I have a friend. She is great. She is living in Switzerland. She followed her husband who’s dream was to work for CERN. My friend is an architect. She is very skilled. After arrival to Switzerland she worked in a prestigious studio that she left to devote her time to something even more prestigious, such as a family and children. My dear friend knew what we went through. She has seen our beginning when we started with renovation of the house. She knows that Peter is not with us anymore.
When we started with reconstruction, she cleverly advised me to have a construction diary. Since I do not know much about architecture, I misunderstood. I thought that a construction diary should include stories about progress in construction. Something like funny stories from filming when actors are asked to recall some of witty moments. It did not come to my mind that a construction diary is a technical terminology relating to a progress in construction. It is probably because we do not have any construction supervision. By coincidence, I became a construction supervision. I started more as a contact person. Something like, “let’s have a coffee and discuss what we have to do”. We have nice plans of the house. We have nice architect’s plan and permissions. This is nice but we miss all the rest – a technical documentation of the project. We did not need it so much in the beginning since as far as renovation is concerned, many things are set. Now, it is starting to be more complicated. House is changing as well as the garden. The foundations are starting to make some troubles. I find many tubes and wires under earth. I have no clue what they are for. So, my dear friend, I am getting it. I had to have a diary. A true one. Not a one with stories. It should contain something like this, room number … original state, current state, when, what materials etc. I do not remember what have we done and where. I will write stories in any case and will remember reconstruction with love, once everything will be in place and there will not be lines, as during a war. Once the piles of earth around the house disappear and everything will be blossoming. I will be relieved. Once the hot water will flow in a part of the house immediately, not only fifteen minutes later. So far, we are still struggling.
Peter has left us in the middle of all this. A second part of the house that has not been renovated is like a ghost town. Like in old films with detective Marlow, newspapers laid down on the streets and a wind played with them in a lazy mood. Everything here is fusty, cold. This is how the unfinished part of the house looks like. It is cold, messy, dirty. It is depressive and sad. I would like to have it different. I would like the old torn wall-papers showing the frame of someone else’s paintings and keeping a dust to leave our walls. I need to demolish, brake everything and give it a new life. I need this new life.
The old part of the house is connected with me through a navel cord impossible to cut yet. May all Covid related measures finish! So that I can travel from one country to another, visitors and helpers may come, so it goes swiftly here. May trees blossom in the garden so that there are colours. May my construction dairy that I have not started to write but make photos fill will new comments. For example, on the left side in the room number two is a tube in the wall that serves … well … if I knew. So far, there is a lot of mud, torn wall-papers on the walls and I progress only with some probes into walls to know what they are made of. I need a new breath and new beginning in January. I hope it will be soon.
Cartigny, 1.11.2020