Back to the blog!

So, my 'Dear Daily Diary' did not happen, as mentioned in the previous blog.  

The reason for this is that I couldn't remember how to get back into the thing, but have finally worked it out tonight, after many emails, changes of password and hours of frustration!  If the same thing happens again, it might again be silence for a while!  A silent silence that is, unless I put this on YouTube or similar.

Life on the house renovation front has continued to be busy, and the latest is papering the large sejour with cheap wallpaper, which Harry is doing now even as I type.  We're hoping we don't come down in the morning and everything has peeled off (as happened on more than one occasion at Logan Street, with our beautiful dark blue wallpaper, which wasn't that cheap).  It has rained most of this week and snow is forecast for Sunday and Monday (and probably beyond), so the rest of the decorating can happily continue inside, as we may well not want to go out!  Still, no snow here up to now, unlike County Durham and other parts of the UK, as we hear on the radio.

So, on that note, I'll away and see how things are progressing downstairs in the world of work, and come back to this in the near future, if only I remember how.

A bientot!

Stop Pub! Pas de Pub!

No - this isn't a campaign to close the local pub down - this is what you put on your French letter box to stop receiving junk mail.  


The recommended French letter box, is actually that - a metal box which you attach to the railings or wall on your fence, or gate post, or outside your house.  Most people's fences have been cut specially to install the postbox near their gate.  This information should be of interest particularly to Stuart! - none of that walking up people's drives, in and out of backyards, waiting for a dog to attack you.  Our postwoman usually drives up in her yellow van and parks outside our house, or one of the neighbours to deliver the post.  


The postbox recommended by La Poste is like a large, oversized shoe box, in metal, which opens at the front, with a letterbox complete with flap, a keyhole, and a little plastic covered bit for you to write your surname.  You can buy them also with an opening door complete with keyhole at the back, so that you can remove your mail without going out into the street - handy if you're still in pyjamas, or there's a big snowdrift blocking your exit.


Our current mail box looks like a home made affair - it's some kind of metal, with flap, like a big metal A4 envelope, about 3 inches deep, with an opening door and key on the back.  It also has a home-made wire attached to the fence so that you can open the door without being scratched by the hedge (some kind of pine).  The problem is that this box is now buried in the hedge and difficult to get to.  I also discovered that if you don't hook it up properly, you find your post, wet and faded lurking deep at the bottom of the hedge days or even weeks after it was delivered.  This is exactly what happened with our bill from the water company and the demand for £2,500 that I recently received from HM Tax Office.  (They now notify me that they owe me a little bit of money from 5 years ago, also 4 years ago, which they'd never bothered returning, but now they find I owe them about £2,450 for the past two years!  I have of course disputed it and await a response.)


Back to the mail box - our slight dilemma is where to put the mailbox.  Also do we go for a one-door (approx. £20)  or a two-door (approx. £45)?  Harry thinks he may have found a different place to put it - on a post which will be bolted into the ground at the other side of the gate, and hopefully won't be too high for the postwoman.  For that, of course, there'll be the extra cost of the post and fixing bolts, so we'll see.


Back to the pub (if only!).  This is also the word that comes up on television to let you know there's an ad break coming up - these are often quite lengthy, so it's good to have the warning. We thought we got a lot of junk mail in England, but have revised that since we came here.  There are a lot of supermarket chains around - SuperU, Intermarche, LeClerc, Carrefour and our own little G20 (which seems to have influenced world economic talks!).  Every two weeks there seems to be a special offer period, and new leaflets with all the latest offers.  Recently at G20 it was the 'Foire au Porc' - the pork festival, when all things and sizes of pork were on offer.  All the publicity seems to arrive in one go, and even though we have an old 'Stop Pub' on our box, we still seem to receive the bundle of colourful leaflets.  We don't mind as it gives you chance to see what's on offer and compare prices, and see what's out there.  And there is a lot out there - but generally much further away than the two-mile trip to the Arnison centre!

Early Days

I've just read this today (2 November 2011) - I didn't know it was on here, and had obviously published it without knowing my way around this blog thing.  Not to worry - it was obviously my draft of work we had done, things we had done to include in letters, etc - also to remind ourselves of what exactly we have achieved!  I'll leave it on here, as a summary of the story so far (well, two weeks ago) . . .


