Realising the dream ; Moans and Milestones on a Brittany small holding

Deciding to renovate a Breton farmhouse and set up a small holding was easy as clicking the life style channels on cable TV.  We'd trawled the Internet for suitable properties.  We viewed some of them during short holidays, careering through the Breton countryside at break neck speed in the estate agents' Citron Diane.  Then, before we new it we were the proud owners of a beautiful farm house, complete with a huge 18th Century barn and numerous out buildings.  The land was over-grown and there was not enough of it but the place was secluded and surrounded by agricultural land. There was the possibility of buying or renting a field or two.  Clutching the small holders Bible ; John Seymours' definitive guide to self sufficiency, we have set out on a journey.  A journey with several possible destinations and a lot of risks; financial and personal.  So far, the journey has been an interesting one.  A journey of milestones and a few moans along the way.

 The house had running water but no electricity.  Our first experience of "living the dream" was showering in cold water from a hose pipe, in February, in the courtyard.  The water was so cold that when it was turned off, the unfortunate victims' body steamed.  I can laugh about it now but can't quite erase the memory of the screams as the water made its initial impact.  Cooking was done on a petrol stove in the courtyard which also provided hot water.  We slept in bobble hats to prevent 'freezer' headaches.  For two soft townies, whose previous idea of deprivation consisted of going without a take away because the shop was shut, it was all rather horrible.  And exciting.  We competed in our suffering, safe in the knowledge that we would be back in the UK at the end of the week, regaling colleagues with tales of our life changing project.

Electricity, when it came, made a huge impact. Hot water banished the freezing hosepipe and we no longer dreaded personal hygiene. Cooking reverted to high tech kettles boiled at the push of a button, porridge produced in minutes with a comforting ping from the microwave. The use of a working refrigerator, a hither-to taken for granted device, meant that daily treks to the shops in the nearest town and eating out of tins on a Sunday could stop. But electric light, on the other hand, was unforgiving. What had seemed romantic and beautiful in candle light seemed rather damp and squalid under the glare of a 100 watt bulb. By its unforgiving light, wildlife which had been happily doing its own thing in the dark, tap danced into corners. Instead of making the house more welcoming, electric light made the house more creepy. Oh, and the lights turned themselves on in the middle of the night on a regular basis.

 The new roof with its huge ceiling to floor windows took the best part of three months to complete.  I was working in the UK and showing perspective buyers round our old house, whilst him indoors lived in a house without a roof.  He did a lot of networking in the local bars, allegedly learning the language. I was sceptical at the time that this was a good use of his time but as it turned out the contacts he made became good friends and his French came on in leaps and bounds.  Needless to say, that when I went out for a week, it rained continuously until I squelched back to the UK.  So far so good and of course, we still had our jobs and our old lives back in Blighty, so the dream was just that; a dream.

Then, whilst I was over, clearing the land, airing the house and generally goofing off to fetes' in the hot summer sun, our house back in England suddenly had a buyer, against all the odds in a world wide recession.  Within a couple of days, we were sat in our new home.  Now, I don't want to mislead you.  We had three years of planning, saving, researching, studying and buying, in order to make our dream of running a small holding a reality.  But the move was sudden and we still weren't prepared, despite the years of preparation .  Because living in a building site isn't romantic, it isn't comfortable and it isn't predictable.  Contractors changed dates, unforeseen things happened, as they inevitably do and before we knew it, we were racing against time to make the place habitable for the winter.  He was working 18 hour days as we insulated against the elements.  We both developed aching swollen joints in our hands and feet and as the ailments stacked up, our sense of humour diminished.  Our biggest milestone; the central heating, was the hardest won and has had the biggest impact to date.

 In order to install the central heating, run by a gigantic wood burner, the old fire place had to be restored back to an inglenook, which involved a Mason, to build the chimney and fireplace, a heating engineer, a plumber and electrician.  Getting that lot together in one place, at one time was not easy and it wasn't cheap.  The little wood burner, that had made our evenings bearable, was taken out during the restoration.  It was our only means of keeping warm.  Suddenly, our stone built house was colder on the inside than the outside.  And the outside was minus 7.  At the end of each day, the workmen would leave and go back to their nice warm homes, leaving us to continue working in the rapidly freezing temperatures.  The day before the heating was switched on, I became disorientated, sleepy and unable to work.  Yep, I had the start of hypothermia.  To sleep in a lovely warm bedroom, and dress in dry clean clothes in the morning was and still is a wonderful thing.  It was worth the weeks of discomfort.  I still walk in our bedroom every night and revel in the luxury that is central heating.  When the plasterboard goes up it will be fantastic.

 So, the restoration of our beautiful house has been hard work and not as much fun as we thought it would be.  Yet, it has also been a wonderful experience.  We grew up in houses without central heating but had quickly taken it for granted as adults.  A wood fired system means that we will never take the warmth for granted; we will be lugging in the wood on a daily basis.  Electricity; light at the touch of a switch, food that lasts more than a day, hot water at the twist of a tap.  These are all marvellous amenities.  Watching the earth quake victims of Haiti and their terrible suffering on the last of our milestones; the TV, I thank my stars that my trivial tribulations of the past months are just that; trivial.  Its been cold, well so what?  Elsewhere, others are without the most basic of human needs.  It does us good to suffer a little.  It makes us appreciate what we've got.  I just had to get this down before it fades.  Taking things for granted is after all, the luxury of the privileged and me and the old man are feeling pretty privileged.