and he wondered off muttering things about holes in an old house like that ...
We did so much digging in that house over the years. I remember our daughter digging for pocket money once and putting things in a plastic bag.
I asked her:
'What are you putting in this bag?'
'They're big bones, mum! And there are lots of them and I am putting the bones in the plastic bag so I can take them to school to ask my teacher if they are human bones.'
I was horrified. I did not know if I was horrified by the fact that they could possibly be human bones or by the fact that she wanted to tell her teacher.
'Just put the bones in the bag and give the bag to mummy. I'll keep them safe for you.'
Once the toilet was in, complete with flushing system everyone wanted to pee in it! But still it was not officially a toilet. We had to call in the water board people (the toilet experts) so they could check that the pee was being flushed to the right place (i. e. not in the gutter).
The water board people put some coloured liquid into the toilet (the girls chose blue) then went downstairs into the street and then yelled for me to flush it. When they saw blue water down in the mains they were happy. So were the girls and so was I: I could officially pee in my toilets in my home without risking a fine. Luxury or adventure? I was not sure which.
But that was not enough: these people wanted to see the demolished toilets in the garden. I thought that was weird. If I could pee in my toilets inside my house with the approval of the local authorities why would I want to go and use the outside toilets? My husband said that French bureaucracy was taking everything too far.
The next non negotiable thing was a central heating system. So a plumber friend came over from London with a 'pack'. A kind of Ikea Plumbing Kit with an eastern London accent.
The unfortunate thing was that the central heating was scheduled in at the same time as the rugby world cup. And so the men were for ever having to stop to watch England-New Zealand or South Africa-Tonga or some other crucial match. They would drink beer and shout and scream and go on and on about a pass that a poor guy did not recuperate or about how unfair against England the (French) referee was. They were English and they had been educated to see sports (and especially rugby) as vital as Maths or Geography in one's education. So there was no way they would miss a match to put in a mere radiator. And as if on purpose, England won that world cup! Our radiators and pipes were abandoned so the international event could be properly celebrated. Which considerably slowed down the process.
When the system was finally installed and the men over the moon (they considered this as a double achievement; heating system: check, world cup: check) we put it on full blast for the whole winter. And thus a very hot summer outside was followed by a very hot winter inside.
'But there's no toilet. That might be a problem.'
'True. It might. But then again we can have a toilet put in really quickly.'
'Oh. All right then.'
That was it. Decision made.
Everything went so fast that when the people acquiring the house next-door decided to buy 'our' house too, to take the garden and sell the house on (which would have infuriated the ghosts) it was already too late. They were told some English folks had already seen it and bought it on the spot.
We got the keys on our eldest child's third birthday. And from that day onwards the sun kept shining ...
First things first: we had to go on a shopping trip to buy a toilet. To this day I can still remember my wonder and amazement at being able to walk into a sort of supermarket and go to the toilet aisle to choose a toilet, put it on a trolley, load it into the car and take it home! Awesome!
So we picked one. Then spent a weekend digging a big trench in the corridor to find the 'mains' (I did not know what that was but it sounded so cool I kept on digging). We dug all the way to the front door, which was wide open for two reasons: the digging and the sunshine. This attracted the neighbours. Not the garden stealing type but the nosy type from across the road.
'What's that you're digging?' in an accent I could not possibly imitate, that sounded so different, so exotic!
No answer. We were digging for God's sake. But the man did not care and went rambling on.
'This lady, ... stubborn she was ... she always said nobody is ever going to make holes in my house ... and she sent them these men packing... they wanted to make holes in her house! A hole for the water, a hole for the gas pipe, a hole for the electricity. To hell! she would say to them. To hell! You're not going to make any holes in my house! I don't need that modern stuff!'
I stopped digging.
'We're going to upset the old lady's ghost.'
'Just dig! You want a toilet in the house or in the garden?'
Needless to say I went back to the digging. It was a proper trench now, waist high!'
The neighbour was still there, looking down at us, a silhouette against the pure blue sky. He went on and on.
'I remember when she had a bath the whole street knew about it ... the soapy water all the way down the gutter! Right here! We told her ... modern times ... you know .. bath water must go in the sewage (he stressed the word sewage as if this was a highly technical word that required respect). Stubborn, she was, she only liked dogs and flowers, roses ... and baths ... That foamy water in the street ... So you bought the house? You're going to live in here? Might need to make holes in there, you know, cause ... '
My husband shoved a spadeful of damp earth a bit too purposefully towards him and he wondered off muttering things about holes in an old house like that ...
We did so much digging in that house over the years. I remember our daughter digging for pocket money once and putting things in a plastic bag.
I asked her:
'What are you putting in this bag?'
'They're big bones, mum! And there are lots of them and I am putting the bones in the plastic bag so I can take them to school to ask my teacher if they are human bones.'
I was horrified. I did not know if I was horrified by the fact that they could possibly be human bones or by the fact that she wanted to tell her teacher.
'Just put the bones in the bag and give the bag to mummy. I'll keep them safe for you.'
Once the toilet was in, complete with flushing system everyone wanted to pee in it! But still it was not officially a toilet. We had to call in the water board people (the toilet experts) so they could check that the pee was being flushed to the right place (i. e. not in the gutter).
The water board people put some coloured liquid into the toilet (the girls chose blue) then went downstairs into the street and then yelled for me to flush it. When they saw blue water down in the mains they were happy. So were the girls and so was I: I could officially pee in my toilets in my home without risking a fine. Luxury or adventure? I was not sure which.
But that was not enough: these people wanted to see the demolished toilets in the garden. I thought that was weird. If I could pee in my toilets inside my house with the approval of the local authorities why would I want to go and use the outside toilets? My husband said that French bureaucracy was taking everything too far.
The unfortunate thing was that the central heating was scheduled in at the same time as the rugby world cup. And so the men were for ever having to stop to watch England-New Zealand or South Africa-Tonga or some other crucial match. They would drink beer and shout and scream and go on and on about a pass that a poor guy did not recuperate or about how unfair against England the (French) referee was. They were English and they had been educated to see sports (and especially rugby) as vital as Maths or Geography in one's education. So there was no way they would miss a match to put in a mere radiator. And as if on purpose, England won that world cup! Our radiators and pipes were abandoned so the international event could be properly celebrated. Which considerably slowed down the process.
When the system was finally installed and the men over the moon (they considered this as a double achievement; heating system: check, world cup: check) we put it on full blast for the whole winter. And thus a very hot summer outside was followed by a very hot winter inside.
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