Lots of work, sunshine, meeting the locals, using local commerces, registering car, registering with GP, and CPAM, bells at 12 noon and 7, accordeon festival, repas automnale.


House:  spraying floorboards, emptying cellar, arranging own items and furniture, gardening, sanding and painting shutters, etc., cleaning, sweeping, stripping wallpaper.


Daily:  open 12 shutters, breakfast, wait for post, boulangerie.


ordering wood for woodburner, moving huge pile of wood into bucher, stripping wallpaper.


Tulle and Uzerche:  DIY stores for Xlophene, etc.


Plague of flies, tax demand for £2,500.

Toussaint, 1 November 2011

Just as forecast, a grey morning with heavy rain, but we have views of greenery from most windows and it's been interesting watching the autumn colours in the garden and the tall trees behind the house in a neighbour's garden.  Not to mention, the fact that this is Limousin and there are trees (lots of pine trees) rising up in the distance through the mist all around.
Our daily trip to the supermarket, which was busier than usual because of half-day closing because of Toussaint, then on to the boulangerie, then we called on a French couple, Roger and Elsa, who actually live in Paris, but have been here for the Toussaint holiday with their grandchildren.   This afternoon, more stripping of wallpaper and investigating how to remove the backing from carpet upstairs that was stuck down to the lovely chestnut floorboards about 30 years ago!  We were invited back to Roger and Elsa's at l'heure d'apéritif for an apéritif, so have been back there again this evening for a drink (mine was a Muscat and Harry's a Salers - a local apéritif made from gentian flowers - an acquired taste some would say).


We had planned a  visit to the cemetery today, to see the tradition of placing flowers (usually crysanthemums in a pot) on your family grave, but didn't make it, so we'll pass by there later in the week to see the cemetery in bloom!


How we met Elsa and Roger was pure serendipity (if that's how you spell it!). The day after we signed for the house in August, there was a vide greniers in the village - 'empty your attics!', the French version of our car boot sales.  The regulations here are that you can't do more than two vide greniers a year - most villages have them at least once a year, and you have to fill in a application form, stating that you have not done more than your quota of two.  You are then allocated a spot in the middle of the village - if you're lucky, your stall will be right outside your own front door, so you can popping in to fetch forgotten things to sell on your stall.   It was a good opportunity to meet people, and a good excuse not to buy things, as we could say we had just bought a house, which was full of furniture, crockery, etc.  'Ah, it's you who've bought Monsieur Salesse's house!, then welcome to Chamberet!'  There was some very interesting stuff on some stalls - including some very strange tools and agricultural-type items, as we are in a very rural area here.


At one particular stall we had that conversation, and the woman (Elsa) said that Monsieur Salesse was cousin to her husband. (Roger).  He arrived and we had a chat and they invited us round a couple of days later to their house.  The house actually belongs to Roger's mother who is now 95 and in a nursing home at Treignac, the next village about 8 miles away.  Roger was doing the family history - he's cousin to Madame Salesse who died about 5 years ago.  Her maiden name was Serre and it's the Serre family tree that Roger is busy investigating.  They invited us back that evening for an apéritif and we took along various family photos and papers we had found here in the attic. Roger was able to tell us a lot about the house here and Monsieur and Madame Salesse and their families.   They are a lovely couple - Elsa is Chilean and they have lived all over the world because of Roger's job and Elsa speaks English which is helpful at times. They called here to see us last week to see how we were getting on with the house (and I think were quite shocked and sympathetic to our cause when they saw everything that needed to be done!) and invited us to call round before they went back to Paris, which we did today.  The two grandchildren who were staying with them have very un-French names - Ulysses and Darius - two lovely lads, and their mum is called Marisol - a Spanish or Chilean name from Elsa's side.  They are off back to Paris tomorrow, but Roger will be here in December and has offerred to give us a hand with jobs where you might need a couple of people.  He's also given us information on insulation for the attic and on their new Ikea kitchen.
Unfortunately, our nearest Ikea (or Eekea as it's pronounced here) is at Bordeaux, about 2 hours drive away - but that could be a good excuse for a weekend at the seaside, not to mention sampling the local beverage!

A four-week-old Chambertois!

France

Chers amis! Bon soir!

This is going to be a bit of a belated blog, but nothing changes, or 'plus Ça change', as we now say -  I was always last, and when I was little was always described as ' the cow's tail'!  Still, I have a very good excuse this time, because of Busy Days in Chamberet.

