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!