8 weeks later....

8 weeks ago today we signed on the dotted line and bought our French house. When we started looking for it, we put everything in a box file, and on the side of the box file it said "Our French Adventure". 8 weeks later does it still feel like an adventure?

Well, yes I think it does. Some days we could be in any country. Those are the days when we stay at home just the two of us and spend the day in the garden or doing stuff around the house.Other days we go out and mix with a group of ex pat Brits and we could still be in the UK. But at other times it's really clear that we now live in another country. Today was one of those days.

Today we went to a local French market for the first time. Parking was difficult. No different to the UK there then! The food section of the market was in one area and the clothing was in a different area. The food stalls were fascinating to us, and leant towards artisan type food, such speciality French cheeses, and very fresh meat, fish and veg, with the highlight on freshness. The salad stuff looked as if it had only just been picked out the garden. The mussels and clams were still live. 

I have to say that the clothing part of the market was quite disappointing, much like any market in the UK, but it was very quiet with not many shoppers. Only one stand appeared busy and that was the one that sold a multitude of different aprons. Aprons are still very much de rigeur here in France!

And all around us, all we could hear was French people chatting, shouting, talking and sharing. All the ladies carried baskets and everyone had at least one stick of French bread.

So today felt quite French. Hubby doesn't speak hardly any French at all which means that dealing with any thing involving someone French falls on me. Mostly it's okay and one way or another I get there, but the one thing I would say is that communicating in a language that you are far from fluent in is exhausting and frustrating in equal measures.

So my advice for today is....

Practice the language as much as you can before you move, and buy a shopping basket and an apron!

Oh, and did I buy anything? Yes, I bought a sage plant for 2.50 euros!

Birds and wildlife..

It's been a week for wild life again. Our greater spotted woodpecker is still visiting to eat the grubs out of the lawn, and the black redstart was sitting on the ground only about  feet from the window. But we have had two far more interesting sightings this week....

This is a griffon vulture..

Picture courtesy http://www.rondatoday.com/griffon-vulture-of-the-serrania/

 And this is a little owl...

Picture courtesy http://www.markhancoxbirdphotography.co.uk/pages/galleries/owls.php?gall_id=29

One is quite large and one is quite tiny, and we have seen them both this week. The vulture was flying in a crowd of about 14 or 15 vultures, we assume heading to Spain as they appeared to be travelling North to South, and appeared to be loving the hot weather thermals. And yes, they were definitely griffon vultures. Hubby's binoculars came in very handy to identify them. The owl was just sitting on the roof of the semi derelict building next door and then hopped onto our fence before flying off.

Now I have never seen either of these birds in the wild before, only in bird sanctuary type places so was really excited on both occasions. It just goes to show how easy it would be to miss exciting things like this if you don't look up and out from being wrapped up in our day to day existence.

Moving to France has given us the opportunity to take a step back from working to live or living to work, and a chance to start to appreciate the things around us far more than we have ever done before. Today we stood and watched a frog enjoying the heavy down pour of rain, and laughing when it jumped into the drain that runs along the front of our house and got washed away in the torrent - it was quite safe and unharmed I hasten to add, just a little surprised at the force of the water.

Today's thought for the day

 Stop wasting time waiting to arrive somewhere and take the time to enjoy the journey along the way. If you don't you will miss a million things that you may never get chance to see again..

We're no longer virgins!

IKEA virgins that is!

This week we drove to Nantes, almost 2 hours away, to the nearest IKEA to buy some furniture items to make life easier in the house until such time, in the next 10  years or so, that we complete our house renovation.

Why did we drive that far? Because the delivery cost was 179 euros(approx £143 at current exchange rates), which we felt was absolutely extortionate. After we had visited IKEA, we decided that the delivery charge is so high in order to encourage people to go into the shop to buy lots more things that you didn't know you needed. We weren't persuaded by their marketing ploy and came back with exactly what we went for and no more. On the plus side though, we were both impressed with the idea of having a whole floor where you just went and collected your flat pack boxes after you had done the rounds of the shop floor to decide what you wanted. And the prices, if you are careful, are very good for reasonable quality, and the flat pack item go together much better than the old MFI stuff used to!

The other thing that I believe is a must in IKEA is a visit to the restaurant for meatballs. Well we did do the restaurant but passed on the meatballs. The coffee was good and the prices were very reasonable.

