After the City: The stress of downshifting

Candia Peterson retired from the City of London after 16 years as a broker. She is now renovating a farm in the Alps and finds that, as in the City, you just can't get the staff.

A year ago I packed up my life, my nine-year-old daughter and my dog and moved to the French Alps, to an ancient farm building which is now nearing the final stages of refurbishment.

My husband juggles life between France and his business in London. He is able to spend no more than one week in four with the family.

Our household at the beginning of the week numbered 12: myself, daughter, an au pair of the dippy blonde variety and nine, mostly Australian, builders brought in to re-tile the open-plan floor. This has forced us to remove the kitchen, so I pay for us all to eat at a local restaurant for €10 a head.

The team have agreed buy their own drink. When they eat at home they consume large amounts of mine, so it probably works out even.

All the furniture - including TV - is in a heap at one end of the room. This is a summary of my week.

Monday

I awake as usual in the small hours worrying about money (lack thereof). It is around three and I reach for my book as the only means to calm the churning in my brain. With all the builders in the house, my daughter has been deprived of both bedroom and bed and sleeps soundly next to me. Not only do I have to share my bed with a voracious wriggler, I also get to share it with several teddies.

It is pouring with rain - not good in a ski resort. The snow is giving up the ghost. Skiing is not something I have time for these days, but I worry for the local economy.

Later I head to a town where the market has some good fabric stalls. I have acres of windows to curtain and have had difficulty finding material I can live with that falls into the category of dirt cheap.

I hit gold and mentally thumb my nose at the London department stores which would have charged 10 times as much.

Back at the house I find Tiler's assistant number two hard at work on the kango, digging up the old floor, and Plasterers numbers one and two going gangbusters with electric sanders. There is no underfloor heating - turned off so the tiles will set hard. The windows are wide open to expel the dust and dirt. It is freezing, it is noisy, it is filthy.

I spend a couple of hours in a bathroom, enthroned (seat down) and jammed against the heated towel rail reading the Spectator, which has just arrived.

The phones stop working. I feel cut off from the world, without TV or internet and the mobile too expensive to have my normal hour-long chat with hubby.

Tuesday

Up early with the foreman (two whole books before getting up this morning - thank heavens for Norah Roberts, who churns out vast amounts of mind-numbing drivel - I ask for nothing more).

We pile into my beloved Chevrolet Suburban and head down into the valley. It is still pouring. At the tile shop where we pick up 15 bags of cement and several gallons of sealant. I shudder as I write the cheque for nearly €500 - for stuff that won't be seen under the floor! Next we head west for Switzerland and Ikea in Lausanne, where I part with nearly 2,000 Swiss francs.

We get stopped at the border - random and unlucky - and I gird my loins for French customs wanting 19.6% VAT on my Ikea goodies. Luckily they are not visible as we have blackout windows (the CIA favour all-black Chevy Suburbans) and I open mine just a crack to hand over passports. I manage to produce my daughter's passport rather than mine, which the official thinks very funny, sufficiently so as not to ask any questions.

We get within 5km of our house, to find the road closed due to a landslide caused by the deluge. The only way home is to retrace most of our steps to Lake Geneva and come in from the other side. Two hours later we make it. The snow has now almost completely gone.

The female half of the English couple living next door has been in and thrown her toys out of the cot about the noise. The builders are put out to be told by her that they are a bunch of gypsies living in a pigsty. I can't be bothered to intervene.

The phones are still not working.

Wednesday

It is still raining.

I call France Telecom on my mobile and listen to recorded music for half an hour. Finally I get a human. They will phone me right back on the mobile. They don't.

I start the curtains.

Temperatures have now plummeted, the rain has turned to a blizzard. Four or five inches of snow fall during dinner at the restaurant. Someone draws a Union Jack on the bonnet of the Suburban.

The builders decide they are ready for a night out. I am already awake and reading when they get home.

Thursday

I spend the morning on the mobile to France Telecom who I'm assured will turn up by 11:30. They don't.

At 11:00 I start to drag the builders out of bed. Qualified Tiler - over on a 12-day contract with two days to go - announces he has been 'stiffed' on the money transfer done by hubby in London and, anyway, he is too hungover to work today and can't be bothered to work tomorrow so has decided to pack and go.

My jaw hits the floor. He walks out while I'm still trying to reason with him.

