It's the little things...

I love history. I love anything older than me, especially if it's exceptionally well-made. For me, there will never be a better design than the self-winding watch. Granted, quartz watches are far more accurate, but something about a watch that will simply work for a very long time and can be fixed by human hands when it doesn't is appealing to me. I love the old and well-crafted so much that I can't just have these things, I must know their history. This makes me quite useful at trivial pursuit and quite boring the rest of the time.

That's why I love the key to my house. It's a giant skeleton key. It's efficient, effective, very durable (more so than modern pin locks which suffer from spring compression and snapped key necks). Sure, it's not as safe as a modern lock, but for the purposes of rural France, it's safe enough. A heavy warded lock (warded because it has blocks or 'wards' that only the special cut of your key can slide past) is not very easy to pick and quite frankly, if someone wants into your house, they'll kick in the door or window. They'll do this no matter what key your door has. So why bother with a new lock? Especially when it denies you the satisfying sound and feel of tumbling a lock with a 4-inch long brass key. It's simply a cherry on the antique sundae that is your little maison.


The key, or en français, le Clé.