We arrived a whole four weeks ago, yesterday at 5.00 pm to be exact, or 17 heures as we now say.  It has been  some of the busiest four weeks of my life - work, work, work - dawn 'til dusk.  


I've sent some real letters home, ie letters sent in the post, to family and friends as we didn't have any internet access for the first three weeks - I was lost!  All we had were our mobile phones with expensive, long phone calls to Citroen UK and the bank, and the occasional visit to the local bar 'La Cabane de Pierron' (have a look on Facebook) wasn't a great success as far as Wifi (pronounced here Weefee) was concerned.


To save time, and not to miss even one exciting element of my letters, I'll copy them below. Hope you have a long spare moment to read them!


Letter written 12 October 2011
 

We finally left Durham at about 9 o'clock on the night of Friday 30 September, with a detour in the wrong direction to Lanchester to return the key for the cottage. We managed to get a room in a Travel Lodge at about 11.30, somewhere near Peterborough I think, right next to a lorry park, so not much sleep in the morning. But then we had the best bacon sarnie and mugs of tea at Stibbington Trucker's cafe a little further south, then we made good time to the ferry. The following night we spent in a Hotel Premiere Classe (what a misnomer!) at Dreux, about a 4 hour drive. (Never stay in one of these places – most prison cells would be cheerier, but sometimes you just need to get a bed for the night.)

We arrived here in high temperatures at 5 in the afternoon on Sunday 2 October, and were welcomed by Ian Wright, (Euro Moves) who had done our removal and miraculously managed to get everything into his van, then unloaded into the house. He had even got the kettle on for us for a cup of tea! I think Harry and I were both a bit overwhelmed at how our belongings filled the downstairs (now there's a surprise I hear you say), with boxes and furniture everywhere. We've spent our time since then moving boxes around, emptying them and trying to find things – we have yet to locate a frying pan, which we suspect is still in the cooker at Witton Gilbert, but we still hope it might turn up yet in the wrong box. We need to empty the downstairs as all the floors are going to be sanded at some point over a two-day period by a local craftsman (English) so may have to dismantle some of the furniture and have the joy of re-assembling at some point.

Other things we've been doing – Harry has been down in the cellar spraying all the floor boards underneath with some horrible chemical to treat the wood which had dried out, we've been to the tip a few times, have been to the Mairie (which is like the Parish and District Council Offices rolled into one, but very local) for advice on various things and today we met the Maire himself, quite a scary man who is also one of the local GP s and we've also registered with a GP. We've also managed quite a bit of gardening. We have three pear trees and one apple tree so have been well-provided for fruit from them. It has been red hot most days which has been great as we're able to leave all the doors and windows open to give the house the good airing it needs. Mornings and evenings are cool though – very autumnal and we have the wood burning stove going tonight. Just as well, as we've discovered that the boiler (oil fired) needs replacing and that will take a few weeks and a few pounds of course. We've managed to find a good plumber/central heating guy just by chance. We went to a local woodyard to see about buying wood, only to discover that it's too late – everybody stocks up here in the summer for the long, hard winter ahead! Anyway, the guy there was really helpful. He recommended this plumber, and also put us in touch with a farmer down the road who might have some wood. We went knocking on his door and he and his wife were dead friendly and helpful as well. He even gave us full, graphic details of his recent prostate operation which means he can't lift much for a few weeks! But he can sell us some wood, so no harm there.

People here are really friendly and most of them seem to know that somebody English has bought Monsieur Salesse's house, and a lot seem to know it's us! We've been shopping most days at the little supermarket in the village, get our bread from the boulangerie and have had new headlights fitted at the village garage – oh, and of course, have had a drink at two of the three bars. The location is lovely – greenery and views all around, and on the edge of the village is the Maison d'Arbre – the House of the Tree and an Arboretum, like the Botanic Gardens.

