Embracing the right to disconnect

In France, we live a much calmer life than we lived in London. It’s the law. Plus a delicious if ugly recipe for pork.

That time when we had no roof.

I am sitting here in my nightie, hoping that the police won’t arrive to cart me away before I’ve finished my first coffee of the day. It’s 7.30am and our builders have arrived. Everything’s filthy. (“Oh, la poussière!” – oh, the dust - our cleaner says, with a slightly accusing look, as though renovating this dilapidated old house was something that I, personally, was doing to her. To be honest, it’s an entirely understandable point of view, given how beyond the scope of a tonne of microfibre cloths her and my job is.)

Making any kind of building racket before breakfast is appalling manners in this village where behaving properly is highly prized. We live in a busy street where the houses are crammed together. The seagulls nesting on the roof of the house opposite are so loud, a neighbour told me he thought they were deeply antisocial. Goodness knows what he makes of Our Lads of the Jackhammers. I hope I don’t have to find out.

Beginning the renovation, putting up scaffolding.

Since moving here, I’ve learned a new appreciation of the emphasis on the common good, on the right to a peaceful life unencumbered by noise, dirt and the general grubbiness of others. In England, I cut my lawn whenever it needed it, within reason, which is to say, not that often. Here, there are very well laid out directives as to when lawn-bothering is acceptable, which is Monday to Friday, 8.30am until 12 noon, 2pm until 7.30pm, Saturday 9am to 12 noon, Sunday 10am until 12 noon. Though some regions may differ slightly in the exact times – and some add a caveat for couples when both work in the week – essentially, a decent whack of a lunchtime, and Sunday afternoon are sacred. Failure to comply can attract a €68 fine, €450 if you’re a persistent offender and it reaches the courts.

As I planned my own garden, I was conscious of the instructions not to plant anything over two metres within two metres of any neighbouring buildings. I also understood I must never have a bonfire. Obviously, that’s antisocial in a residential area, but when in the summer the whole region is tinder-dry from the canicule (heatwave) it is positively dangerous too. Farmers are exempt in certain cases though, and the wine growers often have fires in their fields in the autumn and winter. Those averse to going to the tip (who are these people? A visit to the déchetterie is one of the finest free entertainments going) sometimes have a friendly farmer willing to burn their hedge clippings and weeds along with the vine trimmings, though this may attract tutting and stern looks if admitted to in polite company.

As we work on the renovation, I am conscious that my husband’s zero-procrastination attitude to life might land us in bother too. While I am a world-champion putter-offer, he ticks off tasks as he thinks of them, never delaying until tomorrow anything he can do rightnowthissecondit’llonlytakeaminute. This means if he wants you to do something, he will call you immediately. I am trying to train him out of this, when immediately means 8pm. Then he thinks, oh it’s fine to send a text or a WhatsApp as the person can deal with it in the morning. I also believe, in my quest for Olympic Putter-Offer status, that this is unacceptable when the recipients might pick up their messages immediately.

Putting a new floor in the pantry.

In 2016, the French government passed a law which stated that businesses with more than 50 employees should not email or call them outside of acceptable office hours, largely accepted to be in the evenings or at weekends. This Right to Disconnect rule was designed to reduce the stress of employees who never felt they could switch off. At the time, Socialist MP Benoit Hamon, said “All the studies show there is far more work-related stress today than there used to be, and that the stress is constant. Employees physically leave the office, but they do not leave their work. They remain attached by a kind of electronic leash—like a dog. The texts, the messages, the emails—they colonize the life of the individual to the point where he or she eventually breaks down.” If anything, this stress got worse for some during lockdowns, when the lines between home and work became increasingly blurred.

Tidy.

While we do not employ 50 people – though sometimes it feels like it – this directive certainly gives me pause, and makes me attempt to get the husband to press pause on his deal-with-this-now attitude (it’s a London thing). It’s true that there are no penalties attached to this ruling, and it is frequently broken, but there is something larger at play here. Let work be work, let play be play, and don’t let one leach into the other’s time is something I have come to appreciate far more profoundly since I came to live here.

The importance of the daily trip to buy a baguette, stopping for 10 minutes to drink coffee at 11, laying out the dining table for lunch at 12.30, a stroll along the harbour at 4 (or perhaps a nap, why not?), a drink at 6.30, a small dinner at 7, walking the dogs before bed, this is now the architecture of my days. Less frantic, slower than my life in London, certainly, but even with all these pauses and breaks, I seem to get just as much done, with less stress, less exhaustion, less grabbing for caffeine just to keep me going. By exercising my own right to disconnect several times during the day, I feel happier and more productive and I wonder why I didn’t live like this before? There was nothing stopping me but habit, a comfortableness with a certain level of anxiety I’d grown to accept as normal. Which is why I hope they don’t cart me off for the noise. I have learned my lesson, I love the gentle pace of life and the quiet. I promise to be a good citizen in future and promote and protect it every chance I get. Peace out.

Porc au lait

Pork in milk

I promise it tastes better than it looks.

Is this the ugliest picture I’ve ever taken? It could be. But I hope it doesn’t put you off, because this dish is so easy and delicious. This method of cooking pork in milk, maiale al latte, is associated with the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, but I’ve seen it on menus here and had it at people’s houses. It’s the sort of simple, country dish I absolutely lose my head over.

The pork cooks slowly in the milk which separates into curds flavoured with the meat juices. I’ve seen some recipes where the milk curds are blitzed into smoothness. Don’t do this. You remove the dish’s defining character and all you end up with is a smooth, greyish sauce. Embrace the curds, friends.

Serves 4