Le Boudoir

Two weeks after a self-imposed end-of-February deadline to have the master bedroom finished, we finally move in.

There is still work to do, such as finishing off the fireplace with a surround and fancy tiles; adding a skirting board to the new dry wall and, finally, reverse hanging a door in what is now my wife’s beautifully fitted out new wardrobe.

Sadie also has plans to restore a bottle-green, cast-iron stove that we found in a sorry state in one of the outbuildings. The plan is to get it working so we can have a log fire in the room, as the chimney appears to be in good order. For now its function is purely decorative and it fits right in with our colour scheme.

The room has cost us next-to-nothing as we have done most the work ourselves and have furnished it mainly with items and accessories we have either been given, found or bought cheaply from local brocantes.

Apart from the 10 hand-made tiles for the fireplace, the most expensive item is the mattress. Rather fortuitously we dismantled, and brought over, our bed in the car when we went back to the UK in January and managed to buy a king-size mattress from a local outlet that delivered on Saturdays.

Moving in day is spent waxing the wood floor, hanging the expensive drapes (that were a gift) and finishing off fitting out the wardrobe for my wife’s clothes and shoes.

Sadie informs me that creating the wardrobe is the sexiest thing I have ever done for her, I can think of others, but to say she is thrilled with the result is an understatement, and for now I am placed on her happy board, along with the cats, until my next misdemeanour.

I must admit, it that I have surprised myself with the reformation of the closet. Three months ago, the mere act of dismantling the bed and reassembling it would have caused me a degree of anxiety.

Apart from saving money on paying someone, the work in general has given us both confidence that with a little bit of patience, planning and common sense we can do a lot of it ourselves, with pleasing results and little arguing.

It may have taken us three months but there were mitigating factors such as A) it is quite a large space; B) I am working full-time, and Sadie also had a lot to deal with regarding the plans for the outside, residency applications etc; and C) we sacked off some of the weekends to either go cycling, looking around brocantes or socialising with actors, artists and local theatre companies.

We even managed a trip to the hairdressers one weekend as they remained open, much to the envy of our friends in the UK suffering from lockdown hair. Coiffures, like boulangeries, are such a part of the fabric of the country one gets the impression there would be rioting in the streets if they were forced to close. And I must admit having salon-quality hair and a decent daily baguette is something I too feel strongly about and would show my support by demonstrating on the street, if it came to it, as long as it was after lunch.

At night we close the shutters on our new space, as not only does it help sound-proof the room from the road but blocks the rather annoying street lamp that is attached to the wall right next to one of the windows.

I make another mental note to have a word with the Mairie about Le lumen and how it is messing with my mood lighting in the boudoir.

Closing the shutters, which are blue, and made of metal, on the world makes me feel very French, apart from when I trap my finger in the cantilever hinges … then I revert to cursing in the Anglo-Saxon vernacular. The night air is still cold and fresh and because of the continuing curfew the town is deadly quiet when we go to bed.

I draw the drapes and in the morning we wake with sunlight streaming through the slits in the shutters. We watch the cats slide across the wood floor, take coffee in bed and plan our day. It is also a place where I can practice my yoga; 50 minutes of ashtanga, that I have been doing regularly four to five times a week, since the beginning of lockdown, which combined with cycling or walking has kept me trim and extremely fit.

Regular yoga has also cured my RSI injury on my right arm, which was getting quite bad before I embarked on my regime.

I have been practising yoga for 20 years and am lucky I guess that I can continue in lockdown by having the space, time, set-up and experience to self-practice.

My office is in a small room, next to the bedroom and the plan is to give it to Sadie as her studio, where she can write and compose and work on a new idea for a play. I will move into the backroom, once we have done a quick refurb and got rid of the maroon walls that make it look more like a traditional opium den with a smattering of colonialism, gothic-wardrobe, cheap carpet and exposed electricity cables.

We have been sleeping in the room for the past three months, almost, and it was starting to have a psychological effect on us, with the cold weather outside and the feng-shui nightmare inside I was in danger of going all Jack Torrance, as in Jack Nicholson in The Shinning: “Sadie? Darling? Light of my life… I’m not gonna hurt ya..”

But that episode is now behind us, what is ahead is the landing and its nightmare five-metre drop down a twisting staircase that could be our true nemesis, which, in order to conquer, will take courage, guile and a long ladder, preferably with me holding it at ground level.