18. Sorgeat

“La maison a une âme”, said one of the ladies – neither of whom spoke a word of English.

“A what?”

“A ghost”, the lawyer replied.

We raised our eyebrows, having just spent the last hour listening to the legal proceedings relating to the house we decided to buy. We’d understood about 20 percent of it, and were still somewhat unsure about which of the two ladies was actually the one selling the house. But at the end, they seemed happy and gave us the keys, which we took to be a good sign.

“It’s a good thing”, the lawyer insisted.

So now, for better or worse, we own a small cottage about a kilometer above sea level in the Pyrenees. As is becoming something of theme, we decided to do this quite impulsively last November as a weekend escape from the flatlands of Toulouse and slightly as bribery to encourage people to visit us.

Buying a house in the Ariege, however, is not a fast process. The mayor of the village (population about 50) had 3 months to decide whether or not he wanted to buy the house (a privilege which was fully exploited).

Dave coping admirably with the sub-optimal Pyrenean snow conditions

Our first weekend in the house coincided with a work meeting in Barcelona (which our house is half-way to), which happily meant that our friend Dave Lawrence was with us. We decided to leave our arrival until the Saturday morning because of the logistics of arriving in an empty house at night (and definitely not because of the ghosts).

We turned the key (which worked), and optimistically flicked the light switch -which didn’t, (unsurprisingly, having only organized an electricity contract a day earlier). Upon closer inspection, it became clear that there was, in fact, a very small power allowance before the circuit breaker tripped – leading to an Apollo 13-esque analysis of whether we could heat soup and have the lights on at the same time.

It was very clear, however, that we couldn’t turn the electric heating on – so we went to knock on our new neighbor’s door to inquire about where we might find some firewood. A lady emerged – and after we managed to relay the problem, seemed delighted, and disappeared back into the house, soon emerging with a bundle of wood. Before we could thank her, she went back inside – beckoning me in.

I followed her down into the cellar, where it became clear there was about 3 years worth of wood, no chimney and an ambition to renovate her basement. While this was an excellent state of affairs, and she was clearly happy to move all 3 tonnes of it that afternoon, we made our excuses after acquiring a few weeks worth of firewood and promised to come back for the rest.

Sam casually summitting a 2000m peak.

We spent the weekend unpacking and hiking around the local trails, and somewhat obsessively pondering what to do with the currently “bold” mottled red-orange paint-job that the previous owner had conducted. My opinions vary wildly depending on the time of day, enjoying the fiery cave-like warmth in the evening and certain that it all has to be painted white during the day.

The electricity came on properly after a few days, and it became clear that the hot water tank wasn’t really functional. My day mostly consisted of repeatedly going to the local quincaillerie, getting some useful advice but them ultimately not having the right thing in stock, driving 20 miles to the nearest big town, buying thing, coming come, realizing that I needed another thing… repeat.

As with many French businesses, I’m unsure how Monsieur quincaillerie actually makes a living – deliberately avoiding stocking anything which might actually bring in customers. On my second visit, as he was kindly (without prompting) mending our broken pressure regulator, his wife came in and shouted at him for a full 3 minutes and then left – leaving me to suspect that he might own the shop simply to avoid her.

The hot water now works, albeit not very convincingly, but we’ve acquired some cabin whisky and we sit next to the embers of a glowing fire. âme - it turns out, means soul - and it indeed appears to have some here (any ghosts appear at least to be benevolent).

Tomorrow, regretfully, we return (briefly) to the real world...