Afterword: ten years later…
Telling the tale of the tribe.
It is over ten years now since I wrote Life in a Postcard, and I am pleased to announce it has now been published as an e-book. I added an afterword about what happened next. Many readers wrote to me in appreciation. A few even moved here. And a lot have visited Mosset and taken photos of the monastery of Corbiac. Many things have changed, but the essentials remain the same. I cherish more than ever the elements I craved when I first came to the Pyrenees, understand them for the luxuries they are; the fresh air, the space, the moon and stars in a deep night sky, picking cherries from the tree. The village of Mosset and the Castellane valley still follow the traditional rhythms of a rural community; chopping and stacking wood for winter, gathering mushrooms on damp autumn mornings, leading the cows up to summer pastures, hanging their washing in the communal lavoire, leaping over the bonfire on St John’s night, squabbling over land rights. The village is livelier now. The library has expanded- proud to be the smallest village in France with a library of its own. A new epicerie has replaced Yvette’s gloomy shop. They still have picture postcards of the monastery, and now they sell all three books that emerged from my Pyrenees experience. More young people have arrived in the village, families with children. The school is thriving, and they still go for lunch every day in the village café, a well supervised crocodile of shining young faces trotting through the village square at the stroke of midday. And not a few of the village children have grown up and stayed on, living in yurts, growing their own food, working as carpenters or shepherds, preferring this life to the wider world. Best of all it has become a village of song. After the concert in the chapel of Corbiac back in 2001, the idea of a village opera emerged. In 2003 the first performance, The Barber of Seville, was staged in the courtyard of the old chateau in the village. It was a splendid event, with most of the village contributing, singing, dancing, playing instruments, building sets, sewing costumes, preparing food. We celebrated afterwards with a giant paella in the village square, everyone astonished they had pulled it off, a moment of community, of harmony that remains unforgettable for me. Since then the Opera de Mosset has become a highly successful local event, attended by thousands, with villagers and professionals working and rehearsing for months in advance. I still consider Mosset my village. It is a small enough community to know who has died, the babies born, the accidents, peoples’ joys and sorrows. Sometimes I am asked if I feel integrated. No, not really, but accepted, yes. I realise that there is a certain glass basement there, a limit to how deep I can go. I will never drink the legendary eau de vipère (made from a live viper, drowned in eau-de-vie, its death throes adding to the flavour) or know if they were just putting me on. They will never, ever tell me their favoured mushroom locations. But I feel I have had a role there – what I think of as telling the tale of the tribe. The village recently received the accolade, “One of the prettiest villages of France.” Once the monastery was classified as a historic monument, (“Tell us what you want to do and we will say no.”) Mosset could claim the two monuments historiques required. There was a great village celebration, and the mayor read a translation from this book to describe the community, “All ages and several nationalities: French, Catalan, Spanish, Dutch, Belgian, Algerian, Chilean, English. There were singles, gays, lesbians, divorcees both with different partners, adopted children, foster children, even a few conventional legitimate offspring. Teetotallers and pot-smokers, fascists and feminists, politicans and beekeepers, farmers, gardeners, teachers, potters, donkey owners, tinkers, tailors, soldiers, sailors, beggarmen and, doubtless, thieves too.” It was one of the proudest moments of my life. During the opera lavender is strewn in the village streets scenting the air as it is crushed by passing feet. The lavender is grown at Corbiac, a great swathe of fragrant purple plants in front of the monastery just as I had always dreamed. At Corbiac itself the chapel roof has been renewed, the cloister arches opened, new frescoes discovered and now undergoing restoration. The original church doorway has been revealed at last, with its inscription to Notre Dame de Corbiac around the arch. The Doctor of Stones is still at work. The two olive trees we planted – what I always thought of as our marriage trees- have grown solid and strong, despite the doubts of local farmers. Just as I always dreamed. But we are no longer the owners, having accepted the inevitable. Two writers attempting to restore a Romanesque monastery…Selling it was as bizarre and complicated a process as buying it in the first place. Our builder, the Doctor of Stones, a brusque Yorkshireman, said don’t let anybody read this book, or they’ll never buy the place. I had always intended to be as honest as possible about the process, determined not to paint too rosy a picture. People who want to buy monasteries are a very particular bunch. They included a marble merchant who wanted to use the chapel for stone carving, Sufis who felt there was not enough space for a helicopter to land, a community of monks (it wasn’t remote enough for them) a woman with nine children, an acupuncturist to the stars, from California, who wanted to buy it without even seeing it, an English architect who planned to turn the chapel into apartments (“Hell, no.” we said.) Eventually the perfect buyers emerged, passionately committed to the building and willing to dedicate themselves to the restoration. We have become good friends and have been privileged to remain involved in the process. And then what did we do? Find another crazy house, of course. Not far away, further downriver, closer to Canigou. But that is another story. By writing Life in a Postcard I found what was in my heart. I hope you enjoy the story as much as I have.