The chantier begins

The Spider debate continued (not without a great deal of sulking) whilst J dug holes in the sandy floor of the hayloft for eventual mains drainage and a dreamy tadelakt spiral staircase. I awoke this morning after a dream of singing baroque music perfectly in an open top car, having resolved my issues and at peace with the idea of having some fun. Julian told a story over breakfast of not having had any pocket money as a kid, and his big brother buying a tin of condensed milk with his first paycheck which he could eat in front of his siblings to impress them. I guess maybe Julian’s tin of condensed milk grew up to be a spider and perhaps I am yet to contact my inner multi legged insect. We shall see.


The jolly driver of the hugest lorry I have ever seen must have flown through the tiny hamlet of the ‘Pousse Chiens’ to get here, and the arrival of the ‘chaux aerienne’, ‘chanvre’ and ‘pierre ponce’ this morning, with its special squiggly emblem designed by Yves himself, put everything in perspective. It seems the open topped fun is on hold for today, at least, while we digest the enormity of this project.


Julian is slightly nervous but doing very well at letting go control. The fact that an artist is at the helm helps. For him, to go to his studio and paint while the work he always imagined he would be doing is done by a team of eager young fellows, must feel like being in the audience listening to a piece of music you know inside out when you are used to being on stage playing it.

Over a market day lunch of gooey goats cheese, salad and vigneron bread, we agreed that to know that our ‘chantier’ was the training ground for these pig-tailed wide-eyed lads in an ancient technique, and was promoting not just the health of our own house but of many more to come, felt very moving. In this case, I do not wonder at the appearence of the word for song in 'chantier'. This is a building site that sings.