Breaking Into Our Own House, 5 July

We were up at midnight as planned and on our way 30-minutes later. Tash got up to see us off, which was a really appreciated gesture. I’d managed to get a couple of hours sleep, but the eyes were still a little strained as we set off in the dark. The road was clear, and we made good time to the Eurostar terminal. Boarding commenced immediately and, despite a fair old queue for passport control (at 02:30!) the boarding and crossing were uneventful. As was the journey to Uzerche. Normally we would have a night’s stopover in Calais or Amiens but this time a hotel didn’t appeal (due to the Coronavirus) and the plan was a straight run. I wanted to by-pass Paris before 07:30 to avoid traffic. I started to tire as we approached the city, but I pushed through and got my second wind the other side. We arrived at noon – 11-hours door-to-door.

After 11 hours on the road, we were now faced with having to break into the house. You may remember that our neighbour had had the misfortune of breaking the key off in the lock back in January. This was the first time we had been out since.  We’d had an extra strong ‘fishing’ magnet delivered to our neighbour in the hope it might 'pull' the broken piece of the key out of the lock. We retrieved the magnet but the broken piece of key refused to budge.

Plan B, we could get into one of the garages but would then have to break through a bolted door into the second garage and the break into a second bolted door to get into the house and the hall. Despite coming equipped with tools, including an electric drill, getting into the first garage was a major job which included partially demolishing the door. The next door was much easier – partly due to our now being in the garage that had a wide variety of tools, including jemmy bars.

Damaged Door - undergoing later repairs

Now we were at the front door and the last hurdle was incredibly easy. Fortunately, I’d had the foresight to bring a pair of surgical tweezers with me. With these I was able to not only grip the errant piece of key, I was able to turn it, unlock the door and remove it. Success!

A quick reconnoitre of the house revealed two issues, and lots of spider webs. The first issue was that woodworm was back in the cellar. Not a lot, but there were two or three piles of sawdust on the dustsheets we’d left on the floor (to help detect just this issue). The second problem was that the garage roof that I had spent so much time, expense, and effort waterproofing last year – had leaked.

Putting those issues to one side for now, we spent the afternoon uncovering the furniture, hoovering and cleaning, and listening to the vinyl we’d bought in the UK over 6-months ago and which we’d been unable to play due to our only turntable being in France. Then a shower, a stroll and an ice-cream (and worrying about Covid). Whilst walking we hunted down a plaque to a resistance fighter Sally had read about. He was hung by the SS (Das Reich) from the Vezere bridge we overlook, in June 1944, a few days after having rescued prisoner from a train nearby. 

The plaque honoured on Bastille Day a few days later.

Back home, we hit the sack at 10:00 after a 21-hours, busy, day.