Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
'Hmm, I see.'
'Somybigproblem ishowtoget enoughliving space fortwopeople ifwetake the second
floor out.'
'I've an idea,' he said, scribbling urgently in his notepad. 'What if we put in a mezzanine
for a double bed? That way we get access to the views from the top too.'
Now Monsieur Fracasse was talking, measuring and drawing at speed. He was full of sug-
gestions.
'
Tiens, autre chose
, we could put the bathroom out here. Or we could put the kitchen out
here then have a window here so someone working in the kitchen could enjoy the views.'
'Super idea.'
'If we put the kitchen here what will we do about the bathroom? Where will we put it?'
'We could use the winery extension on the right.' I motioned in the direction of the build-
ing. 'Perhaps we could break through the concrete vats and put the bathroom in there?'
'But what about the out-pipes? From here it won't be the right angle and also we couldn't
install the sewage pipe underground since the building is built on solid rock.'
We walked across to look at the size of the extension. He measured the walls. I looked at
the angle and could see his point.
'
Attends, j'ai une idée.
We could put in a
broyeur
. That would solve the problem, we
could…' His voice trailed off. He could see that I did not find this particular idea super at
all.
'Absolutely no
broyeur
,' I said categorically.
'
Oui, t'as raison
. A
broyeur
is not good, yes, in fact, a
broyeur
is not good at all.'
I couldn't have said it better myself.
We agreed he would do the initial quote with the bathroom on the side where sewage
pipes could be safely installed and with a mezzanine for the bed. We waved at Sean who
wasinthevineyardbelowcarefully removingunwantedshootsfromtheheadsofthevines.
Having all his body parts intact for once he was taking on the
épamprage
, rather than me. I
yelled, 'Watch out for snakes!' He laughed and waved me off. I had seen several snakes and
Sean had seen none. He doubted their presence but I knew better.
Before coming to France I had a notion that making wine was easy; the diagrams used in
Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) set topics and Jancis Robinson's
The Oxford Com-
panion to Wine
made it look like a few simple steps. Our problem children, the reds, were
making me appreciate how wrong I was.
