French Deal

Next day and at 11 am prompt we were at Larressat’s bureau. In spite of more than four decades in the business, no fancy office front for this builder. Brick outhouses, a huge Godin wood burning stove, one computer and from this hub, six or seven houses on the go at the same time. From there we went together to the tile factory and it was fabulous. All the tiles are made on site from local materials, glazed and painted not a hundred metres from where the materials arrive in a raw state. The factory was hugely reminiscent of a Wallace and Grommit set up, but the product at the end was undoubtedly terrific in terms of design and quality. At between 40 and 60 euros a metre square – I think not. But then Monsieur Larressat said – let’s look at the deuxieme choix – or seconds. At just slightly less and more interesting because of the blemishes, I felt we could be in business. There were piles and piles of seconds and a massive range of choice, this was going to be a tricky one and my remaining time in France was pressing.

Lunch was at a local auberge. We sat down at 12.15 and left two hours later. It’s fair to say that the service was extremely slow and the place extremely popular. But who cared, we chatted on – mostly about France’s traditional unwillingness to accept and adopt change. We breezed on to the imminent elections and how Le Pen would probably pick up too many floating votes from the disaffected who just want to vote for him to be bloody minded – all that came from Monsieur Larressat who has worked his own business of restoring houses for 42 years and had never had a day when work didn’t come through the door. All these points he made were punctuated with a stabbing right hand which was a bit unnerving because it only carried a thumb and a little finger – the others having been lost at an early age during an accident with a chainsaw. Still, two bottles of fine Graves later we didn’t mind the fact that food was not materialising – not a drunken two hours, but a polite just put it away French style wine quaffing. Food was good and the world had been solved of all its problems and Monsieur Larressat said how nice it was to do business in a relaxed way. Oh yes, the downstairs will be finished by mid June and the rest of the house by the end of July – now we’re getting somewhere.

posted by French Deal @ 6:54 am