So here's the new kitchen - complete with dogs! 

It's been nearly a week since I've posted, but that's because so much has been happening!

Tomorrow an update on the garden, the birdlife we have seen, and other exciting developments.

There's no going back now!

Today we finally received confirmation that the completion on the sale on our UK house had been finalised. So we are no longer UK home owners, and that also means that in a few days we won't have a mortgage either here or in the UK.

 
And that should be, and is, reason to celebrate. But both of us had a little wobble when the phone call came through. I don't really know why and neither does hubby as we are both very happy with our new home and the decisions we have made that has brought us to where we are, but maybe it was just because it was the end of an era and the end of living in a house that has some very happy memories.

So here's to our future, and a very healthy and happy one it's going to be too! 

Today's advice is to take every opportunity that comes your way as the only things you will regret are the things you didn't do when you get to looking back on life

How much??!!

Just a short post tonight..

We need a gate and gate posts to finish securing the garden to stop the dogs escaping. We took advice where was a good place to go to buy them. Off we went to a local merchant called V&M and asked how much would two gates of 2m each in wood cost? We were really looking for something simple like a 5 barred field gate to be honest, but apparently the French don't do them. The lady said that she would get a price for us and email us, but the pillars to go either side - they don't do wooden gate posts either apparently - would be 450 euros. At the current exchange rate that's about £350. We thought that was expensive, but when we got the quote for the gate we were..... absolutely gobsmacked! 
 







They didn't do them in 2m, only 1.5m and the cost.....

1540 euros/approximately £1200!

 And it doesn't include the handles, hinges or bolts either.

So to put in a simple wooden gate and a pair of stone gate posts would cost us well over £1500!!!

Guess what, we didn't buy them. We're now looking at shipping something over from the UK! I'll keep you posted!

Moles and more...

It's been a busy couple of days and my French vocabulary has been stretched to the limit. I've talked alarm systems with a really nice man who came and fitted our house alarm, moles and coypu with the mole man and post boxes with the post lady!

We have had to have an alarm fitted on the house due to the square meterage of the property in order for us to get insurance for the house. The insurance for the house is a legal requirement in France, it's a Must Have, not a choice, and the notaire won't sign the sale papers unless you have insurance in place. The bank wouldn't give us insurance without us agreeing to an alarm system, which the bank sold us, and we pay 29 euros a month for. So the bank are in a win win situation. We pay them for the insurance and we pay them for the alarm system. That's just the way it is over here and if things like that are an issue then France may not be the right place, but we have just accepted that this is how it is. As my French improves we may be in a better position to "discuss" these things with the bank or look for alternatives but right now we have an alarm system and house insurance.

 And this little furry creature has caused absolute havoc in the garden. We've got molehills everywhere, large and small. So when we were having aperitifs on Sunday with the neighbours we mentioned this to him. Yesterday morning, with no warning, a very nice French chap turned up to deal with them. Now this was great news on the one hand and not that expensive in the scheme of things - 50 euros for two visits. The bad news is that we didn't have 50 euros to hand. In the UK we are so used to paying for everything with cards that we haven't quite got used to having cash around the place. He said "No problem, a cheque is fine". Now the French love their cheques, but we don't actually have a cheque book either. Our holidaying neighbours bailed us out by loaning us 20 euros so we could pay him, but how embarrassing is that. Hopefully the mole situation will soon be under control and we now have stashed 100 euros in the house for unexpected situations.

As an aside apparently our region is having major problems with vermin, moles, rats and coypus, so the commune pays part of the costs if anyone calls them out, hence the reasonable price. The epidemic of vermin (not sure that's the right word) is probably due to the much damper start to the year but who's to say.

Today's advice... ask the local's for advice and keep cash in the house!

Aperitif or two (or three even!)

Yesterday our French farmer neighbour called round to invite us to meet the family for an aperitif at lunchtime today. The English couple who own the holiday home just along the road were also invited so we got to meet them properly too. 

We arrived as per the invite at noon and were made incredibly welcome by the family, and there was lots of "bisous" - kissing of cheeks - from all the family including the two girls of 3 and 12 and the 10 year old boy. I don't know of any 10 year old English boy who would have been as polite or as willing to kiss complete strangers! Don't get me wrong here, I know some very well behaved English children, but it does seem to be ingrained in the French culture that children will treat ALL adults and each other with respect.

