This summer isn’t turning out the way I planned at all. Forget sunlit fields of lavender and evening drinks on the terrace. Instead it’s pouring with rain, the din from next door’s builders is so deafening we can’t set foot in the back garden and my teenage son is lying flat on his back upstairs with a metal plate in his shoulder. The only thing cheering him up after his mountain-bike accident is the prospect of getting back on his bike again as fast as possible.

I don’t even know whether he’ll be strong enough for the trip we planned to the south of France. Two years ago I bought a tumbledown farmhouse in a little-known region called the Drôme. The roof had fallen in, the garden was littered with old scrap and the entire place needed, as my friend Jane so delicately put it, “bringing back to life.” The last time I clapped eyes on the place – a year ago - it still looked dilapidated and unloved. Three-foot high thistles sprouted out of the courtyard, the first floor shutters dangled pitifully from their hinges and despite the scorching Provençal heat the whole place smelled of damp. Worse still, when we climbed the stairs, a plague of rats jumped out of the bathroom and ran for their lives.

Standing next to me, my daughter was made of sterner stuff. She promptly began pulling decades-old wallpaper off the walls and went into raptures about the view across rolling fields towards the imposing Roche Colombe in the distance.

 

“When do you think I’ll be able to invite all my friends here?” she asked.

 

I watched a spiral of faded pink wallpaper float down into the courtyard.

 

“Maybe about 2020?”

 

Recently though, I’ve been getting more optimistic. The architect friend who’s taking charge of the renovation has stripped the ground-floor back to its original stone, ordered new windows to replace some of the dodgy 60s ones and got local builders to construct a new roof. There’s still no kitchen, no bathroom and, being ultra-squeamish, nowhere I’d like to sleep. Perhaps I’ll wait a while before I book those Eurostar tickets.

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