Basket of Keys | Our New House

We arrived at our new house about a week ago. We drove in at 11pm last Friday night and crept up the big stone stairs to put mats on the ground to sleep for our first night - the girls all wide-eyed, sleep far far away, overwhelmed by the house. When the sun got up the next morning, so did we. Poured out of the house and looked back up at it, as if we were seeing it for the first time (they were). They looked quizzical. All feeling a bit of unrest. It was the first time for me that it all really sank in. The view was glorious, but the unknown was just as impending. Occupying a house like this one felt like an incredible project.



Jean-Marie, the prior owner of the house, came by that morning to give us a little tour. [Note: only a certain generation of Frenchmen are called Jean-Marie]. I appreciated his frankness. He wasn’t going to reassure us or just convince us that everything would be fine.

He started with flooding. He had great metal panels we must use to cover the line of windows/doors along the front of the house - the floodwater won’t drain entirely and it can be a catastrophe, he insisted. He looked at me with intensity and explained that when I hear on the television the orage (thunderstorm) alert is yellow - we should probably react, but when it is orange or red, it isn’t even a question. No playing games. “C’est très grave.” Honestly, it is difficult for me to imagine a time when there could be clouds in sky, let alone a huge thunderstorm with violent rain at hand. The sun feels so permanent - scorching the earth here in Provence. The sky - exactly the same shade of blue. Every day is the same forecast: 90 degrees and sunny. Period. I am really curious about the drastic seasonal changes.

Jean-Marie informed us that during a recent period of flooding, a neighbor (a person he clearly didn’t appreciate - shrugged his shoulders and puffed out his cheeks - ‘she is a left-leaning retired civil servant,’ as if that were an explanation) had built a concrete wall to direct the water back toward our house. Up to this point they had been friendly, despite her political leanings, and he had invited her to park her car on part of the property he wasn’t using. “Immediately I asked her to remove her vehicle and told her that was the end of that.” Xavier has since met said neighbor, found her rather charming and invited her to re-park her vehicle in that same spot. Perhaps his opinion of her will change once the rain comes.

During the tour of the property, Jean-Marie would off-handedly say things like - that is really a museum piece (the portail of the house), that is definitely 17th c., these cypress tress - they are over 30 feet tall, etc. I was stunned by all of it.

The highlight of the tour for Xavier was the foundation of the house - the electrical wiring, the heating system, the water purification system (we get water straight from the Canal de Provence and is filtered by UV and a hearty paper filter before we drink it), the bricolage room - as Xavier has named it. The house has sound bones and great systems, from his analysis.

The highlight of the tour for me was the portion regarding the trees. We bought a house that is very old. We also bought land that is very well established. The cypress trees, but also the enormous oleander bushes, the 2 gigantic sycamore trees in the courtyard of the house, the 25 olive trees, 4 fruit trees (apricot, cherry, pear, plum) and almond tree. The sycamores have something - a virus or a mean fly. The olive trees need a drip sprinkling system installed. The pear tree blooms on June 24. That date is not to be missed - such delight - such sublime sweetness. Jean-Marie announced all without blinking an eye.



I was daydreaming a bit as we all walked along. More plans for the property. A big thick line of lavender. More pots to line the front of the house. A cutting flower garden or vegetable garden (?) both a question mark when water is part of the equation. To be determined.

At times during the tour, he looked at us and squinted his eyes a little bit, looking doubtful and then would throw in a comment like, this is the country. You know that, right, you city-dwellers?



The girls aren’t sure yet. Colette was downright trembling and terrified the first night. Came sobbing down - saying how scary this house is and that she cannot live here. “I think there are skeletons here.” Poor thing. All the girls are camping right next to each other in the same room, so that softens the fear a bit. Every morning I ask Marguerite how she and the other two slept the night before. She inevitably reports that she sang a song to Romy at some point during the night, sweet sister. She has been such a help during this transition. Colette and Romy look to her for all sorts of cues. She feeds back calm and composure.




The kitchen from the stairs above.



We are making progress though. I will say a week later, they are all running through the house, playing all the way on the third floor by themselves. Exploring. The best sign. Marguerite loads her sisters in a wagon in the yard and pulls them around, on a ‘tour.’ She announces, “museum here. Everyone out.” Then gives the ‘museum’ facts. Loads them all back in and moves to another part of the yard, “Bathroom stop right up here. Please make sure no one forgets her bag or camera or sunglasses.” The other two love it.



Everyone is delighted to have a swimming pool. Hours of giggling and kicking and diving. Clear blue water and a toy it is hard to imagine anyone getting sick of.



One of the best parts of the house is discovering its small and large spaces and how they shift with the changing light of day and the mood of the house. It is really captivating.

We also found a basket of keys. Seriously. We looked at each other and thought, what on earth? How could there possibly be such a collection of keys, without explanation to where they belong? Xavier, in his determined fashion, spent a good chunk of time trying the various keys in locks in and outside the house. He successfully identified the keys on the exterior of the basket in this picture. The large (really large) skeleton key is the key to the front door.



A week in and we are all looking forward to the local market tomorrow morning - the one right by us is known regionally, apparently. I won’t lie - the markets were a big attraction for me in thinking of setting up life in the south of France. All the rest of this too. It feels more raw in real life than in my imagined version of how this would go. I am trying to take big deep breaths and be fair to the girls (although I’ve yelled more than I would like - Romy has become a truly defiant 2-year old) and adjust to a new role with them. Anyway, we got what we wished for. Feels daunting. And wonderful.