Set off this morning to show a village house that hasn't attracted much attention up to now. Our French clients had been very specific about which properties they wanted to see and this was the first on the list. We had arranged to meet in the square and although we always wonder how we will recognize people we have never met before, somehow we thought that French people would be easy to spot. Little did we know that they had brought all their friends! Remember that scene from an old French film where a tiny car disgorges hordes of people, tables, chairs, cushions and picnic baskets etc. in a seemingly endless stream? Well, this wasn't far short of the crowd that we met and led down the narrow alleyways to the little stone house.
As we all of us squeezed through the narrow gateway and into the even narrower doorway, we were met by the sight of someone fast asleep in a bed just inside the door! Beating a fast retreat and shushing the noisy children of the group, I made a quick phone call to the Albanian tenant to check that we had the right time and day. "I'm coming," she said - "won't be long."
She probably wasn't that long, but when you are trying to converse in a language last spoken in school, a short time seems an eternity! We spent the time looking at the garden, which is in fact very much part of the living space. There is a small brick shed which houses the loo. Hanging from the outside wall is a plastic shelf containing toothbrushes and paste. mirror is propped against the wire fence to the next door yard and a hose pipe does double duty as shower and for watering plants. A stainless steel kitchen sink balances against the same wire fence, with pots and pans stacked on a brick shelf by its side.
Finally we were given the go-ahead to enter the house. And we did - all of us, one after the other, past the sleeping person, through to the next room, climbing over piles of clothing and discarded objects, moving chairs in order to fit up the extremely rickety stairs to the upper level, and then back down again, squeezing past the tail-enders going up as we came down.
Out into the garden again, where, in a mixture of French, Greek and English we managed to explain that the family who live in the house send all their money to their son in England who is completing a Masters degree in Aeronautical Engineering and simply cannot afford to live anywhere better.
Sarah and I left rather chastened that we sometimes complain of being short of money - this house is falling down around the ears of the family who live there - we are rich as Croesus by comparison.
The verdict of the French? Beaucoup de travail - too much work - poli douleia!
Susan
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