5 jan

Chassenat. The bathroom with our bedroom is larger than Merlin. Quite a bit larger in fact. And twice as high. The bedroom is larger than the bathroom and the livingroom larger than the bedroom. The dining room is larger than the living room and then there is also a second bedroom with its own bathroom, a kitchen, a hall and a staircase that leads one to a lower floor and an upper floor, each of the same size as just described.
Paul and Karen gave us a tour last night, and Tony and Heather (guardians of the house when Paul and Karen are in Holland) did the same thing today, including showing us the box of keys to all the outbuildings and what to do when a power failure would cut out electricity. ‘The electricity in the house has been renewed, Tony said, but the electricity infrastructure of France is quite antique. Tony is english, from York. I am pretty sure a Frenchman would have phrased it differently.
And then Tony and Heather were gone, and we had paradise for ourselves. We got all our stuff out of the camper and the car – enough to be carried with one pinky finger – and hid it in a dark little corner of Chassenat. We filled up our respective baths, soaked for a while, and then went around one more time, just by ourselves.
The house is full with books. I saw a book by Jared Diamond I wanted to read, I saw a book by Charles Lewinsky I wanted to read, I saw a book by Marin Gilbert I wanted to read, I saw some books by E.H. Gombrich (not History of Art) I wanted to read. I saw a novel by Saskia Noort that I could read in between, and the novel The Historian, and …, and …, and …
I won’t be bored here. I still have a stack of books that I brought myself.
And then there is a pool table. In all my dream houses there is a pool table. An American pool table, with holes in the corners. Oh yes, after this experience I will be able to beat all my brothers in law back in America. And my hand eye coordination will be so steady that even the superior European driebander game will have no secrets for me anymore.
There will be time and space for myself too. Living on each others lips has been easier than I thought. One gets used to little spaces and even to ones own side of the table and ones own side of the bed can be very comfortable hideouts. But it is not physical form of hiding, and it is good to have those kind of hiding places too.
Virginia Woolf claimed that every person needed to have a room for their own, and she was right. More than one room isn’t really necessary, but one takes what one can get. Now make sure that we are not starting to think that everyone needs a castle for their own. Because that would be overdemanding, which we shouldn’t do.