Sunday lunch

Charcoal-coloured smoke is billowing out of the bread oven chimney puffing its way into the wind-brushed, overcast sky. The oak door to the stone building has been propped wide open. Inside, Jean-Claude is sitting on a long pine bench next to the oven door waiting for his ham to cook. He tells us he has 18 people coming for lunch the following day, all family. The ham’s a large one, it has to be to feed them all, and it’s far easier to cook it in the village bread oven than at home.

Jean-Claude led the team of villagers who worked together to rebuild the oven. They gave their time and their efforts willingly and in doing so, they built a new life for their community.

Photocopied photographs of them at work, among the stones that became its walls, are pinned up under the beams in plastic A4 sleeves. Laughs and toasts of celebration at the opening ceremony are caught forever; happy, sunny-day moments of hope and faith in the future.

Our new neighbour Christine joins Jean-Claude on his bench beside the bread oven. She pushes two pizzas she has just made inside. As they wait, they discuss the weather, life in and around their homes.

We pass Jean-Claude’s house late afternoon the next day. Four shiny cars are parked in the driveway opposite his house.

In the garden, adults are sat around a table still enjoying their lunch, children are running through the garden, playing under fruit trees heavy with petals of pink and white blossom.

There’s no smoke coming from the bread oven. The little building that brought a community together is silently waiting to be useful once more.