Our House is Definitely Not in Paris Read Online Free PDF

completely au fait with the language, and you are merely pausing and reflecting on what you will next say. I decide to abandon all my well-intentioned plans when I discover that you are supposed to end your pronunciation on a sound about halfway between, but not allow your accent to hint at, the ‘ oh ’ sound.
    So much for my French lessons. I aim to learn French when I retire, as surely then I will have time. How many more years we will then be able to undertake the exhausting, arduous flight is another matter altogether. Finally, I will be fluent when our French life becomes a fading memory. Possibly fluent, that is.

    Parisian model

    Hard at work again

Part Two
    CUZANCE
    Fling Open the Shutters
    It is finally true on our fourth reunion with Pied de la Croix that Stuart’s fortifying words, ‘It will all get better with time,’ words that I have clung to with faint hope, have finally come true. When I lamented the lack of true vacances , for we were perpetually renovating on both sides of the world, he always tried to reassure me that one day the alarming hours of sheer relentless rénovation would abate. There were many times that I clung as desperately to those words as if we were indeed adrift on a life raft in choppy seas. For at times I did feel as though I was drowning, consumed by paint and rubble, and the obstacles that are all too familiar in any renovating life. This was alongside those obstacles of being in a foreign country, where at least one of us has to perpetually rely on their ability to frantically mime whatever is the order of the day: sugar soap, paint colours, paint stripper.
    After our four-hour train trip from Paris to Brive-la-Gaillarde, when Gérard drives us home to Cuzance, I fall out of his petite Twingo and simply abandon our luggage at the side of the road. I run around the entire jardin with utter joy and wild abandon, flapping my arms like an over-excited child. Gérard and Stuart simply watch, clearly bemused by my zeal. It is not until I have done a flying inspection of our just-mown garden, including exclaiming with delight at our two enormous new trees that Jean-Claude valiantly dug into the stony ground, that we are able to ascend our beloved très joli steps. We tip-toe in, breath caught in collective anticipation of our reunion. No matter how many years we return in the future, it will always be with a sense of wonder that this is our other home.
    Ah, there is the nouveau armoire that Jean-Claude and Françoise found for us after scouring countless vide-grenier. It is tucked perfectly into the challenging corner, next to the fireplace and old cuisine sink (oh yes, still in place) and under the old hand-painted cupboard that is high up on the wall. I am going to use the new cupboard for all the books that we have already accumulated. This year, I am determined to read them under my walnut tree. Françoise and her char — as she calls her from her long-ago days as a young woman working in England — have removed all the rubble and evidence of the maçon ’s work on our new bathroom window. We eagerly rush to investigate. Light floods the petite , once-gloomy hallway outside the salle de bain . A bathroom with a window. What could possibly be better? Well, perhaps a new salle de bain in the future. It is, in fact, next year’s plan, for there is always a plan, always a list — or should that be lists? As always, too, the lists project far into the future. It all depends on the progress of the crazy paving — and how crazy it sends us this year. For now, the bathroom is still ancient and remains something that I give my friends who are to stay dire warnings about. As for the toilet it is still, much to my ongoing disquietude, a formidable, petite dark box.
    All is in order in Pied de la Croix. There is no evidence of the ubiquitous country mice that sometimes take up residence in our cosy home while we are far away; the winter has