November 9th – A place for everything …

Nicholas and Sebastian finished early last week and, on Thursday, M. Dufour himself turned up to install the electric heaters we had ordered. Heating! We have heating! Welcome news indeed as I am just getting over a cold.

We could construct a sort of Maslow-type Hierarchy of Needs for house renovation. The first, Physiological, level would consist of simple structural elements: walls and roof. The second level, Safety, would include electrical, plumbing, pests, etc. The third, Social, level probably equates to room designation and basic furnishing. The fourth, Ego, deals with decor and the niceties of accommodating the hi-fi speakers and TV projector, while the fifth level, Self Actuation, looks at the spiritual level. In the case of house renovation, this equates to “Oh God!” or “Why am I here?”.

The problem with my interpretation of Maslow is that, despite not having fully satisfied our basic furnishing needs, we so often find ourselves looking for God. Nevertheless, having business in Toulouse on Tuesday, John suggested we get the most out of the péage costs by calling in at Ikea (kings of clever Swedish flat-packed furniture) and Castorama (France’s answer to the UK’s B&Q DIY chain).

Since July, the first floor bathroom has been used as a tool shed - a place to store anything sharp, pointy, heavy or fragile, or otherwise noisome to cats. Between us, we have an awful lot of tools. In the time we have been together, John and I have basically accumulated three sets: the tools that we personally have collected over the years, and a set of new ones that we bought for our French ‘holiday home’. So, before we could use bathroom or create a cosy first floor office, it was necessary to do a bit of housekeeping … tidy our sock drawer, so to speak.

The idea was simple enough. We would collect together families of tools and materials and store them in easily identifiable boxes in the loft. The reality, however, was a tedious and time-consuming process.

There were moments of levity when, for instance, I found the bendy three-pronged grabby thingy that we had been looking for when the car’s oil filler cap dropped into an inaccessible spot in the deepest recesses of the engine. Meanwhile, John’s toolkit gave up a treasury of pre-electronic motoring history. “I’ll bet you don’t know what this is”, he said, holding aloft some rusty impliment. “You’re right”, I said, “I don’t”. “It’s a boss-eyed fanny wrench”, he replied, lovingly pushing it back into its battered box. “Very useful. Made for a Mk II Valiant Diehard. You never know when you might bump into someone looking for one of these.” I’ll take your word for it, darling.

John pushed the wrench back into its box and continued rummaging. Before long another small cardboard box was held up for admiration. “Look! A saber-toothed sprocket slapper.” “A what?!” John sighed and lovingly pushed the box into the bottom section of the toolbox, among his prized collection of imperial gauge spanners.

None of these things, as you can imagine, are in the least useful for a 2007 4-wheel drive Skoda with 6 forward gears and an onboard computer. But John looks fondly back on an age where one was actually able to maintain one’s own car without computer diagnostics.

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