What's the time, Mr Wolf?

Much of my time at the moment is spent pretending to be someone else. Someone who understands French better than I do, someone who knows what she's talking about when discussing the intricacies of damp proof courses and RSJs, someone who cares about paint colours other than white. It's quite a familiar feeling - what parent hasn't marvelled at how wierd it is to be responsible for another human being whilst not feeling responsible enough to be looking after oneself? - but somehow lately the feeling has become acute. I've been feeling no older than 15 lately, and that's an improvement on the seven year old of last week. It may be a desperate attempt to shuffle off the responsibility of this whole project onto some other being dressed up as me, and it may just be that for some reason a lightness of being has crept up on me and made me incapable of a single serious thought (though heaven knows I was serious enough at 15, so it can't be that). Anyway I'm back in outer Paris after a refreshing pit stop in London last weekend to see my new adorable goddaughter Nell Bella Georgia Mabel Molly May Burton (and I may well have missed a couple of syllables there, apologies).

On Monday I went to check that the house was still standing, and found that the street was blocked by a line of fire engines. Fire engines serve multiple purposes here in France, from scooping up old ladies who've fallen over their shopping trolleys to rescuing children who've fallen down wells, only occasionally being pressed into service to put out fires, so it didn't necessarily mean anything bad. Overactive imaginations never listen to reason and it was inevitable that I would spend the seven minutes going the long way round picturing the dusty heap of bricks that was once my house forlornly occupying the plot. (I find if you imagine the worst it usually isn't that, a useful trick for warding off bad things.)

Well, the house is a mess, dusty and filled with rubble where once there were floors, but it is still standing, and some of it is looking downright lovely. This was the hall when we bought the house:

Now it looks like this:

I can't help thinking I'm right about white paint. This may only be undercoat but it's hard to see how it could be improved upon.

This meanwhile was a bedroom with a harmless bit of broken joist bringing the ceiling down which unfortunately you can hardly see:

Now it looks like this:

This, by the way, is what the salon/sejour looked like originally. I think I'd forgotten this because it was so disturbing, I can't shift the idea of it as the Bates Motel a la francaise from my mind:

It still gives me a chill to see it, even though its transformation appears to have exorcised the ghosts:


Oh, and my parents, my husband and Cath were right. The hole has been made in the kitchen wall, with two massive RSJs holding up the house, and through the rubble I can see that my whole life has improved with the destruction of the wall. Sorry folks. At least I know when I'm beat. And when I'm wrong: