Stuff arrives; things happen…

Sunday is not over even though I am writing at 7:30 pm; twilight in summer in this part of France lasts well until 10 o’clock or so – one cause, I believe, of the lovely long and genteel al fresco dinners that characterize southern French culture. So I have ample time to venture outside again to do something… but what can I do after a day already so full and fatiguing?

Francesco oversaw the loading of the remainder of our household goods in Todi on Friday and the truck arrived yesterday. Our barn - ‘grange’ in French - is stuffed with most of the original shipment of boxes from our Paris apartment, sixty cartons of books amongst them, as well as the new arrivals now from Italy.

Unlike our unfortunate removal from Paris, in which we suffered severe damage and the yet-to-be explained loss of a set of nine large framed pencil drawings made by one of Francesco’s 19^th century forebears (thanks to the uncaring, incompetent, and careless French moving company) our Italian transporter cheerfully and efficiently delivered on time, without a scintilla of a problem.

I spent the day hefting boxes, one carton at a time, between the barn and house, unpacking mostly kitchen items we’ve sorely missed. (A magnificently efficient cheese grater we bought in New York City, the toaster, our copper pans, heat-proof oven dishes, etc.) We are taking inspiration from Monet's kitchen at Giverny, intending to recreate his interesting and oh-so-impressionist color scheme. Thus, retrieving some of our wonderful kitchen apparatus is a special pleasure.

And oh, I’ve also raced to and from a Sunday flea market (nothing good to be had, darn it!), done a load of laundry, hung it out to dry, folded it and put it away, thoroughly cleaned the bathrooms, and also spent two hours with our new handy dandy weed-whipper, whipping all the weeds and tall grass in my path to inglorious demise.

Now I feel like the moving truck ran over me but I still have anxiety to keep working, to accomplish more, to get it all done. Maybe it’s time to chart the tasks I have completed, to tick them off my long list of ‘things to do’ while Francesco is away, in which I've tried to balance three types of activities: general cleaning and tidying that must be done day-by-day, projects relating to our rehabilitation plans, and little jobs in the garden that I can handle alone.

I’ve completed painting the exterior trim and shutters of the main house that required no less than three coats of paint to mask the horrid old brown color that still mars the woodwork of the other house. (I will tackle that in due course.) I’ve taken down and replaced a set of shelves in the dining room cupboard, put up a door bell, painted the interior trim of windows and a few doors inside the house, and cut down an ugly and extraneous newel post that was blocking our ability to fetch items to and from upstairs. I’ve started putting up bookshelves in our bedroom so that Francesco will be able to retrieve and shelve his library – something I know he is anxious to do to get them out of the cardboard cartons in the barn.

Other than keeping the extensive grass mowed, I’ve been able to hack away at the brambles and lower branches enveloping the perimeter of the lawn. It has just taken me two hours to clear the base of a majestic walnut tree, for instance, ridding it of unwanted ivy that was smothering the trunk and chopping down yet another hazelnut that was crowding its older neighbor and choking its growth. (We see the beautiful walnut groves here, where the trees rise among carpets of wavy and well-tended grass – how embarrassing to have our lone walnut rising from a mound of ill-kempt weeds!)

I’ve also managed to clear one of our rock walls of an unsightly covering of ivy, preparing it to replace fallen stones and to re-grout its length. I’ve planted flowers and herbs in a few stone features around the house and completely cleared a section of our woods – a stand of pin oaks along our entry drive – of its tangle of blackberries-gone-wild. This last task resulted in piling up six huge stacks of branches and thorny brambles that I duly lugged to our ever-growing ‘pyre’ behind the barn. We will someday set that alight – and probably burn down half of Perigord if we don’t get a long soaking rain soon.