Anyway we were motioned to sit at the table and the older daughter brought in plates of nibbles - slices of french saucisson, bread and pate, crisps, chicory leaves with a crab paste - all very pleasant and very tasty. Then Monsieur farmer, brought round the drinks! Well we started with a light liqueur (can't remember it's name!), then wine - lots of! There was also pastiche and whisky for those who fancied it! We finally rolled home about 3 hours later after a lovely afternoon getting to know the neighbours, complete with a bottle of M. farmer's home brewed Eau de vie. We are told it's very strong!

As a mix of ages and nationalities we managed to communicate in a variety of French, English, hand signals and something that wouldn't go amiss on Allo Allo! 

I have to say that the neighbours have been wonderfully friendly and although I know that there a tiny minority of people who have moved to French and not been made welcome but so far we've been welcomed with open arms everywhere we go and people are truly keen to help with the language barrier, especially if you try to speak at least a little French!

My advice - give the language a go, even if all you can say is Bonjour and Au Revoir. It will be appreciated!

 

Storms and neighbourly invitations..

Yesterday evening there had been thunderstorms predicted in the region, but not specifically in our area. Anyway as the evening drew on, the thunderstorms around us, but not directly above us, became evident by the huge flashes of lightning that were lighting up the sky all around us. Two of our dogs are scared of thunder and lightning, and when I say scared I mean absolutely petrified. We heard minimal thunder, had only a little rain, but the lightning went on for hours all around us. Consequently we had very little sleep last night due to two very unsettled, scared dogs. Today they had forecast thunderstorms directly overhead for at least 6 hours, but, as is often the case with weather forecasters, they got it wrong! It became very windy for a short while followed by some big black clouds, and the lightest rain shower lasting only a few minutes and now the sky is clear and the clouds are vanishing into the distance. We are hopeful of a decent nights sleep tonight.

I can't take the credit for this photo, I found it using Google and I think was actually taken in Australia!

We also had a visitor today. G, our next door farmer neighbour, called round to invite us round for aperitifs at "midi a demain", that's 12 noon tomorrow, to welcome us to the village. A lovely and muchly appreciated invitation. However now we've gone into panic mode as we don't know the French etiquette for such invitations! We know not to bring wine but that's about it. In the morning a phone call to some English people we have met who will be able to advise - we hope!

And as for the ongoing fuel blockades, when we went shopping today there were absolutely no queues at the petrol pumps, so that's good. And we managed to get a new handle for the old multipronged pitchfork we inherited with the house. I'm really pleased about this as it's a great tool for filling the compost heap and I was devastated when the handle broke yesterday. Well maybe devastated is a bit strong, but certainly mildly upset anyway!

The French are on strike... Again!

The French fuel crisis has hit the headlines in the UK - I know this because it's on the BBC news channels. 

The French have maintained the right to strike if they don't like something, in this case the new working rules that the government are trying to bring in. I think that sometimes they just strike because they fancy a long weekend too. There's no telling if there'll be any warning there's going to be a strike or a demonstration.

The week we came over to sign the Acte de Compromis, the Air traffic controllers decided to strike the day we were travelling, but they only decided late the afternoon before we were due to travel. We got a text message from the airline saying that our flight to Nantes was cancelled! After an initial lot of swearing and wringing of hands, hubby booked us a ferry crossing instead. When he rang the airline to find out what the problem was he was asked if we would still require our return flight two days later! What did they think! We were going to come back before we went? 

Anyway we arrived by ferry and car, signed the appropriate paperwork (both the Compromis and the bank papers) and on the morning we were returning to catch the ferry home the French farmers decided to blockade the motorways with large trailers full of s..t,, and burning large round bales of mouldy straw. We're not really sure why to be fair but this time it didn't affect us as we had left loads of time to get to the port.

So strikes and demonstrations are the accepted norm here, but they usually only last a day or two. They must be very unhappy about the new working rules because it looks like this time it will go on for a while, and, as is human nature, everyone has gone into panic buying mode and rushed out to fill up their cars with fuel, long queues at the petrol pumps and petrol stations running out of fuel. 

Will it both us? Not unless it goes on for months. The car has a nearly full tank in it anyway, and the only driving we HAVE to do is to get food, maybe once a week a journey of about 10 miles/15km each way and as the car does 50 miles to the gallon we'll be okay for a while yet!

