The River House

Part 2

When the autumn mornings are fine and mild, we breakfast at the long table under the veranda. The rising sun angles in through the leafless and truncated branches of a 100-year-old chestnut, growing just metres from where we sit. A stack of firewood in the centre of the garden attests to its heavy spring pruning.

Beside the firewood, a walnut tree stands majestically in full, yellowing foliage. It’s home to two chocolate-brown squirrels who, when the coast is clear, scurry down the trunk to gather nuts lying about on the ground. They scamper across the yard with a playful, hopping run, occasionally stopping to lift their heads.

On the river, two pure-white swans move over the glassy surface, silently and effortlessly as if powered by an underwater force. They hold their necks perfectly straight, like aristocrats.

Late afternoon finds us on the timber landing where the barque is moored.  A squadron of egrets flies in V formation into the setting sun. A breeze springs up, crinkling the inky surface of the river. In the garden, a child’s swing moves, leaves rustle, causing some to fall.

On the other side of the Lot, an arched grey-stone bridge spans a tiny tributary, beyond which we can see the rooves of houses in the town and the pyramid-shaped cap of a pigeonniere (dovecote) rising above its neighbours.

In the first and last light of day, the river is a sheet of mercury, a vast, flat mirror reflecting the church spire of Temple sur Lot and the willows that grow on the water’s edge.

We know young rowers are out training. We hear the rhythmic slap and grind of their oars before their boats come into view. The rowers' movements seem lazy, but are actually quite measured and fluid, with a slight jerk of elbows as they complete their stroke.

Their coaches follow in inflatables, barking instructions.

   

The odd fishing boat hums past. Near us, close to shore, air bubbles betray the presence of underwater life, concentric circles meet other concentric circles to make chaotic patterns that quickly disappear.

We are thinking about buying a fishing line. But I fear we might land a monster, one of those huge catfish that lurk, according to local legend, in the depths of the Lot.

One late afternoon, noisy activity draws me away from the river to the front fence. 

The brown forest of corn across the road is disappearing. A harvester with huge teeth like giant hair clippers is cutting swathes through the dry, leafy stalks, leaving tracts of stubble.

By some mechanical magic taking place inside its massive frame, the harvester strips the cobs and exudes the waste. After three or four passes through the field, it stops to shoot a golden stream of kernels into massive trailers attached to tractors.

Dust rises and drifts over our neighbour’s property. He is an old man who lives alone in a hobbit house buried under a jungle of blackberry. Only the roof of its pigeonniere is visible above the vegetation.

We have seen him drive past La Maiterie in his vintage, tan-coloured 2CV, before braking to turn left into his driveway.

As the corn harvest progresses, he emerges to inspect the goings-on, then crosses the road to talk to the man sitting in the cabin of his tractor, waiting for his trailer to fill.