OK here's when the disillusionment set in
Our first summer in France as a family holiday and in this blog post I chronicle how it was starting to get on my nerves and reader I am NOT a quiet sufferer
One of the things people say to me most often about owning a house in France is - but don’t you get BORED of going there all the time. Its right up there with those who ask people with one child ‘aren’t you going to have another?’ - a sort of passive aggressive back handed criticism. I had a four year gap between my kids and hated it when people asked me the latter - not least as I am an only child myself.
Anyway, in answer to your question - yes it does get boring! And when you see people on Instagram jetting off all over the world while you’re spending thousands of pounds having your barn floor re-cemented I say - yes boring and deeply annoying. Enough to make you shout and scream at your husband while on your annual holiday that this is all his fault, why can’t we go to Dubai, you’ve ruined my life - the usual sort of holiday banter really.
And in this blog post I wrote about sometime in around 2013 I think the veneer was starting to rub off. For all those reasons above. Plus we had so much work to do on the house it wasn’t ever really a holiday at all more of an endurance test - like I’m a Celebrity without any celebrities. But as I look back on these posts I do also remember the fun we had transforming our derelict falling down house. The sense of achievement is akin to an actual high and its hard to get that lying on a sunlounger in Greece without a lot of Raki.
Plus you have the added advantage of knowing where all the best restaurants are rather than leaving it til the last night of the hols to stumble upon that perfect taverna and there is a relaxation that comes with familiarity which is often overlooked when we take a break from our treadmill work existence. Sometimes the planning and taking of holidays can be so filled with effort you are glad to get back to work for a break. This is easy, comfortable and its ours…
It’s not really a holiday though is it?
Original blog post written February 11,2013
So who wants another room makeover? Thought so. Enough with the mushy emoting, tales of friendship and the like – what you really want is to see photos of a semi derelict bedroom and then further pics of how it looked once we’d painted, plastered and bought bijou extras from quaint little french markets – right?
To be honest, I think I’m going to have to add an element of jeopardy to this blog because right now its all going a bit too well. Surely we need to run out of cash, have a roof cave in, discover bats that are part of a conservation order in the barn. Like those bits in Restoration Man when he goes off into his round study and ponders ‘how its all going’ and wether ‘they’ll ever get this project finished’.
Well just to move the plot along a bit, I’m going to start getting a bit disillusioned. We’re almost at our first summer and the house is taking some shape but maybe not as much as I’d hoped. The boys are still sharing a room that could be a film set but its that bit of The English Patient where Ralph Fiennes is bandaged up in an old bed rather than ‘Amelie’. And our bedroom is little more than a mattress on the floor. And this does not please me. As I’ve mentioned, I work in fashion and although I don’t mind a bit of roughing it, I do have to hear constant tales about colleagues’ travels to villas in Mustique, Riads in Marrakech or even just boutique hotels in the Cotswolds and they all sound rather nice. And I, by contrast, am sleeping here……..
It was around this time, I began to wonder….. was this really what I wanted from a holiday home? Did I even want a holiday home? Was this all Peter’s dream and not mine? I married a man who hates sunshine, swimming and relaxing. His idea of a holiday is to smash down a dividing wall with a sledgehammer. He likes reading books and collecting old junk. I, by contrast, dream of a Heidi Klein bikini, a white sand beach, a mojito and ideally someone else to do the washing up. My job is pretty stressful and was it madness to think that I would then want to spend my holidays, painting, cooking, lighting fires and all of the above in a run down, dirty house.
I think I may have shouted that at him several times around this period as I tripped over wires that snaked all around the house as we had only about two working sockets and a million extension cables. Or when I trudged through the dark, dingy back rooms of the house to get to the bathroom in my flip flops because the floors were too disgusting to walk on without footwear. Oh and don’t get me started on the days spent entertaining our young children on my own while Peter was up a ladder painting, plastering or mending. ‘WHY CAN”T WE JUST GO ON HOLIDAY LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE?” I would shout. Loudly and often. And it was this kind of disillusioned moaning that prompted him to start work on project master bedroom. (And not just so he could be on a different floor to me wallpapering quietly on his own – though I am sure this also had a bearing on his decision).
Peter was clearly wise to the fact that the bits I DO like about owning a french holiday home are the shopping opportunities and the interiors planning and so it was with project bedroom. As I think I’ve explained – this is a budget operation. In fact the budget is, there is no budget. So I searched Ebay and discovered a range of Laura Ashley Josette wallpaper that someone was selling off for only £5 a roll. In many ways having no budget makes all your decisions for you and so it was with this wallpaper. Would I have chosen it if I could pick anything in the world? Probably not. But I love it and I suppose it chose me.
The glass light that was already hanging in the bedroom was cleaned up and I love that its been there all along and we’re simply adding to the stories it could tell. The floor just needed a polish and we bought simple white curtains from IKEA. A mirror was sourced on ebay and came cheap because it had some bits missing from it which Peter simply glued back on (it’s amazing how people sell ‘broken’ stuff on ebay that isn’t even really broken, it just needs a bit of tlc) And then we bought a bed. A giant four poster one from IKEA that I’d always like the look of – EDLAND which crazily they have now discontinued -there are entire forums devoted to why it was discontinued online!
And from separate Vide Greniers we found bedside tables that don’t match. Some lights were bought in Marks and Spencer and driven over one trip. And finally a set of Hemnes drawers again from IKEA. I suspect for a more authentic french feel, it could do with some more stuff in it that isn’t from IKEA but you know what – we have the rest of our lives to buy stuff. And Claire Danes’ character in Homeland has IKEA drawers in her bedroom so it’s OK right? (although she is in love with a known terrorist and I’m only on season one so please don’t post and tell me it turns out he’s not a terrorist or whatever because I HAVEN’T SEEN THOSE EPISODES YET!)
And so, despite my moaning, I actually rather like going to our French holiday home every holiday. Having jumpers and jeans already there in my HEMNES drawers so I never have to pack to go away. And one day those snaking wires will be gone and we’ll be able to plug stuff into the socket in the same room as the appliance (I know this reader because in real life I’m way ahead of you!) And best of all, I have a bedroom that looks like a boutique hotel. Its a little known place in SW France don’t you know? Mustique – PAH!