Читать книгу Our House is Certainly Not in Paris - Susan Cutsforth - Страница 10

How would we manage without the internet? It is not possible to imagine all that we have achieved without instant access to information, sometimes information that throws us into a spin. Not only did we buy a car by email, install a pool by email, and organise a new gardener by email, we also had to shoot emails back and forth rapidly in a frantic effort to save our piscine in the big freeze. While at home, most of the state was experiencing severe floods, the European winter was one of the worst in memory.

Life at home was constantly awash in a never-ending torrent of rain that consumed our lives and conversation. Deep, deep snow and treacherous ice however, was not on our personal weather radar.

Meanwhile, throughout the year, every few days Stuart logged on to check the weather in France. This was mainly out of simple curiosity to see how the seasons were unfolding on the other side of the world, especially in our own special little place, Cuzance. It was primarily so he could announce to me the extremes of temperature and we would marvel from afar at the depths to which the temperature frequently plummeted. That is, until the winter of the big freeze; suddenly, sheer curiosity turned to extreme consternation. The temperature became an entirely different matter; it became personal – it was an inconceivable minus eighteen in Cuzance. The piscine was in peril.

Stuart sent an email to Piscine Ambiance. We needed to know urgently if our pool was at risk, not simply of freezing but if the pump was adequate, if it was likely to break down and if the new pool was likely to crack... As the previous summer had been mostly cool and damp, we had literally only used la piscine on a couple of occasions. It was not worth thinking about the possibility of our pool, sitting all alone in an empty orchard, possibly near the end of its days – frozen, broken, cracked and spilling a river of water across our rustique jardin. So now we had to call Piscine Ambiance as well, organising the time by email to ensure we were able to speak to someone in the office.

This time it was not the president or Yannick or Nicholas, as in all our previous email communication the year before. It was a new young English girl, Hannah. She calmly confirmed that yes, indeed it was imperative to send a technician immediately.

Naturally the night that the call is arranged for, Stuart is out playing bridge. He assures me it will be a straightforward matter. Naturally it’s not. Hannah asks me a series of questions about the pump, the switch and the mechanism’s operation. I vaguely recall that Stuart has told me the switch is set to go on for two hours a day. I frantically scribble notes and questions to leave for Stuart when he gets in late at night after bridge. At midnight, he too has to call Hannah to sort out the complexities of the long distance piscine. Now why doesn’t that surprise me that he has to step in after all to sort it out?

The next morning before work, I hastily check with him what’s happening to save la piscine.

He fills me in and lets me know that a technician will go to Cuzance as soon as possible – snow and ice permitting – to check on the pool and the switch. I hesitate to ask how much this will cost. The euro conversion takes a while for me to calculate. Once I manage to do so, it’s not an attractive calculation, especially first thing in the morning. It is now that I raise the question – somewhat hesitantly – of why the technician who came on site to brief Stuart on the complexities of operating and maintaining a pool – especially long distance – hadn’t raised this critical point. As it transpires, he most certainly did.

However, and yes, I can understand this, it was on one of the few significantly hot days the previous summer that the technician came to discuss la piscine’s maintenance and operation. Yes, the issue of extremes in temperature had been discussed, including the possibility of snow and ice. On a blazing hot summer’s day, such a thought however, was inconceivable. Stuart chose not to have the switch installed that would prevent la piscine being in peril. And so, the technician ventured out on the icy perilous roads to save la piscine. As for the water pipes in the petite maison, on our return, we knew that would be another matter entirely.