After he goes, the au pair - who has done little to help this week - tells me he was probably embarrassed after beating up the waiter at the restaurant the night before. Tiler's assistant number two tells me that Tiler admitted he wasn't 'stiffed' but has made a mistake in his own calculations.

The half-done floor falls to the two Tiler's assistants. Neither is qualified; luckily it is now just a question of slapping the things down.

France Telecom turn up at 4pm. They fix the phones, thank God. The blizzard has not let up and there is at least a foot of new snow.

The Tiler's assistants snowboard to the restaurant in the dark. The waiter has some good bruises but we don't discuss how he got them. He is cheerful with me, which is a relief.

The au pair is starting to irritate me with her inactivity.

Friday

I need to go to the supermarket - we get through 30 litres of milk, 10 boxes of cereal, 30 baguettes,10 kilos of sliced ham and 200 bottles of beer a week (and that's when we are eating out at night). I have to use our baby Renault as the Suburban has a flat battery. Only €500 today - a result.

On the way home, I am blocked by a coach which attempts a three-point turn in the narrow road above me and gets stuck. Nothing can get up or down - the road is a dead end at the top with no other access. Gendarmes arrive and, comically, try to push. Still snowing hard.

While I am sitting there, the two Tiler's assistants turn up, preparing to hike home up the hill. Number two has dislocated his right shoulder snowboarding and his arm has to be immobilised for a week.

We go for a drink as there is no point in sitting staring at the coach. We have lunch too - I pay for all of us, what else can I do, I'm obligated to feed the workforce whether or not I can get them home.

Eventually the coach moves off and we get home. I realise it's pay day so I go to the bank and take out €5,000. I don't dare enquire after the balance.

The bank manager lady, who speaks better English than I speak French, greets me warmly. I consider asking for a meeting to talk about a mortgage (the house here has no debt attached to it, while our unsold one in London is burdened with a vast mortgage).

I decide against it. I doubt I'd get one without income in France (income means tax and the French aren't getting any......) and I reckon she will be less cheery if she thinks I've got problems.

Not much curtain-making today.

We jump start the Suburban. I am worried because the petrol gauge is bust and I rely on the mile-counter to know when to refill. It gets us to dinner. The restaurant owner bounces up to tell me that I am the client from heaven, which makes me worried that the team have ignored orders and are using my tab for their drinks.

It has been a frustrating day and I decide to get drunk. Goal achieved without much difficulty.

Saturday

Hungover and with a cold coming, I have a sense of humour failure and sack the au pair. It was an event waiting to happen. The blizzard has not let up.

Foreman and I head off in the Renault to buy gas bottles for my new cooker. Progress, if not quite a kitchen. We also have to buy a new drill for mixing cement and other bits and pieces. I don't check the bill - I don't want to know and I have an account with the supplier that gets paid - maybe - at the end of the month.

Tiler's assistant number one marches up to me and tells me he is 'insulted' by what he is being paid. He is aggressive and obviously trying to capitalise on loss of Tiler (not to mention the one-handedness of assistant number two).

I point out there aren't many jobs with meals in restaurants every night, with six crates of beer a week and with snow boarding when he feels like it. I tell him there will be a bonus at the end.

He says he will think about it: silly idiot - I would probably have given him a raise if he hadn't come on so strong but I won't be bullied despite my need for him to stay.

Fed up with the restaurant, we order take-out pizza and sit on the floor. Someone has hooked up the telly, which helps. Most of the team go clubbing. I go to bed.

Sunday

At 4:30 am I dig out the Renault from the ever-heavier snow and take the two plasterers - on short contracts - to Geneva for the 6:50 Easyjet.

I decide to risk it without chains as it is a hassle to get them off and back on. On the way down the hill, I pass four of the team trudging up, including the au pair who is so paralytic she has sat down in a snow drift and appears immobilised. I can't stop, no time - she isn't there when I get back, which is a relief.

We are late. I don't know whether they made the flight but wasn't going to hang around to find out.

7:30 am: home again after fighting sleep on the drive. I go back to bed for three hours of glorious sleep. I need it. Financial News has asked me about the joys of down shifting. I decide to write about my week.

Reflecting on the results, I have to say that nothing would induce me to return to London and the rat race. I have created my own little rat race.

It is frantic, frightening, and exhausting. It is, however, all mine. At last the snow has let up and there is a promise of blue sky tomorrow. But I doubt I'll get time to ski - there are all those curtains to be made.

candiapeterson@hotmail.com