building bridges

Last week I was very upset to see that the entrance to the wood across the road from the house, and ergo access to “my” stream (no one else goes there), had been blocked with piles of wood, barbed wire and machinery. It would take some determination to make a way through, not to mention ballsiness, since the owner is a belligerent peasant. A few years ago Juan drew his attention to the fact that, by using an angle grinder during lunchtime, he was in transgression of a communal rule. His response was to physically threaten Juan. One definitely wouldn’t want to be found trespassing, wire cutters in hand.

But I couldn’t believe that I would be unable to appeal to his better nature. So, this morning, when I saw him on the bridge on his tractor I ran to the scene to launch a charm offensive.

“So what are you in such a hurry for?” he asked.

“Ah yes, er, I saw you and there’s a couple of things I’d like to talk about. I guess you’re the owner of this land?”

Bad question. It triggered a tirade about the seventeen-year land-acquisition process he was engaged with; how the filthy swine in the neighbouring house were illegally parking their vehicles there, blocking in his agricultural equipment; and how the only person who could force them to move was the land owner who would then be required to pay/impose a 400€ fine to release the vehicles (I got lost in bureaucracy at this point). I didn’t point out that it served him right, for putting the equipment there (he never uses it, it was just a dog-in-manger ploy to stop people parking). Clearly, the strategy hadn’t worked.

“I’m a responsible citizen”, he vented. “I do everything the right way. I look after my property. And it pisses me off that people leave their rotting vehicles there.”

“I’m completely with you on that. I don’t like the view of them from my kitchen window, either. I’d be more than happy to add my voice to yours, and contact the mayor.”

“The mayor is useless – incapable of lifting a finger.”

“But the problem for me is that I can’t now get to the stream. Do you have any suggestions?”

He seemed to find this hilarious.

“It’s my land. And if I wanted to wander around your garden?”

A different tactic was needed.

“Monsieur, I have a question for you.” I paused to check I had his attention.

“Can you authorize me to go into your wood?”

“Yes, why not.”

“And how am I going to get in?”

More laughter.

“How much space do you need? 50 cm or so?”

“Yes, that would be enough.”
“Well just cut a way through.”

My god. Have I just managed to negotiate access to the stream? I held out my hand and we shake on the “deal”.

And now he is worryingly friendly.

“I live just over there” (the eighteenth-century farmhouse directly across the stream from ours). “I’m going to renovate the barn and create two flats. Would you like to see? How about joining me for an apéro?”

Oh dear, where are we going with this. But what the heck. I’m in the mood to see if my psychotic, anti-social neighbour has a soft side.

“Call the police if I’m not back in half an hour”, I call to my immediate neighbours, as I walk towards his house.

Entering the kitchen I gasp, wishing I had a camera to document the time warp. Ancient pots and pans are hanging from the ceiling, a saddle and riding hats mounted on the wall, faded sixties flowery wallpaper, original tiled floor. We sit down at a long oak table and he offers me a choice of Pastis or a drink that I don’t recognise, akin to Dubonnet. A large bowl of well-pawed crisps, to which I give wide berth, is adjacent.

We re-introduce each other and Michel Geymond gives me a potted life history. How his grandparents made their money from the glove industry at a time when mourning gloves, for a deceased member of the UK royal family (presumably George V, in 1936), created huge market demand. It enabled them to buy the farm and they continued as farmers, supplying the Vizille market with their produce. His grandfather lived with two women: his wife, and her sister who arrived three days after her own marriage had been deemed a failure. The ménage à trois worked well for all!

Geymond was born, and grew up in, the house. He studied metallurgy at one of the French engineering schools, Ecole des Mines de Saint-Étienne. Working subsequently in research, he made his fortune via a patent. This enabled him to buy land and property, including a huge place in Tuscany, now being run as a livery stable. It’s the reason for his occasional absences from the area.

He is clearly an adoring dad, the photos of his medic sons covering the walls. Along with motorbikes.

“One of my passions.”

“And the other one?”

“The mountains. I love going up to the lakes above the Pra Refuge, of Lac du Crozet. To fish.”

“But not horses any more?”

“No. But I won the competition at the Uriage show a few years ago. I rode for eighteen years.”

And now, a peasant but not a peasant, no longer needing to earn or make money, he amuses himself with the walnut plantation on the Vizille road, his lucerne crop at Vif, and the beehives recently installed 100 m up the road from us.

Geymond then took me on a grand tour of the house, now divided into two so that he could let out the other half; the mini flat he uses for himself, across the courtyard; the stables, now a tool space, where the original feeder on the wall; the massive barn with ancient carriage (used by his grandfather to collect his "second wife"), and agricultural equipment that will soon become two flats. One of his sons is project manager – it’s this next generation that has an emotional attachment to the property, not their dad, who would happily have sold up. For him Vaulnaveys-le-Bas is neither town nor country, and he has never felt at ease in the commune. It's not like in his parents' time, when 30 people would gather together to eat, at harvest time. Ironically, I know what he means.

“How nice to know I have such a nice neighbour." Back at the kitchen table the conversation takes an unfortunate turn when he learns that my husband is absent during the week. And there is the predictable cheesy innuendo, which I straighten out immediately.

“No, I love being on my own, thank you…”

A pity. Against all the odds the guy is good company. I try to get back on terra firma:

“I’d love to have a bee hive.”

He finds this cute. And it of course opens the door for him to offer to teach me. Well, why not. On the other hand, help – way too complicated. I’m happy to stick with my 50 cm path into the forest.