A Year at the French Farmhouse(24)

It was beautiful. Traditional stone walls, pointed with a beige mortar, a front garden that, while in desperate need of a trim, boasted roses, blackberry bushes, elderflower berries and what might or might not be grape vines towards the back. The front garden was walled, and a tiny metal gate – slightly open on its hinges – revealed a little path to the front door, almost entirely obscured by the foliage. Measured against some of the houses she had seen en route, it was small, but compared to the identikit houses on her estate at home, it was enormous – two storeys plus an attic that, according to the spec, was ripe for conversion. The advertised 3,000 square metre garden at the back was barely visible, and the little she could see was thick with brambles.

Next door, the house was similar in style, but in a better state of repair. The shutters were made from varnished wood, pinned neatly back against the walls. Each window had its own floral display just below the sill. The front garden was orderly, the path leading up to the front door a patchwork of stone. A cat sat on a small front terrace and, as she peered more closely, Lily could just make out that some of the back garden had been set up as an allotment, with vegetables planted in orderly rows – even what looked to be melons growing from the rich soil.

It was more remote than she’d thought – other than her soon-to-be neighbour’s property, there were no other houses along the route. And she wasn’t sure where the nearest boulangerie was, or where a market might be held in the tiny village, if at all. All things she might have researched had she taken more time, or consumed less wine. But as she breathed in and smelled the scent of myriad flowers and the surrounding trees, looked at the well-kept house of her new neighbour and took in the utter silence, she felt as if she’d made exactly the right choice.

She lifted up her mobile phone and took a snap, messaging Ty immediately. She wrote:

Look! New house.





Then, with slightly less confidence, she sent the same picture to Ben. She said:

House is beautiful.





Then, ‘It’s not too late,’ she added, before deleting it.

Looking behind her, wondering exactly where she stood legally in terms of entering a property she’d promised to buy but hadn’t yet signed for, she moved towards the gate and slipped through the gap. Stepping over thick, snake-like brambles and avoiding nettles and weeds, she made her way along the almost obscured path. Thorns snagged her T-shirt, and at one point in the epic five metre journey, she wondered whether she might end up trapped. But she managed to arrive at the front door somehow, hair in disarray and nursing nettle stings in at least two places, but triumphant, nonetheless.

Feeling a little like an intruder, she tried the handle of the front door. But it was locked. Which was good, she told herself. You didn’t want any Tom, Dick or Harry – or perhaps Jean, Jacques et André – strolling in off the street.

Instead, she sidestepped carefully into the flowerbed, wincing slightly as she crushed plants under her feet but reminding herself that: (a) most of them were weeds and (b) this would soon be her garden to trample as she pleased. On tiptoe, she tried to peep through the open shutters of a ground floor window and glimpse the room inside, but it was just out of reach to her five foot four height. She looked around, desperate to see inside now she’d got this far, and found an abandoned metal watering can half buried in the undergrowth. After testing its strength slightly with her foot, she moved it under the window, gingerly stepped onto it and raised herself up, grabbing hold of the sill to hoist herself just a little…

‘Excusez-moi?’ said a voice.

She turned to look and, as she did, lost her footing and fell heavily onto a cushion of weeds and thorns and mud and what appeared to be broken bricks.

‘Ow!’ she yelled loudly, feeling her shin start to throb.

‘Je suis désolé, Madame!’ the voice called. ‘?a va?’

She carefully got to her feet and looked in the direction of the voice. A man with short brown hair and a goatee beard, dressed in blue overalls and carrying a paper-wrapped pain under his arm – looking almost as if he had taken on the role of Random Frenchman in the movie of her life but was trying a little too hard – was standing by the outer wall, looking at her with a mixture of concern and confusion.

‘Je suis…’ she said, feeling her face flush and wondering what the man must think having seen her peering into the window of an empty house, teetering on a rusty watering can. How exactly did she stand legally in doing this? Would he report her to the mayor? Surely the fact that she’d made an offer on the house would stand her in good stead during any court hearing?

Realising she’d been staring silently at the bemused man over the top of the tangled garden for at least two minutes, she tried to smile. ‘Je suis désolé,’ she said, desperately reaching for enough French to explain the situation and failing miserably. ‘Je suis… je suis anglaise…’

‘Ah, Madame!’ said the man, then added in perfect English. ‘You do not have to apologise for being English, eh!’ He chuckled at his own joke. ‘Although I quite understand, huh?’

Despite not exactly having the moral high ground in this situation, Lily felt a bit put out. Sure, she looked like she’d been breaking and entering, or at least spying or something, but she’d just fallen because of this man and here he was laughing at her language. Or her nationality. Or a combination of both.