I think that people should have the right to demonstrate/strike to air their views and even to push the "management" into discussions about things, but it would appear that here in France at the moment there is a degree of violence rearing it's ugly head and that I don't approve of. But I support their right to maintain what is their normal working week of 35 hours a week. The French have very strong family ties and values and put their family time above a lot of other things. Something that in my opinion the UK could learn from. It used to be that way in the UK too, but no more sadly in a large part of the population.

Tomatoes, compost heaps and shopping..

Yesterday I managed to get some tomato plants into the garden and add a couple more potatoes to the potato patch. Now I like to try and be frugal. I don't like spending money if I can get something cheaper, or better still free! Don't get me wrong here, I'm aiming for a simple and partially self sufficient life because I like the idea of it and because it feels right, and not because I have any strong eco feelings - at least I thought not, but I'm beginning to think I might well be wrong about that, but I'll talk more about that in a later post I think, once I've had time to think it through more to analyse what I really think.

In the meantime I don't have a picture of the tomato plants, or the bed along the end of the house under the wisteria which I have spent all day digging out all the weeds from and sorted out all the edging bricks along it, but I do have a picture of my compost heap - which I'm very proud of I hasten to add!

An early picture of the compost heaps

 They are much fuller now and I've learnt lots about compost heaps, what to put on them,, what not to do, brown and green stuff to put on, and that's thanks to both my sis and bro in law and the wonders of youtube. They probably don't look very exciting to you but to me they are fascinating to me, and I've spent quite a bit of time making sure that the layers of stuff are right.

So why is this important when I'm supposed to be talking about shopping? Well it's really quite simple. The compost from these heaps should be ready by next spring to dig into the garden to improve the soil quality, that means that I'll be able to grow more and better veg and fruit, which in turn will mean that I don't have to spend so much on shopping and I can guarantee the quality!

 Yesterday morning I spent all morning in the kitchen. I've discovered that minced beef, a staple for cheap meals for us in the UK, is actually expensive here, at around 12 euros a kilo. That works out at about £9.50 a kilo or £4.40 a lb. I managed to pick up some beef that was on offer of the week and promo and made 1.9kilos for 11.87 euros - that's about half the price of buying the mince direct. Now I've been really lucky and last Christmas hubby bought me a Kitchenaid mixer and attachments, one of which is for mincing things so it was really easy, if a little time consuming, to do.

Shopping here in France does seem quite a bit more expensive. I'm not sure if it's because I haven't quite got my head around what's a good deal and what's not, or what brands are the cheaper ones, but that will improve in time. In the meantime we'll make savings where we can, make all our own food whenever possible at all (bearing in mind that I only have a set of gas rings, a combination microwave, a bbq and a George Foreman grill. The oven part of the cooker doesn't work which does limit things a bit, but you just have to think ahead and be creative. 

What foods are we missing? Well the French don't appear to make potato salad, but that's easily fixed by using salad potatoes and mixing light mayonnaise with creme fraiche and chopped chives. Tea will be an interesting one once we run out of the Yorkshire Tbags and PG tips we brought with us. We can get British tea but it's expensive, otherwise it's Liptons. Tea is a personal choice and for me Liptons just doesn't cut it! Sausages are different, but my Kitchenaid comes with a sausage making attachment so that's fixable in time, once I've sourced sausage skins. Up to now I think that's it. 

The variety of both fruit and veg and fish is much bigger in the local supermarkets, and the patisserie and bread is, in my honest opinion, far better than in the UK. 

So all in all the pro's far outweigh the cons when it comes to the shopping - apart from the cost of course!

The garden grows..

I was going to write about shopping today, but, having had a wonderful, if hard work, day in the garden, I changed my mind. Woman's prerogative and all that!

Well the news is that the potager - veg/fruit garden - is now fenced to keep the les chiens - dogs - from digging holes where they shouldn't! Hubby has done an amazing job with the fencing in the garden, both around the boundary and around the potager, although I've helped as much as I can, helping to unroll the stock fencing and wiring the stock fencing to the tensioning wire. I've spent a lot of the last 3 weeks digging out firstly the brassicas from B'rassic park, and then digging out all the perennial weeds like thistles and layering the compost heaps! 

