We’ve been at it for about six months and can say, without fear of contradiction, that renovation – especially if done long-distance and in a foreign language – is not for the faint-hearted.
All correspondence, all expectations, all instructions, all desperate pleading, are done via Google translate and Google translate is not to be trusted. Trust me. What comes out at the other end requires much reading between the lines. It leads to much head scratching, much guessing, much gesticulating and, in the end, much resignation.
We’ve resigned ourselves to the fact that we won’t see much of the 2018 season in the holiday rental market. You see, we were hoping to be done by the end of May – at the very latest. Those in the know laughed heartily at our optimism. We were stoic, though. We had faith. We trusted the hands on deck.
We were wrong.
It’s taking longer.
Much longer.
Safe to say, it’s been a journey. In fact, it’s been a journey worthy of a TV series that may be a horror or a comedy, depending in your levels of grace. Being eternal optimists, we opt for the comedy version.
Like that time when our builder very confidently emailed to say the demolition on our property had been completed. Shock, horror! Demolition? Then we figured out he meant he had knocked down a wall as we asked him to.
Or when he told us he had finished the ceiling in the garden. The image that came to mind was quite delightful except that he was referring to a garage that we converted into a lounge.
No, renovating long-distance requires patience, a healthy imagination and a sense of humour overdose. The latter has been our saving grace…and continues to be as we hold out for a completion date somewhere in the region of more or less, let’s say, end of July.
That would be, July 2018.
We hope.
If it wasn’t for our fabulous estate agent, getting our water and electricity supply updated and registered and whatever else we needed to have done since we couldn’t understand what was needed, would have been a nightmare instead of a day-long outing. Eventually we just smiled and signed and trusted that since Fred looked satisfied with the outcome, all would and will continue to be well.
And if it wasn’t for Google translate, getting an internet connection set up at the property would have also been way less entertaining. We found an Orange agent whose English was sufficient enough to tell us she didn’t speak English. Our French didn’t even go that far.
So we negotiated uncapped wifi for a three-level, three-bedroom house, plus three apartments, all with the help of the lovely people at Google, who confuse the hell out of users with their literal translations that don’t wallow in the niceties of context.
This is how the consultation went down: The agent typed a comment or question into Google on her phone, ran a translation on it, gleefully held it out for me to read, took a while to absorb my total confusion, watched while I read and re-read between the lines, looked relieved when I seemed to come to some (fake) understanding, and gratefully accepted my phone with a now French response. Only to be dumped into total confusion herself, read and re-read between the lines, come to some sort of (fake) conclusion and start the process all over.
Eventually we just signed.
There was no fine print. Only the broad-stroke headlines.
We now have 140 French TV channels.
And wifi.
And no clue what else we signed up for.
We don’t know if we would have embarked on this crazy adventure if we knew what was in store. We hope so, because as indescribably frustrating as it has been at times, it has opened our hearts and our minds to the remote possibility that just because we’d always done things in a certain way, it doesn’t actually mean that way is the best way, or the only way, or the right way.
It has also made us appreciate charades and mime artists more than we ever thought necessary.
And, lastly, it has taken our life-journey on a path that one year ago, we would not have thought possible as we negotiate this road full of challenges, excitement, difficulties, possibilities, delights and amazing discoveries.
All of that to say we may, or may not, be open for business in August 2018.
Watch this space.
This wall in our new lounge makes us happy. very happy.
Plaster and paint have been removed from the exterior walls in the courtyard to reveal these beautiful stones. We're in love with these walls.
