MONDAY Well, it’s done. Yesterday I was elected Monsieur le Conseiller Municipal de Villeréal Neil Vesma. In the end, it wasn’t too diffi cult as the slate of candidates I was on was unopposed. There were one or two nerves at the count, people wondering if the number of spoiled papers and protest votes would exceed the number of valid votes for us, but in the end we sailed through with 302 votes and only 63 rejecting us. The turnout was 42%, pretty


good for an unopposed local election, so Jean-Jacques our new maire was able to quip that his next step is to win the 2027 presidential election as Emmanuel Macron steps down, and would we all be his ministers. Nobody said no. A few of the spoiled papers


were quite vehement, electors writing arnaque and escroc, swindle, across the ballot paper. The one that took the biscuit, however, was smeared with something brown. Sylvie, the teller, sniff ed it and said she couldn’t smell anything unpleasant so one wag (not me) suggested she lick it – “It might


Tue day


Architect’s diary It’s all in a week’s work for France-based Neil Vesma Tue day


Neil’s reaching the end of a stables conversion near Monpazier but there’s a problem in the kitchen


be chocolate!” But we’ll never know because she just folded it up and put it in the spoiled papers tray. So all’s well that ends well,


and Jean-Jacques intends to hit the ground running with our fi rst council meeting on Friday evening, to be followed by a convivial dinner for councillors and spouses. This is, after all, France.


TUESDAY Still glowing from Sunday’s election, and still on the receiving end of félicitations from people I barely know but who seem to know me, I need to get back down to earth and back down to architecture. We’re getting towards the


The arcaded main square in the bastide town of Monpazier has been transformed into a medieval fi lm set 76 FRENCH PROPERTY NEWS: September/October 2023


end of a stables conversion for some very demanding French clients near Monpazier, our next-door bastide just over the border in the Dordogne. They have chosen ultra-thin ceramic kitchen fl oor tiles, each one a metre square, and one under the corner of the island has cracked. The kitchen fi tter is blaming the tiler, the tiler


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