A Wistful Memory

The months go by and memories of being in France are receding at an alarming rate into the nebulous mists of time. Covid continues its global decimation and extinguishes any hope that we may recover the joyful access to unfettered travel that we once took for granted. With a personal sensibility very much aligned with all things European I am struggling to find the acceptance required to navigate this newly diminished world and I find myself grieving for my once peripatetic past. It is a grief tempered by gratefulness for being in a place of relative safety for now but an acute sense of loss all the same.

I am tormented by an almost crushing nostalgia for Europe and disruptive thoughts of lace-curtained cafés and flying buttresses are unsettling me day and night. I have been immersing myself in local moments of “French-ness”  like a Gallic junkie needing a fix. I watch French movies lest I forget how to speak French, Saturday night galettes have become a staple at home and a recent glass of Côte de Rhone accompanied by a pungent époisses cheese at a small inner city bar was verging on transcendent.  A gorgeous friend has recently gifted me an iris-blue bound 1950’s travel guide to the South of France. This charming book sits next to my bed and I leaf through it folding out the little maps and like a virtual flâneur I wander blissfully around Arles or Aix En Provence and duck into a Romanesque church or Hôtel de Ville via the accompanying descriptions - the perfect dalliance before I go to sleep.

A wistful memory of a winter visit to an 18th century château near Chartres interrupted me the other day as I sat in the showroom deciding what to photograph. The interior of the château was only marginally warmer than the icy walk from the car park, the frosted gravel crunched beneath our feet and our breath billowed into the chilled air like the special effects from Swan Lake. Through the hazy windows of the lofty hallway skeletal forests stood like sentries and the late afternoon sunlight scattered across the parquet floors. Like so many of these anterooms, the specific purpose of the oak clad hallway was not conspicuous but it functioned perfectly as a showcase for a diverse collection of exquisite antique furniture. The dwindling sunlight illuminated the furniture lining the walls and appeared to momentarily animate the history inherent in each piece as we walked the length of the hall passing through centuries.

Work beckoned and I turned my attention to the task at hand and dragged the Dutch Regency commode into position, the floor boards creaked under its weight and the serpentine shaping and lion’s paw feet reminded me of a similar commode in that château hallway. The pair of festively painted Italian side chairs beautifully channelled the 18th century albeit with a Venetian twist and the 19th century Louis 16th style mirror completed the picture. The crisp Christchurch air was glacial and the view finder on my camera misted over with my breath. The low afternoon sunlight stole into the far corner of the showroom and a wandering thought quietly announced that perhaps the distance between here and that enchanting château in Northern France was not quite as far as I thought.

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