The story of the car is this – you need to register your car in France and need first to go to the Tax Office, with all your paperwork proving that you have paid for the car and paid VAT on it. They give you a form to take to the Prefecture (a sort of Government Office North East) to register the car. For this you need to have various identity papers, utility bills, a French MOT (even though we had ours at the end of August), costing 71 euros, and a Certificat de Conformite, saying that your car conforms and is roadworthy enough to be driven in France – yes, I hear you say, but it's a French car, made in France? (Oh, and nearly forgot, we had to change the car headlights (£450) and will have to have French number plates – another £20 for them). Before we left home we paid Citroen UK £100 for the Certificat, and it was agreed that they would send the Certificat to our new French address. But, of course, they sent it to Witton Gilbert, recorded. It was then sent back to them, and they then sent it on to us last Thursday, but it still hasn't arrived. It was supposed to have been sent Air Sure – a copy of the certificate arrived by Air Sure in two days, so we are having severe doubts about the original certificate arriving tomorrow. Very frustrating, annoying and depressing.

Now to compound all this frustration, I discovered just before we left home that our car insurance only gave us 30 days driving in Europe and we had used up this allowance earlier this year. They would only give us an additional week's extension (£20), but it meant we just had a week to get everything above done on the car in order to insure it here in France. That hasn't happenned because of Citroen UK's stupidity with the Certificat, but to make matters worse, we can't get insurance here until we get a certificate from our UK insurance re no-claims, etc. We can't get that until I cancel the UK insurance, and although that has technically run out, apparently we do have third party cover. I forgot to say that the Prefecture where we need to return to do the car registration is about 30 miles away, so we are reluctant to drive just in case anything happens. Not having the correct car insurance in France is very, very serious – punishable by prison sentence! So the car has been concealed in the garage (which it just fits into) for nearly a week.

Oh, and why we have no internet is that the nearest places to look for packages for phones and the internet would be somewhere near Limoges (40 miles) , or at Tulle, where the Prefecture is(about 30 miles). And of course because of the car problems we haven't wanted to drive to either. Also, it's bad enough in England deciding which provided to go with, but with a different language and lots of different possibilities, it 's difficult making a decision. Not having phones or the internet has been very frustrating and makes us feel really isolated. We both have mobiles but they are expensive, so roll on the day when we are connected again.

At Tulle we also started the process of registering with the French health service, which apparently is another round of paperwork and running about, so we need to go back to Tulle to get that sorted. Other little downers on the same day as the non-appearance of the certificate and news re the insurance, were a plague of flies that night upstairs (horrible) and a demand from HM Revenue and Customs for £2,500 tax which they claim I've underpaid! I've contested it of course, as they've had all information from my employers and the DWPensions – they took a month to acknowledge my letter about moving abroad, but, my God, did they move quickly with this latest assessment!

So, our days are spent grafting and our evenings spent watching some French television or DVDs that we've brought. We don't seem to have many channels and a lot of the programmes are similar to England – Strictly Come Dancing and singing programmes, but we have been able to watch old editions of 'Desperate Housewives' with French subtitles. That's really good for the French, as here they mostly dub films as they don't like having subtitles – so the other night we saw 'Chocolat' actually in French, and Will Smith dubbed into French in 'I Robot'. Sometimes they get a good match for the voice, then at other times it's nothing like the real person, and of course the lip movements are way out. Harry enjoys watching 'The Simpsons' or should I say 'Les Simpson' which is in French. They haven't quite got Homer's or Marge's way of speaking right, so it's a bit weird, but we still laugh a lot. We have been feeling a bit overwhelmed by everything we need to do, but what else would we be doing? It's going to take a while to be comfortable, and we just hope the heating is sorted soon, or we'll be back!

And so to bed – I forgot to say that the village is really quiet after about 8 o'clock and I'm sure everyone's in bed by 9! It gets dark around 7 anyway, then it's battening down the hatches, or rather closing the shutters on 12 windows – it takes ages, then you just have to open them again in the morning! Please pass our news on to anyone who might be interested. A bientot!

Second letter sent 19 October 2011

We have two phone numbers – one the landline which has the loudest ring on this earth (and we can't always hear you though you can hear us) and a line through the internet, which seems to work. We bought a new phone (that you put in a cradle-thing) and are getting the hang of that, consulting the French and English manual often and remembering to bring it downstairs as it's quite a way to leg it upstairs!

Well, I must say, it has been an interesting few weeks (just 3 weeks in fact) - quite tough at times, with lots of ups and downs. The car business was a real bummer, but is now sorted and we have French number plates! That makes me feel a bit vulnerable – with English number plates, French drivers are aware of you being different, but not now.

