What do you do each day? This was the question most frequently asked of me when I first came to live here. I came here to the Tarn in France to help a friend with the restoration of an enormous building which had been built as an embroidery factory around 1880. That was easy to answer; let the builders in, rush to the hardware shop three times before lunch, (because they will be closed between mid day and two o'clock),climb and descend the five flights of stairs countless times a day and then try to get some assurance from the builders at the end of each day that they would return next morning. In addition to painting,and daily cleaning up(something our French builders had never heard of)and falling into bed exhausted each night, that is what I did each day for six months over and over again with little variation. Once the building was fit for habitation we rented out apartments, ran a coffee shop and an antique centre for the summer.
After eight months hard slog at La Gaudane in Cordes sur Ciel it was time to return to Australia. But instead I rented a cottage in a tiny Hamlet nearby for six months and bought an old Peugeot 205. That was six happy years ago come next Australia Day. Now I am joinging the army of global bloggers. I hope you will enjoy sharing Time out in the Tarn with me.
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