Today all this work has paid off and the garden finally has it's first properly dug and planted veg patch! 

Now ok it doesn't look like much, but the most important thing for me is that none of these plants have cost me a penny! They are potato plants that have obviously germinated from last years crop that were missed when they were dug up and I found them spread across the veg plot so have dug them up and relocated them. Not ideal, but they are free and if we get any potatoes from them then that's a bonus! 

There are chard plants in the garden too and there were a very few leeks which I dug and served with some chard leaves to hubby last night as part of our evening meal. I do love getting something for nothing, especially when it's healthy!!

So all in all today has been a win win situation. Tomorrow I'll talk shopping.


 

Wildlife not Wild Life!

   

Our house is, it's very safe to say, truly rural! We live in a hamlet of only 4 houses, one of which is a holiday home and the other two are the farmhouse and a property that belongs to the farm which, we think, has one of the farm workers living in it. Consequently there's not exactly a huge amount of night life (or wild partying) happening around us. Now this suits us fine, but wouldn't be for everybody. It's peaceful and at night we can see the stars and hear the crickets, birds and Marsh frogs. 

Now we're not tweeters (or bird watchers to most people) but we are interested in birds and wild life, and although we lived on the edge of Salisbury plain, which had a wide variety of wildlife, in our garden at home we mostly saw sparrows and an occasional blue tit! Since we have been here we have sat in our house and seen greater spotted woodpeckers, green woodpeckers (this morning!), gold finches, chaffinches, blue tits (obviously), sparrows, starlings, pigeons and most impressively black redstarts! We're becoming fascinated by the birds around us and listening to the wide variety of bird calls. 

On more than one occasion we've had partridges in the garden - much to the delight of the dogs, but fortunately there's been no casualties! We've seen signs of both foxes and badgers in the garden but not actually seen the animals themselves. And living in the outside walls are a lot of wall lizards - we've nicknamed them geckos but know that that's not what they really are. And I never realised just how many different bees, spiders and other creepy crawlies there are. Some of them I'm not so keen on to be fair, and the field crickets which hide in holes in the lawn are noisy and much bigger than I ever expected!

Wall lizard

Anyway suffice it to say that there's always something to watch in the garden and local area but it does prove that you have to take the time to look around you to really see things properly. We could quite easily have missed the black redstarts as they aren't particularly stunning to look at, and I would have missed the green woodpecker if hubby hadn't spotted it.

So remember, keep your eyes open while you go about your day, and see what you can spot that you have missed before... 

A day out..

Yesterday I spent most of the day out in the garden doing one thing or another. I dug up a lot of weeds, mostly nettle type things, dandelions and other large weeds. I filled the wheel barrow 3 times and over the last two weeks my newly erected compost heap has two full compartments and one to start on. Now granted a lot of the stuff on them is from B'rassic park, but there's layers of other stuff too. Tomorrow I aim to finish off the last of B'rassic park - apart from the stems which are still drying so we can attempt to burn them. Hubby cut the grass and sprayed weedkiller in lots and lots of places. I cleared mole hill soil off the lawn so he could do that - 3 barrowloads of soil!

 You can just about see the compost heap in the back ground, the remains of the brassicas and the weed filled garden between the two!

Anyway after such a busy day yesterday we decided to have the day off today and go out. It's a bank holiday here in France - pentecote - so it was a little like a Sunday. The shops that were open all closed at lunchtime, including the supermarkets, and everyone (apart from the farmers!) had the afternoon off if not the whole day. I had seen a horse show advertised not that far from us. It was advertised as the regional finals for dressage, showjumping and xc over two days so I thought it would be an interesting day.

Now we had a lovely day, sat and watched showjumping in the sunshine for a couple of hours, once we'd found the place that was - not a sign in sight anywhere to give us a clue!It was, or appeared to be, very laid back for a regional final, with loose dogs wandering around the inside edge of the arena and people drinking wine and beer at 12 noon! 

After that we took a drive around the local area - mostly looking for somewhere for hubby to go fishing. No luck on that front but a nice walk down the side of the river Vendee where it's dammed and took a couple of photos, including one of a building that I thought would be ideal for a James Bond film!!

Anyway a very leisurely day had by us both. And the gardening and other jobs will wait til another day.

