Being an exclusive excerpt from the enormously anticipated follow-up to The Paysanne Cook Book, currently called The Paysanne Cook Book II.  Work is in progress to come up with something slightly more original.

Roquebrun is a bit special, a seriously beautiful Italianate village, tumbling down to the river Orb, a bit like an inland Portmeirion but incredibly ancient, with the remains of a Carolinian castle( No! I didn’t know what that was either) from which the incumbent used to rush out and mug passing pilgrims. Having religious convictions was a dicey business in this part of France for a long time. It has a Mediterranean climate, due to its south facing, sheltered position, river beaches and much more in the way of hill walking than any normal person could ever contemplate. It is also within easy reach of Beziers, Narbonne and the sea.

It was the hill walking which had drawn us to the place, as we had got into a routine of walking while I was still trying to build myself up after a jag in hospital. We had stumbled round a corner at the end of a three hour scramble to be confronted by the magic view of the back of the village and been so smitten that Barbara took a photograph of it. Twelve months down the line we were here again, viewing this derelict stone barn in the same place. We bought it on the spot after enough haggling over the price to satisfy honour on both sides. We thought we had stolen it and the vendor thought he had screwed the daylights out of us, so we were both happy with the deal.

The barn had in fact been a stable, owned, it turned out by an Italian charcoal burner who had kept his work horses there. It stands at the end of a block of three wine cuvees, and had a single storey, stone lean to garage with a concrete roof. At the side and at first floor level, is a garden in which there is a very old stone mazet, a shed, built into the rock face behind, which would have been used as a shelter for itinerant workers. 

All four of the properties had been given outline planning permission, but detailed planning was required and because of its position on a National Heritage site within the Haut Languedoc National Park, this would come under the auspices of Bâtiments de France at Montpellier, as well as the building control department at St Chinian and also the local Mairie at Roquebrun.

I can do all sorts of things! …. I can navigate and sail a boat, I can play the double bass, I can build more or less anything, and having done so, I can put a roof on it. I can cure foot rot in sheep and I can castrate pigs. I have made a living playing, building, farming and catering for forty odd years. High on the much longer list of things I can’t do, somewhere between neuro-surgery and turning on the computer, is a paranoid inability to deal with bureaucrats. I say paranoid because I’m scared that one day, I’ll strangle one of the bastards. On a scale of one to ten for over- administration France scores about fourteen, so the thought of dealing with three separate layers of French local government to get our building permit filled me with dread. I was passing on these dark thoughts to the estate agent when she suggested that we try Pauline Giles. What a great idea that was!

Pauline has lived in France for about 25 years. She is married to a monoglot French builder, Didier. She and her kids are effortlessly bi-lingual. In addition to working with Didier and running their Chambre d’Hôte business, she looks after God knows how many holiday homes for other people and will process applications, deal with utilities and generally fight your corner for you. She has a steady gaze and a pneumatic handshake.

Pauline first made an appointment to see the Maire at Roquebrun, to run our proposals past him. By the time an audience had been granted, we had already picked up the application forms we needed and Barbara had produced a preliminary set of working drawings, so armed to the teeth we arrived at the appointed hour. Our proposal was to re-instate the first floor in the main building, get rid of the concrete roof over the garage and turn it into a kitchen with a bedroom over. Any new work was to be carried out in stone to match the existing. The constraints laid down by the National Park authorities regarding materials, window sizes and colours, we would have complied with anyway, so there was nothing to argue about. We have always been pretty committed conservationists and don’t do plastic doors etc.

M. Castell, the Maire, was a bit of a surprise. He wore jeans and a dark shirt, had thick, slicked back black hair and heavy glasses. If you can imagine Roy Orbison without the sequins and the guitar, you’re about there. I was expecting the sort of self important little git in a not very good suit, beloved of local government in the UK. Other than hitting us with a tax of 1000 euros to connect up to the drains, the whole thing was quite painless. M. Castell was happy with our proposals and told us that, as an exercise in ego massaging,( this accompanied by rubbing his fingers on his sleeve) the smart move was to show them to the Bâtiments de France architect in Montpellier for his comments, prior to submitting them to the building control department, so that became the next task.

Two of our favourite ex pats, Keith and Betty Williams, who have a house in the Minervois have taken a keen interest in our project since day 1. Keith is a retired architect and explained to me how the system worked. He had made an appointment to see the same guy in Montpellier, in the course of helping out a neighbour in his village. They had made the two hour trip to Montpellier and were kept waiting from 10am until 4pm because the Bâtiments people couldn’t be bothered to make specific appointments and just told everybody to get there at the same time. Even Keith, whose career was largely spent dealing with government departments, and as a result can achieve Zen like levels of stoicism, was a bit upset. I would have had to leave before I started breaking things. It was clearly another job for Pauline.

You could only get to see this fellow on one day of the week, always assuming that that day didn’t fall on a public holiday or he wasn’t washing his hair or didn’t feel like it. Pauline pestered his secretary until she got him on the phone, e-mailed him our proposals then pestered him again until she got his comments, e-mailed him the revised drawings with the very minor amendments he had suggested and then pestered him until he confirmed that he was happy with everything. He must have been jumping for joy to think she was off his back! Only one layer to go!

By now it was June and time to get our boat Marianna ready for the sailing season. Typically Keith had offered to help if he could and we left his number with Pauline, who had dropped off the drawings at the building control department at St Chinian. About six weeks later we were sailing up the Clyde when Pauline rang. She had been notified that our plans had been rejected because we were proposing to build on land which we did not own. She had already spoken to Keith, and they were going to check out the drawings.

This was worrying and frustrating and there was absolutely nothing I could do. I needn’t have worried however because the boys done good! A few days later, she rang again to say that Keith had been to the site with his son, re-measured it all and produced a beautifully drawn site plan, with his ARIBA qualifications prominent.

This they had taken into the building control office, where Keith, with considerable professional gravitas had assured them that if anyone’s drawings were wrong, it certainly wasn’t ours and suggested that they might have a rethink. We had just finished putting Marianna to bed for the winter in early September, when Pauline rang again. We had our building permit…… Game, set and match! 

To order a copy of the original Paysanne Cook Book, please send a cheque for £8.00 (£6.50 plus £1.50 for post and packing) to Paysanne, 147 Station Road, Deganwy, Conwy, North Wales, LL31 9EJ along with your name and address.