Good morning Gaulejac!

Sunrise down the valley, from our yard.

Our neighbourhood

Work is progressing steadily at the house, though there is nothing dramatically new to report at this point.

Soon I hope to be able to post some photos of significant progress outside, in the yard and down in front of the house, where the old stone wall is being rebuilt.

Meanwhile, taking advantage of the magnificent weather we are experiencing, I walked around our "neighbourhood" snapping pictures of some of the houses nearby.

Now we blend

Someone I remember fondly used to say "a man needs a truck". This has a particular resonance in Ontario: rural living, handy work, etc. But it is equally true here in rural France, though the saying would translate to something like "a man needs a Partner/Kangoo/Berlingo".

These are the respective model names for the three main French car manufacturers' "utilitaires" (literally "utility vehicles"), the local equivalent to our good ol' North American pickup truck.

What is striking is that here, in the cradle of the free spirit (or so the French like to think), instead of vying for the most original or different approach, Peugeot, Citroen and Renault seem in fact to make a special effort to depart as little as possible from what has become the norm. Whether it's a Berlingo (Citroen), or a Kangoo (Renault), or a Partner (Peugeot), they are remarkably similar in style, shape and colour. They are all two-seater panel trucks approximately the size of a larger compact car (say a four-door Jetta, for example), sometimes with a sliding side door on the right. And they are almost invariably white.

In fact, most utility vehicles in France come in factory white, and many contractors don't even bother to paint them a different colour or even advertise their name. And if they do, the announcement is remarkably modest, usually a single sign on the side, about the size of a standard car window on average.

All that to say that we have taken a major step in becoming locals: we bought Peugeot Partner, with "24" licence plates (denoting the local department of the Dordogne).

And here is a photo of our new wheels, sitting proudly in our driveway ...

Isn't she beautiful?

Hunters, woodpeckers, and other noise makers

We woke up the other day, on our second morning "at home" in Gaulejac, to a persistent tapping noise. We figured we'd slept in and one of the contractors was already hard at work. I scrambled out of bed and ran outside to see who it was, only to scare off a woodpecker who had taken an interest in one of the old beams jutting out of the stone work on the East facade. He flew off with what I took as a joyous call, thanking me for his breakfast.

A few days later, we woke up to different noises: half a dozen hunters, with cars and dogs, gathered just below our windows, before setting out on the day's hunt. It was quite a surprise as we have become accustomed to observing nothing more than birds and other wildlife outside the house most of the time, or the mailman (Monday-Saturday mail delivery), or more rarely a hiker or distant neighbour walking his chocolate brown lab.

I went down to chat and asked them politely to please not park in our driveway. They were very courteous in return, said they'd been gone soon (they were, 15 minutes later), and invited me to join them. I thanked them but declined, assuring them that they probably would regret it if I did as I could be a liability and more likely to scare game away than to help them bag anything, or worse, injure one of them. They didn't insist. Still, it felt good to meet the locals in their regular activities.

(Speaking of locals, we have had some interesting meetings (all pleasant, to be sure). More in a future post.)

As to the other noises referred to in the title? Nothing too dramatic, really. At night, the new oak floors creak and crack in the newly heated atmosphere; the plastic tarp on the soon-to-be-roofed side building (see photos below) slaps in the wind like a sail on a tall ship; and eternally, owls, songbirds, hawks punctuate the near silence or the ambient background of the breeze with their respective calls and notes. We continue to marvel at how quiet it is all around, night and day.

Welcome to Gaulejac!

When we arrived on October 25, the house wasn't quite ready for human habitation: doors, windows and electricity, but no running water or heat. So we stayed in a hotel for a few nights until all that had been taken care of. We finally moved in last Wednesday, November 2nd to running hot and cold water first, followed by heat a few days later. In the meantime, the electrician had lent us a couple of space heaters that were more than sufficient and, anyway, the weather has been exceptionally warm around here, with daytime highs of above 20 Celsius most days and no nighttime frost yet.

The house is essentially finished. What remains to be done now is stone floors in the kitchen and entrance hall, and outside work, including grading in the courtyard and preparation for eventual landscaping.

Here are some photos of the house as it stands now:

The courtyard, with the nearly completed "préau", or covered sitting area.

Add Another view of the préau (including the day's laundry)
and the rest of the old sheds.
The roof over the whole set should be done next week.

The kitchen: we're actually getting used to the Spartan look.
Maybe we don't need all the fancy cabinets and appliances after all ...

The living room, as seen from the top of the stairs,
in the mezzanine area between the two bedrooms.

The master bedroom.

The bathtub in the Master ensuite ...

... and the view.