Settling in
Trip Start
Mar 29, 2006
1
60
232
Trip End
Feb 28, 2007
Felines Minervois,
France
Saturday, June 17, 2006
What a strange building. Although we had seen photos nothing could have prepared us for that layout. It had six rooms all on different levels but staggered up the building. The main entrance led into the kitchen. Off the kitchen to the left were steps down to a bedroom. From the kitchen up a short flight of stone stairs was the living area above the aforementioned bedroom. From the living room one could either step up to the bathroom level...above the kitchen...or climb a steep set of wooden stairs to the roof garden above the bathroom. A good spot for sun bathing in winter but too hot in summer we found out. Lastly, from the bathroom level one could take a short set of wooden steps, cross a narrow landing (above the living area) and enter the main bedroom under the roof.
So the top bedroom was over half the living room. The bathroom was between the two and directly over the kitchen and the lower bedroom was under the living room. One could not design such a place. It had to have been built ad hoc. Outside the kitchen, to the right of the main entrance was a totally enclosed garden and patio. The walls were as high as that of the house and of the adjacent homes with one exit to the street which we kept locked. We spent a lot of time out there. The outside walls were all of stone of which some were rendered but a lot of the rendering had fallen off. Much of the inside was bare stone as well with connecting walls of painted ply. The stairs were all of untreated pine, the floors in the kitchen and bathroom were tiled and there were original timbers in the living area. The whole was constructed around solid timber beams stretching across the house at different levels.
What spoilt the general effect was the décor. It was awful. Cheap rubber sofas, cast iron beds, crates for bedside tables, a weird old wood burning stove in the middle of the living area, an old pseudo antique chair...just the one and totally out of place. Most of this furniture seemed to have been picked up off the street or bought at the local markets and there was a miserable assortment of cooking utensils and cutlery.
There were a few plusses. All the windows were double glazed. That meant that they did not need the wooden shutters like the rest of the street. All the surrounding homes had their windows closed off with those shutters. I don't know how they got any light into their homes. Seems more traditional than of any serious use in keeping the homes cool. There was an electric fan under the roof but it was not very effective. There were lots of heating gadgets. Apparently it got very cold in winter. The sofas were actually very comfortable to stretch out on and read. The best room was the bathroom. It seemed to be finished whereas all the other rooms seemed to be works in progress. It was to be home for the next three weeks so we made the most of it. The hardest thing to come to terms with was the lack of TV and telephone. Just as well we had come prepared with lots of activities and books. Fortunately there was also a shelf full of interesting books in the house.
