POSTCARDS FROM FRANCE

Signed and Sealed...

The days begin in the now-familiar manner: a single shaft of sunlight, soft pink at first, advancing slowly along the wall like a spotlight, its intensity increasing until it fills the room with a rich golden glow. An alarm clock, at least on fine days, is not one of life's necessities in Poitou-Charentes.

Moving-in day provided other surprises. I will never forget arriving to take possession of the house after signing final completion papers at the Notaire's office, just in time to witness the simultaneous arrival of the electricity company's connection team in a large, impressive truck, and a man on a small motorcycle from the water company. While the team with the cherry-picker restored the power connection at the top of a tall pole, the water man read the meter, rolled up his sleeves and prepared to turn on the underground supply. Despite achieving some flow, he pronounced the meter corroded beyond redemption but promised to return the following morning with a brand new replacement. Then, glancing at our cavernous property purchase, which had stood empty and unloved for two years and now resembled a film set from Arachnophobia, he enquired politely ' Vous comptez rester ici ce soir? '. My reply of ' Oui, en principe... ' produced a kindly, sympathetic smile. After shaking hands we watched him disappear into the distance.

His warnings about running the taps for 10-15 minutes, minimum, before daring to drink the water prompted us to start testing each tap in the house. Things went well until Julia flushed the upstairs WC, an innocent enough act which immediately shot the entire contents of the cistern onto the ancient chestnut floorboards (subsequent investigations revealed a large chunk of porcelain lying below the U-bend, no doubt displaced by winter frosts). We took some consolation, during the ensuing mopping up process, in the knowledge that this had been merely a test run, then got to work with a vacuum cleaner on an arachnid eradication programme until hunger called a halt.

France is blessed with a near-infinite variety of gas bottles, united by a common dependency on the presence of at least some gas to allow them to heat, for example, a cooker. Our bottle, as luck would have it, had evidently breathed its last some time ago, and a desperate trip into town found the only supplier now closed for the night. The hypermarché 's fuel outlet would be happy to supply us with an alternative, subject to us entering into a new rental agreement when the office opened again the following day. Sandwiches it was, then.

After sleeping unexpectedly soundly, we awoke to the put-put of our water man, true to his word, returning with his precious, gleaming charge. It looked Expensive. Twenty minutes later he was finished, and we signed the form which was to produce a bill for the equivalent of around £60, all-in.

Like many others these days, we have the telecommunications revolution to thank for enabling us to live and work in leafy, rural France. The vital telephone line arrived, like the power and water, with remarkable efficiency, this time courtesy of a man in a bright yellow van, who not only appeared at the time requested (by us), but enquired where we would like the cable to run and how many sockets we required. The next hour or so saw him swaying fearlessly on a long ladder, concealing extravagant lengths of cable behind gutters, drilling an entry point and then running yet more cable around the house to feed sockets in three rooms. Finally, he tested the line, declared ' Le branchement est branché.. ', then climbed into his van and sped off down the road. On this occasion my French, adequate in most everyday situations, failed me. Wasn't a branchement meant to be branché ? More worryingly, the phone had no dialling tone. What now?

We would not have long to wait. In just a few minutes he hurtled back in a cloud of dust, strode in confidently and tested the line once again. This time it worked. After more form-signing and hand-shaking we bid him goodbye and waited in trepidation for the bill, which again turned out to be unfeasibly modest.

So here we are, safely installed in a land in which they often do even ordinary things differently. Long may it - and we - remain so.

© Words by Roger Moss, May 2001
This text first appeared in everything France magazine Issue 1