A day in the Garden

This morning hubby and I went shopping for yet more fencing stuff and some stuff for the garden. The long term plan is to be semi self sufficient which means growing stuff, having chickens, runner ducks and possibly other livestock. It's that dream picture which I'm sure will have it's ups and downs along the way.

There has obviously been a large vegetable garden here before, which, if you've read my previous posts you will know, contained about 200+ brassica plants of at least 4 feet in height! The other things that are  in abundance are weeds! Lots and lots of weeds! Thistles, dandelions, lots of things I can't identify and grass!

All the brassicas are now down, and most of them have been secateur'd into the bits that have gone onto the new compost heap and the stems which are drying out ready to be burnt - all being well! There are still about 30-40 left to deal with but I decided I needed a break from brassica chopping so decided to make a start on digging up the difficult weeds like the thistles. 4 barrow loads down and I'm just beginning to see where I've been! 

I know I'm amazingly lucky as I have a Potager(that's french for kitchen veg garden!) area that is 20m x 25m with fruit trees on either side and other fruit trees elsewhere in the garden, and once I start to feel as if I have a plan for what is going where and started to clear some of the flipping weeds so I can see the soil I will start to appreciate what I have! 

There are other small garden areas and lots and lots of grass - all of which needs cutting but is too wet! It's been dry all day so maybe tomorrow is the day for hubby to get out the lawnmower! 

It's times like today that I am so grateful for where we live and yet so acutely aware of how little I know about gardening, even though I thought I was a bit of a gardener! I keep finding plants and shrubs I don't recognise and spend quite a lot of time wondering if this or that is a plant or a weed? Then I reassure myself that my Dad, who was an amazing gardener, would have said it doesn't matter, because if it's in the wrong place it's a weed whatever!

Anyone know what this is? They are all over the place...

This is one of the older ones!

These are the leaves

 

 

 

 

 






















 I can't decide whether or not to take one or two of them out. I've chopped back some other shrubs quite ferociously, mostly in order to put the fencing in, but today I attacked the bush at the right side of the older one in the picture above as I discovered there were two roses absolutely smothered by whatever that is. But that's a question for another time.

Rain stops play, and money problems hit home!

Yesterday it started to rain. Now, to be fair, it's the first "proper" rain we've had since we've been here so we shouldn't complain. We've had a couple of showers before but one day, in fact only half of one day, of rain in almost a month isn't really enough to complain about!

The up side of the weather is that we now have most of the rooms in the house that are habitable unpacked and usable. Okay, over the next few months (or years) there's still a lot of development to do in them, but they are usable. Upstairs is still pretty much like your average loft!

The downside of the weather, if you can call it that, is that as the temperature hasn't dropped at all, everything is growing like mad, including the grass! I can't get on the garden to dig as it's just a bit too wet (but not waterlogged by any means!) and the fencing has come to a halt, along with the grass cutting and gardening.

So what did we do today? We went shopping of course. This led us to a rather concerning investigation. When hubby tried to pay at the till for 88 Euros worth of shopping the card was declined. Now we knew that there was about 3000 Euros in the account so hubby was none too happy to have to pay with a UK bank card! Now, it's not the first time our card has been declined for no reason that we could work out. So when we got home I got out all the bank paperwork for our account to discover that our account is currently limited to withdrawing 450euros in a seven day period and paying out 1500 Euros in any 30day period. We had ordered and paid for heating oil, cost 496 Euros, only a few days ago which of course means no spending on the card for another 3 days due to the 450 limit. We had been under the impression that the 450euros withdrawal limit was per day not per week!

Be careful when you open a French bank account that you understand fully what the bank account limits are. Here in France, it doesn't necessarily follow that just because your account has money in it, you can actually have access to the money! 

On Wednesday we have an appointment with our account manager to discuss increasing these limits. Mostly because, once our UK house sale is completed and the money transferred here, we will be commencing on the French house renovations which is going to necessitate payments over our limits on a regular basis, so we need to rectify this before it causes us even more problems!

 Signed Frustrated from the Vendee!

Just pictures...

Today I thought I'd post a few random pictures of our new home, both inside and out, so you can get a feeling of just what we have taken on...

 














This is the workshop with well outside. The well does indeed have water in it and it has been tested and passed fit to drink. Sadly the pump is broken and there is quite a lot of work needed to make it function again - but one of these days it will.

 

 Before, during and, I'd like to say after, but actually it's only the beginning... We know what the cause of the damp is...

