New Chapter

TEACHINGS
After a month as the highest educated and least competent builder in France, I have learned a few lessons:
1. repetitive physical work is hard but rewarding
2. there are A LOT of tools out there I had never heard about before
3. I am so clumsy that I am convinced my right hand is actually another left hand with a superiority complex
4. don't hold a nail gun the wrong way around. Next time, it may not have a safety latch and I may shoot myself in the forehead. (the look of profound compassion on the carpenter's face when he saw me do that!)
5. my life as a builder is not over yet.

SILENCE
Postings have been scarce, to say the least. First because the last days on the building sites were stressful and the lunches boozy. In order to finish on time Ernesto hired another builder, Johan a 30 year old lad, whose gipsy mum gave him a sense of pride that seemed to have translated very well in picking up fights in night clubs. The tales of head-butting and knocking-out random strangers filled the last afternoons in a mix of French and Gipsy slang that lead me to utter boredom.  I therefore proceeded to listen to FM news radio while mixing white and yellow sand with white-wash to create a cream-colored mortar for stone walls. Then it was all over. Building finished. Hooray,I finally had time to write.
But first we went swimming on the sunday, and on the way back were invited for  a spot of lunch at our friends who run a restaurant in the next door village. We drank and ate, and I dragged my pal Nicolas in my field to help me out with clearing off a path for the kids at the bottom of the hill.
We did that for 5 minutes. Then he broke his leg, just like that. He slid and that was it.
Because they're barely holding it together financially, Nicolas and his wife haven't subscribed any special insurance. Thus, he couldn't hire anybody to replace him in the restaurant. So his wife Carole has been doing the cooking and Sue and I have been waiting tables since. This has kept us busy for 10 days and we gained another insight in French rural life, which will be detailed here soon (tbc).