To my great delight I soon discovered that there was an entire book on Colondannes written by a resident historian from an old village family. Jeanne Porcher’s ‘Un Village Creusois au Fils de Temps‘ is truly wonderful. This volume, published in 2002 runs to 374 pages of local history exploring archival documents, photographs and testimony. I eagerly bought a copy as soon as I could. It is the Colondannes Bible. A couple of the photographs reproduced in the book were of particular interest as they appeared to show my house.

I was quite puzzled at first because the house I bought does not have two windows on its eastern gable end. Nor, looking at the first postcard, does it have a sixth window on the northern road-side.  Nor does it have two chimneys. How could this be?

I think it was the Mairie which provided the answer after I had gone on an introductory visit. At some point in the late 1970s the commune had widened the road to Naillat. Quite why is a mystery to me. I can only  assume that the t-junction was something of an accident black-spot. In any event, a tranche was cut like a slice  of cake from the eastern end of the house and removing a room’s width. I have since tried to imagine what the original layout looked like but I find it hard to imagine. This meant the loss of three windows and a door. It seems also to have necessitated the replacement of the roof.