Our place in France Chapter 5

I think we can say that this was a week of small delights. A small delight is something fairly trivial which gives one pleasure and which under different circumstances could easily pass unnoticed. The first was when Neels came out of the bathroom on a chilly morning and said, ‘Ah! A warm towel!  A delicious small delight’. Whether it is true or not, we were told that recently built houses have to have towel heaters installed in the bathrooms. What a wonderful regulation to introduce because there really is nothing nicer than having a lovely, fluffy, toasty towel at hand after a hot shower in a cold bathroom.

Another small delight was putting up a washing line right across the garden, from one boundary wall to the other. Not a great distance as you can imagine – about twenty metres or so – but the pleasure it gave us to be able to do a load of washing in our washing machine, peg it on the line and  put it all away later the same day was out of all proportion to the event. Similarly, opening the last box, unpacking it and putting the contents away gave us huge delight. I should qualify that statement – it was the last box inside the house, there are still quite a few down in the cellar. Now that all the inside boxes have been opened and place found for the contents, another small delight is to be able to open  a drawer or cupboard, put my hand in and find just what I am looking for. As you will gather, we finally found all the things we had been hoping to find. My laundry baskets appeared just after we had hung the first load of washing on the line, which was great because it meant that we didn’t have to cram everything back into a black garbage bag when it was dry. All the crockery also came to light and we could give our borrowed wares back to the owners.

Apart from regular trips to the recycling centre and to the supermarket we have hardly been out of the house. Another shelf has been added to the pantry as even the huge amount of space added last week turned out to be not quite enough. We now have our kitchen clock hanging on the wall and the grand-father clock seems to have regained its land-legs and put its sea-sickness behind it. When it was first unwrapped, it was very out of sorts and refused to strike correctly but a little TLC has done wonders and it is almost back to its old self.

I do apologise for such a short chapter and without photographs but when there is nothing to say, I can’t say anything.