Life on the lotissement – late spring

Lotissement living in the late spring takes on a new life. May is the best time of year to enjoy these patches of land, crammed with houses and lives. 350m2 to call your own, butted up against the neighbours. Bright sunshine without the killer sting of heat, real heat.

These houses are only built for this time of year. In summer they are hot little ovens, with thin walls that offer shade but no heat resistance, and in winter the skim of salmon-pink crepi barely protects the house from the meekest of Languedoc winters. Today, snowstorms of pollen are filling the sky and seeking corners of the house to nestle in. It’s a summery substitute for the winter woodsmoke and an apology – we don’t get real snow here. I’d rather snow outside than these fluffy drifts that threaten to engulf our newly bared toes. White monsters are living under my bed.

The lotissement was built in the 1980s as part of a social housing scheme. In those days, so the lady waxing my legs told me with glee, the gendarmes were regularly called to calm fights, solve neighbourly disputes and even lock up someone who fired a gun at their neighbour. It wasn’t a good place to be, or to say you were from.

Rrrrip, there went some wintery growth. I winced, twice. Once for the long lost hair and then once again for life on the lotissement. Or rather, life before the big fat leaves of the laurier took hold and started giving the tiny gardens boundaries. The ability to live in close proximity to fellow humans (I use the term lightly for this lotissement) gets more difficult as the temperatures get higher, music gets louder and sardines get burned on the barbeque. Nature has saved man from his most natural caveman-bashing instincts – a good thick hedge saves lives. After 20 years you can’t see into your neighbours toilet or living room. Not that you’d want to, but there are some things even the most squeamish amongst us can’t avoid doing. Hedgewise at least things on the lotissement have become much more civilised.

There was a moments panic in our house as the hedge nearly died over the winter. A fine combination of neglect and frosts nearly did for our privacy blanket. My life, for a while, was obsessed with this hedge. Replace it with a wall? Buy some of that naff green peekaboo-proof netting? We dithered and nature stepped in. I think the hedge has ears – it heard my threats. It knows my gardening skills are limited to chopping things up, repotting and pruning. My shears know no limits. Our wise hedge decided to do the decent thing – it re-grew. No longer will the baboons who gather in the car park be able to watch the funny English, but then I can’t spy on those funny French boys any more. We both win.

Late spring and there is the swish of people filling their illicit pools, the swoofff of cleaning out the garage that is really a room (except on the tax d’habitation form) and the buzz of those hedges being lightly trimmed. It’s a good time of year, people don’t mind the sunshine. After the winter chill it’s satisfying to feel the heat of the sun, before it makes the walls of the house too hot to touch and the air too hot to breathe. In our u-shaped patch known as The Garden the cherry tree has shed its blossom and the fruit is turning red, slowly. Except, just like Life on the Lotissement, the calm green exterior hides a rotten core.

Each little cherry will have its own little wriggling maggoty life form. Neighbours tell us its useless treating them, no matter what you use, the fruit will still be full of unwanted life. The best solution would be to chop it down and start again. Just what some people think about social housing. But, I like my rotten, shade giving, tree too much for that – much like this lotissement.

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Copyright Helen Bevis