Bringing down the Barriers- Part deux

And so to another,  rather less pleasant,  experience with the perimeter of my French estate. I feel I have been quite calm and collected about this so far, but as it is an Anglo-German conflict taking place on French soil, I am concerned that somewhere the social niceties of neighbourly etiquette have been lost in translation. Bear with me whilst I explain.

Last winter at about this time, I was undecided as to whether to visit Nowhere-in-France. I sent my neighbour an e-mail saying that I may or may not come, and she replied, suggesting that it might be in my interests, as the house next door on the other side had been sold, and the builders were renovating it. This, in itself, would have been a Good Thing, but apparently they’d opened new windows in the rear wall of this house. The rear wall forms part of our perimeter wall, and is (was) a beautiful feature, with five or six “niches de poule” along its length, where I’ve been able to sit summer plants in the niches. Until now. Apparently, the builders had broken through two of the “niches” and inserted my least favourite architectural feature: glass bricks.

I was anxious to see this, so booked my flights and went over. And, sure enough, two of the niches were indeed now filled with glass bricks, although they were still niches. It looked hideous, not least because the builders, without access to the wall on my side, had left huge globs and stalactites of plastic filler hanging down. And then I went into the barn where we keep firewood, to discover that they’d inserted a new beam through the wall, and great lumps of wall had fallen through onto the barn floor! I was later to discover that the neighbour on the other side had fared even less well, as the other end of the same beam had apparently made an appearance through the wall behind the wardrobe in their bedroom!!

Now, I may be being a bit too “British” about this, but frankly if my builders were about to wreak havoc on my derelict property and possibly impact or impinge upon my neighbours, I might just have popped round or stuck a note through their letterbox to explain and apologise in advance for any inconvenience. You know, just to get off on the right foot and all that! But not my new neighbours, oh no. They remained conspicuous by their absence.

Owing to the hole in my barn and the stalactite-and-glass-brick combo, I popped round ready to tackle their builders, who were on site. In fairness, they were pleasant and helpful, and within hours they’d come over and filled the hole in the barn wall, and done the making good on the glass bricks on my side of the wall. However, they were a bit slapdash with the latter, and wiped the glass off with the same cloth they’d used on the cement, leaving very little chance of light permeating through the cement-smeared glass. Peevishly, I decided that this was not my problem, and left it to dry. After all, it made the glass bricks less apparent….

One thing I did discover, thanks to the builders, was that my new neighbours were German. They would, like us, be using their newly-acquired property as a holiday home, and as the works were nearly complete, they were shortly due to arrive. On this occasion, I didn’t get to meet them.

Fast forward to the Spring of last year. Once more in France, I discovered that the house next door was finished. The man of the couple was apparently in residence. Under the previous occupant, the small front garden had had a set of double gates opening onto it, where a car could easily be parked. However, the new neighbours had walled in their whole garden, leaving them nowhere to park…except outside my barn door. Which was what they had apparently chosen to do! 

As it happened, on my list of projects for that trip was to repaint my barn door. This was going to be difficult with someone else’s car parked across it, so I popped round and rang the bell, and made my first acquaintance with my new neighbour, whose name I forget, but for ease and alliteration, I shall call him Herman the German.

I explained that I needed him to move his car, as I wanted to paint the barn doors. He was very accommodating, and agreed to do so. He also explained that he’d bought the barn next door to mine, and was intending to create his own garage. In the meantime (and I quote) “You don’t mind me parking here, do you?” I think that in French, this sort of thing is generally referred to as a “fait accompli”. It’s also the sort of question that can leave one  with the same dilemma as questions like “Do you still beat your wife?” as, however you answer,  it leaves you sounding a bit churlish unless you say “Oh, not at all, that’s fine”. I managed NOT to say that, but, wrong-footed, I failed to say what I should have said, which was “And now that you’ve got rid of your own parking space in order to make a bigger garden, I’m just supposed to let you park across my barn doors, right?”

I stuttered a non-commital reply, explaining (I thought) that it was OK for a while, but that we did expect and need unfettered access to our barn. And that, I thought, would be that. After all, they had bought a barn to make their own garage…

Summer….and I was back. Oddly, considering that the gate was locked, and that my house is surrounded by the now famous wall, I was surprised and puzzled to notice that the glass bricks were now sparkling clean. It appeared that my new neighbours had scaled the walls without so much as a word, and cleaned their windows from my garden. I was miffed and ready to enquire . H the G was still parking outside our barn, but almost as soon as I arrived, he left. Only to be replaced by other Germans, who parked their car – yes, you guessed – outside our barn. I realised that H the G was renting his house out as a holiday let, and had clearly told his tenants that it was fine to park there.  A red mist descended…

Thus it was,  reader, that on one of the hottest and most humid days of last summer, whilst the tenants were out, I purchased 3 fence posts, a length of chain and a “No Parking” sign, and set about reclaiming my own property. I should add that the ongoing presence of a car on my little bit of land had prevented me doing any routine maintenance of the patch, and once I’d erected my barriers I set about weeding and mowing the grass. It’s a tiny space, but you will understand how things were if I tell you that there were waist-high nettles and flattened grass, and that it took several hours and the removal of over nine wheelbarrow-loads of debris to tidy it up.

Fast forward to last week…H the G now has a spanking new garage door. It must, however, be a bit far for him to walk to his front gate, because he (or someone…but I know where my money is) has removed the 3 fence posts I erected, together with the chain AND the “No Parking” sign, and there are clear tyre tracks from a parked car on the grass. In my book, that’s a declaration of war. It’s taking the German “beach towel on the sun-lounger” stereotype way too far.  I’m starting to feel how Poland felt….

Whilst the builder was round to quote for repairing my wall, I got him to quote for a concreted-in post and a metal eyelet in the wall, to take the new, thicker, stronger chain that I will be acquiring to hang between them. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll get barbed wire and searchlights..