Disturbing the peace

Early yesterday morning, we were disturbed by voices down at the house just below Pissou. "Bloody holidaymakers...", I thought, "..no doubt here for the holiday weekend" (it is the quatorze juillet tomorrow). We were disturbed again at 11.30pm last night as they returned from an evening out somewhere.... loud voices, hilarity, that sort of thing. How dare they disturb our peace and quiet! But seriously, it is easy to get lost in your own little world here and to resent others who may intrude into it, regardless of their right to do so. It is unavoidable really. However, it turned out to be the owner of the house who we have not seen since we arrived at Pissou over a year ago! He is here with his 2nd wife, 2 daughters and a boyfriend of one of them. Anyway, I had a very interesting chat with Monsieur today. He has owned the house for many many years and knew Jean Benazet and his wife Elisabeth when they lived here. He has promised to email me some photos that he took of them in front of the house. Turns out also that the abandoned, derelict house just above ours used to be a school for the local commune in days gone by! Fascinating stuff. During our chat, Monsieur also agreed to us felling the large fir tree that occupies a prominent position in his garden and which obscures the view of the mountains from our terrasse - great news! That will be a job for the coming winter.