2020: c’est fini

You know how at the beginning of every year, you sit down and make a list of everything you’re going to accomplish and when? And then, you work through that list methodically, checking off each item as you gleefully turn to the next? Yeah. Me either. This year particularly. I mean, I’m an INTP, so lists are second-nature to me. Not, mind you, I EVER EVER EVER look at them again, but I make them. It’s like a little prayer to a sky god somewhere, outlining generally—if the world is right and the planets align and other humans do things just so and the laws of physics don’t flux too much and so on—what ought to happen. I know this about me (and actually I have no idea whether it has anything to do with Myers-Briggs, but whatevs).

And still. What. A. Year.

This is not to say nothing got done in 2020. It did. Just not the things or in the order that lists (and oftentimes good sense) might have dictated.

We have a slew of new readers, so here’s a recap with lots of pictures (if you’re reading this on your Apple Watch, first off, what the hell’s wrong with you, and secondly, don’t; you’re gonna want some real estate):

It began when I arrived in early February to begin The Work. I had no sooner taken apart the entire upper floor, ripped out every bit and bob, prepared the space for the descent of craftsmen to undertake their mysteries, and for me to bumble through a rebuild, then, well then, the plague. The roof got done, the team responsible shedding high-risk member after high-risk member until there was just one guy, an ever-present cigarette, and a series of final acrobatic swings from wobbly ancient scaffolding to parapet to the ground. Nobody died, but it wasn’t pretty. Also, all the stores closed.

In April and May, we had snakegate, where we discovered an ancient portal to a land of Reptilian Overlords built to facilitate their spring time assignations in the recently exposed beams in the ceiling. Less said about that the better. Also, some stores opened back up, and we began the process of installing framing, plasterboard (plâco), and insulation. Up a set of stairs that could have served as a trial run for a K2 ascent. Later, we’d just throw sheet after sheet of placo through a hole in the ceiling. My shoulders now resemble the results of a tectonic plate shift…with all the attendant cracks, heat, and resulting disfunction.

By the time I left for Tbilisi in July, a lot of placo was up, the Overlords had gotten tired of coitus interruptus, and I needed to spend three weeks in a hot bath.

I did.

The garden, during this whole time was, well obviously it was growing. Because, Normandy. The only way to keep any of it under control was to throw ten tons of rock on top of it, as we dismantled the very large bread oven that had been a feature of the house for the last hundred years or so. Stores were closed and only so much old insulation could be pulled out of the house. Boredom is horrible. Old Bendy, a sixty-foot pine tree came down, along with a few of its smaller companions because we didn’t want it to fall during a windstorm and throw off the earth’s rotation. This had to be chopped up for fire wood. Yay shoulders. Also I dreamt of having the large base trunks planed into flooring. It’s nearly January. They are still sitting in the garden. But, all that aside, it was a beautiful year in that garden…

I also did a lot of cooking—complex, delightful expressions of subtle French cuisine. No I did not. I staggered into the kitchen every night, drank a third of my bodyweight in wine, and then threw whatever wasn’t nailed down and made out of metal into a pan. Sometimes the results affirmed my desire to live. Sometimes, not so much.

After a few months recovering from my PTSD, I returned to LaBu in October. Mission: finish. Undefined: what and finish. In my absence, C—le maître d’œuvre and all around talentbody—had installed a subfloor, gotten much of the ceiling plasterboarding done, and had assembled a crack team of assistants (some of whom even showed-up later). 

We—in short order—finished the final interior walls, the wall plasterboarding, and the first plumbing fix (by which I mean, unable to actually get a plumber to show-up, C did it himself). Then K arrived to excavate the mud that had been used to hold the large exposed stone walls together and replace it with mortar. I mean, really, how anything stayed up is a testament to the power of hope and inertia. By the time I left on Christmas day, we even had painting and flooring in half of the space, and luxuries like a bed and electricity installed.

Renovation in France can be many things depending on how talented you are, who you know, how well equipped your local stores might be, your toleration for risk or stress, and any other number of factors I’m entirely too ignorant to even know. LaBu has benefited from talented, dedicated, and good-humored people who wanted to help, and were helpful far beyond what I had first anticipated, standing that first day staring at a radiator on a horribly wallpapered wall (because, France), and wondering, ‘how does one get the water out of that thing before ripping it off the wall?’. *hint…that selfsame radiator is the first picture in the first collection of pictures up at the top of this whole thing.

Next year’s mission: finish. At least the inside. The garden? That is a different story. Stay tuned.

Oh…have I mentioned too little often the beautiful side of country LaBu occupies? Yes? No problem, here you go…