All of this render has to come off as it's cracked and loose but that will solve the damp problem - all being well!

 Wisteria walk with the two small dogs. I do love the wisteria

 And to finish a few random pics from around the place. I do love my new home, wisteria and all. Anyone would think I'd always wanted to live in a house with wisteria!

And finally an update on Burassic Park... It's all gone, well it's all dug up, a lot of it has been cut off the stems and put on the compost heap ready for next years compost and the stems are laid out drying in the sun as we've decided the only thing to do with them is to burn them. 

Until next time...
 

Good day, bad day.... Bad day, good day....

Today has had it's ups and downs. My mood has been variable at best, but mostly a bit down. I thought long and hard before writing this post but I just need to say that moving anywhere, not least abroad to a country where you only speak a bit of the language can be a strain on you, your relationship and your mental health. Not to mention your finances and your pets! 

I retired from the NHS after 30 years following what could be described as a mental breakdown and after treatment and leaving a job I had loved, but which had contributed, nay caused, my mental illness, our move abroad was our new start. Our way forward.

It still is our new start and our way forward, but some days are just more difficult than others. This morning seemed to start okay, but for no apparent reason I just wanted to sit and cry. I don't know what triggered it but I'd guess it's a combination of struggling with the language and missing my friends, a stupid argument about a gate and a bit of realisation of just how much stuff we need to do to the house over the next few years.

Anyway we talked about the argument. Hubby then went and hit fence posts into the ground and I went out into the garden and decimated Burassic park! It's amazing what a bit of hard work in the garden and achieving a goal can do for your mood. 

I know that this is the right place for us to be. I know that it is our future, our new start. I know that it will not always be easy.

BUT......

I also know that with a prevailing wind, a large amount of love and a bit of hard work we'll have the most amazing life here in France.

Now... Back to the French language course...

Rubbish, total and utter rubbish!

In the UK rubbish is easy to understand! Every fortnight the dustbin men turn up and collect the rubbish and take it away to deal with it. The other week they might collect recycling, and depending on where you live, depends on what they collect and how often. 

In Wiltshire where we used to live they collected general rubbish and green waste (if you pay extra for the green waste that is) once a fortnight and the alternate weeks they collect recycling. In the recycling bin you can put cardboard, plastic bottles, tin cans, glass, paper and textiles. And whenever you had a clear out or needed to get rid of something bigger you could either take it to the local recycling centre - aka the tip - or for the bigger items call the council and they will collect (for a small fee!)

So here we are in France and having sorted out the electric and water supply, my mind turned to the subject of rubbish! We registered at the Mairie (mayor's to you and me) and subsequently through the post came a letter from SCOM. I have no idea what that stands for by the way, but I knew it was to do with the rubbish. I filled in the form attached and sent it off and then the phone rang...

Now bearing in mind that my French is school standard and I can just about get by face to face, the idea of a telephone conversation in French was more than a little disconcerting!! But despite that I answered the phone and much to my relief discovered that Emilie from SCOM speaks better English than I speak French! We discussed the service and she emailed me the information.

Anyway the bottom line is that we have to pay 147euros a year for our rubbish collection and for that we get 13 rubbish collections a year, as many yellow bag (recycling) collections (fortnightly though) as we like and use of the local tip for up to 15 visits a year. We have to register at the Community office to collect a card to use the decheterie (tip!). We can have another 7 collections a year at an extra charge of 4.5euros a collection, but can't have more than 20 collections a year total! The yellow bag collections are much like the UK recycling bins to be fair, but the rest of the service is definitely not the same!

Anyway all being well our new bin arrives on Thursday! And hopefully a bucket load of yellow bags too!!

What is that noise?

Since we've been in the new house we've been serenaded in the evenings with a loud noise which we thought were from some sort of wildfowl. It is really loud and sounds to be way down in the valley but reverberates around the whole house and is obviously being made by lots and lots of whatever "wildfowl" is making the noise.

Well today we solved the mystery. Hubby likes to fish, keen on both match fishing and carp fishing and had decided he wanted to go and look at a fishing complex about 12km away. It was a lovely day, even though there was a light breeze and as his French is limited I went with him to help out. As it was I wasn't needed as the lady in the information centre at Pescalis spoke English far better than I speak French. She told us all about the fishing complex and said we would be welcome to go for a walk round the lake. It appears to be a very well run and managed set of fishing lakes, although a little expensive to fish!

