Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
this was the start of something else, time to start afresh. A new era for us, our very own La
Rentrée.
Natalie made me four cushions to put in my new
pied à terre
, in the same way that some
women used to hand their husbands a picnic lunch as they left for work, and it sounds like a
nice gesture until you consider the fact that Natalie would make cushions for a stranger who
fell off his bike, such is her need to produce the things. But they look good on my sofa bed
and basket-weave high-back chair. And especially my fancy 1960s swivel desk chair, which
is the most uncomfortable piece of seating I've ever come across, but which looks fantastic.
Quite often, for instance, while gardening in bowling shoes or trying to navigate the rural
Indian Railway network in a two-tone tonic suit, I am accused of choosing style over prac-
ticality. I hold my hands up - compromise on these issues really isn't for me, but Natalie is
exactly the same in her own way.
Natalie's addiction to Cath Kidston, Cabbages and Roses and Kate Forman, farmhouse chic,
insane inchperfect frippery and the Goddess 'Cushion' meant that we had created a lovely
house. Despite three young boys and the chaos of an informal animal adoption agency, she
had put together a beautiful home. But not all of it is practical. A few years ago, during one of
her occasional and cathartic scavenging hunts in the local rubbish dump she found a Victori-
an bath. A pretty little thing, no doubt, one of those baths that adorn old-fashioned adverts for
soap in shops like Past Times, and she had to have it. I thought she meant to use it as one of
those quirky planters you see in the more impractical, soft-focus interiors magazines, because
as far as I could see the bath itself showed exactly why the Victorians were so uptight, why
they refused to discuss anything below the waist. It was because they had no bottoms.
I have, despite putting on a few pounds in the last couple of years, retained my mod kitten-
hips, something I'm quite proud of. I am of quite narrow build, but this bath was too narrow
even for me. It is tapered to the extent that while I can easily get in the thing, the narrowness
of the base together with the water means that I couldn't get out again. I'd get stuck and my
fragile ego couldn't handle the ignominy.
So, while I do occasionally like a bath, I can't have one. The shower on the other hand had
looked like the poor relation of the house for some time. It was badly fitted by the previous
owners and with clearly no waterproof membrane behind the dingy, orangey-brown tiles, it
had started rotting the wall in the room behind it and so finally we had bitten the bullet and
decided to have the whole thing done up. Also, the authors that we intended to get in to run
our courses would be using this bathroom and as it stood it wasn't up to scratch.
The shortage of plumbers, it turns out, is a worldwide issue, not just a UK one and without
the convenience of an influx of hard-working Eastern Europeans it is even more difficult to
get one in rural France than it is anywhere. Fortunately, one of our nearest neighbours is a
plumber. Monsieur Cruchet is a small, mouseylooking individual who, like a millionaire who
believes his entourage only like him for his money, is quite obviously paranoid that people
