Better now

I have been so touched by everyone’s kind and heartfelt messages of sympathy about this setback. This avalanche.

But it’s amazing what a difference two days make. I feel much stronger and ready to just put my head down and get the tasks done.

I can even pick my way across the rubble field that was our huge courtyard and path up to the potting shed and not weep. Progress.

We decided to attack the pool area first off today.  And it’s funny how salutory it is to just get the tonnes of soil off the decking and the lawn. It is laborious – hands and knees and picking each and every bit of gravel and stone. But I was even having mad thoughts of getting the mower out and doing the lawns.

It’s a febrile attempt to wrestle some control.

And it might work. I’ve stopped writing out lists as they run to pages. But I will do the work bit by bit.

And we are bouyed up by all the help that is about to pour in.  Bernard and Manu are starting Monday to dig all the topsoil out of the pool, and then go up to the forest to dig culverts and build walls.  And Nicolas (the original wall builder and path maker) is coming tomorrow to try and get some of the paths back into place.

I might have to be ready with the smelling salts. The first view of his huge long wall lying on the grass like a toppled Lenin statue is going to be a shock.

And I’m sure Alex won’t mind me adding a bit of his email today in response to my endless summer lament about my pests in the potager. I had proposed getting some terriers in to dig up the entire garden and lay waste to the design:  ‘while I admire your extreme anti rat-taupe measures I feel you may have gone too far’.  That made me laugh.

The only way is up.