Anyway we came out of the information place and lo and behold we heard the sound we have been hearing at home every night. And is it wildfowl? Nope! Is it birdlife of any kind? Nope! It's frogs!! Marsh frogs to be precise. My god are they loud and noisy!!

I've never heard anything quite like it! And they're only small too!

There's a wide variety of flora and fauna around us and over the next few weeks I'll try to introduce you to them.

But next time I'm going to talk rubbish... I know I usually talk rubbish but in this case I'm going to be talking about dustbins, household tips and recycling!

And now for something completely different....

The last few posts have been about the practicalities of buying a house in France. Today's post will be a short one and a bit of fun I hope...

Welcome to Burassic forest - like Jurassic park but this time entirely made of last years brassica plants!!

Burassic forest

 Who on earth plants over 200 brassica plants - a combination of sprouting broccoli, purple sprouting broccoli, brussel sprouts and cabbages - in one year and then leaves them to go to seed and grow over 4 feet tall!! Anyone got any suggestions what to do with them once I've dug them up! Composting not an option. Currently trying to dry out the stems with a hope that I might be able to burn them!

On the other hand......

This is the beautiful wisteria that adorns the end of our new house. The trunk is huge and we think it must have been planted at the time the front part of the house was built in 1942 as the base of the trunk is seriously large. I've never seen a wisteria with a trunk this big. And I absolutely love it. The props that are holding up the weight will need some attention fairly soon and I think that it deserves to be held up by something more in keeping with it's magnificence.





 

French Legalities - Or.. What have I just signed?!

In France the house buying process is probably more simple in some ways than in the UK. You negotiate a price, the notaire issues an Acte de Compromis document to say that you have agreed to buy this house at this price and attached to it come various reports – not surveys, they’re a different thing altogether and not automatically part of the buying process. 

The reports include such things as a termite report, a report on lead content in the house, a report about asbestos, a report on the fosse Septique (septic tank to you and me - unless you've only ever lived in a town or city in which case welcome to the world of no mains drainage) and woodworm/capricorn beetles/deathwatch beetles report! There are more but I wouldn't want to frighten you off!! Oh and they're all in French so get used to using Google Translate (other translation programmes are available) or a French/English dictionary. Unless of course you speak the language fluently - sure wish I did!

In the Acte de Compromis will be a completion date. Once you sign this document you are legally bound to buy the house, have to pay 10% deposit which you will lose if not completed as per the date or if you change your mind and pull out and have agreed the final completion date. Once you’ve agreed the date it’s a fixed point in time and you can’t just say, sorry I haven’t completed on the sale of my house so we can’t complete on this one! That’s how we’ve ended up with two mortgages!! Be wise and be careful. I’m told that some notaires will put a clause in to the compromis that this is subject to the completion of your own house sale, but it is not guaranteed and generally only if the vendors agree!

On the other hand the Acte de compromis also protects the buyer so read it carefully, make sure it says what you want it to say, including listing anything that’s being sold as part of the deal and their value, and once you’ve signed it then look forward to your future in France…

We’ve only been here a couple of weeks and believe me when I say we are loving, loving, loving the new lifestyle!

What did we not get that we thought we would

In my recap the other day I talked about making sure you discuss anything that you see in the house that you would like to keep. Don’t, for one minute, assume that just because it appears to be a fixture it will still be there when you move in, never mind anything that’s not actually attached to the walls or floor.

I’ll give you an example….

This was attached to the wall in the understairs cupboard, which incidentally is big enough to be a small room, not just a cupboard. We loved it and made the mistake of assuming that as it was attached to the wall, and as such a fixture, it would still be there when we moved in. We never actually discussed this with the vendors even though we had ample opportunity to do so, we just assumed. And you know that to assume makes and “ass of u and me”. Anyway in hind sight there were a number of items we thought would stay, like the very large pressoir in the workshop, the telephone as mentioned already, the tree stump stools and table and last but not least the units in the kitchen which although pretty basic (for that read rubbish!) we thought they would do us for a while. In point of fact on receiving the key and turning up at the house it was all gone!

All gone!

Lesson learned! Never assume anything! It's normal in France for the vendors to remove everything including kitchen units and light fittings! Just be aware and talk to them...