I'm going to try and print a copy of a letter I typed a few days ago, to save repeating myself here – but basically we have been busy since we arrived and have had one or two nasty surprises – one being that we need a need heating system. It's oil fired, and because it had been shut up along with everything else in the house, the door to the boiler was all corroded and the part no longer available. The new boiler came last week and it's huge! It has to go somehow down the cellar steps (about 12 of them, quite high steps, then through the cellar to go on the plinth). The heating guy came again today to measure up again as he said he'd been having sleepless nights about it fitting! I'd mentioned this to his wife who works in the Mairie (which is like a much, much smaller Civic Centre, where you can ask all sorts of questions about taxes, emptying the bins, etc) and poor man had been worrying about it. My worry was about the weight of it – 175 kilos!, so fingers crossed that all goes well tomorrow.

The weather has changed today as well – up to now it has been red hot most days. Clear blue skies, but cool in the mornings, and two mornings of frost last week, cool in the evenings as well. Today has been unbelievably windy and tonight it's chucking it down with storms forecast I think!

We have given ourselves time off, in case you think we've been hard on ourselves. Last Sunday there was an autumn fayre and meal in the salle de fetes, which is about 100 yards from us. There were various stalls in this huge marquee, and outside a huge press where a family were pressing apples and producing gallons of apple juice. A team of little lads were busy happily filling empty water bottles with the juice which was sold straightaway for 2 euros. We went to the meal, pretty much at the last minute, as we felt a bit shy about joining in, then ended up meeting about 4 other English couples who live near the village. Not good for the French, but good to get information from them about various markets, etc around here. The meal was lovely by the way – 5 courses with wine for 15 euros, with entertainment from a local brass band – more Latin American than Durham – dead lively and pretty loud! We had a great time.

It was interesting watching the marquee going up, as there was a gang of men who came about a week before and constructed a level wooden floor – none of this walking around in mud that you normally see. The wooden floor though was really for the various dances that were part of the 3-day accordeon festival which ended yesterday. From about Tuesday last week camper vans started arriving and by the weekend there were about 30, all parked in various car parks and locations near the salle de fetes. They'd all come either to listen or take part musically in the festival! Like a small, civilized Glastonbury – complete with this strange rectangular block with two doors at each end and a wash basin on the outside! It was certainly well-used I can tell you – each time I went past or looked out, there was a queue of people waiting at either end.

The festival started on Friday afternoon at 2.30 and went on until 2.30 in the morning – that was advertised as a Tea Dance, then on Saturday there was a song competition, 8.30 pm til whenever, then yesterday another Tea Dance – for 6 hours this time! Hearing the music made us realise that we really are in France!

Yesterday we had a trip out to Mont Gargan, which is about six miles from here – it's either 931 or 731 metres. I don't really know how high that is, but the views were stunning with clear blue skies and a lovely warm day. The night before we'd gone on a little recce, with the car finally being all legal and insured, and we ended up looking for another mountain or hill, Mont Ceix, which the information said had a ruined chapel at the top. Off we went and followed the signs, no mileage on them. We ended up on forest tracks, with deer leaping in front of us, but thinking we'd made a big mistake. We finally arrived at a clearing with a tiny old chapel with this poor Saint Dulcet inside, all alone in the dark. We thought we'd be rewarded with stunning views – if there hadn't been so many pine trees, that would certainly have been the case. I must say, the scenery around here is lovely – very lush and green, but you probably remember that from your holiday to Bort les Orgues.

Other nice things about being here are eating pears and apples from our own trees, walking to the boulangerie for our daily bread, and to the little superette – which as supermarkets go, is small but has everything and is called G20 for some reason! Other things are the majority of people saying 'Bonjour' to you when you pass them, hearing the angelus bells at 12 midday and 7 at night. The midday bell comes after the air raid siren which is sounded every day – just to remind you - state before church! The neighbours are friendly, especially an elderly lady who lives two doors down from us. She's quite an eccentric 80 year old, with a dog called Vladimir – Vlady for short. Vlady seems to spend most of his time at the upstairs window, looking out and barking at passers-by and the dog opposite. He's always running away from her, especially when she takes him off in the car to have a walk in the Arboretum, about half a mile away! Last week we had this huge delivery of logs from one of the farmers, and his tractor wouldn't fit in our gate, so he dumped them as best he could, mainly on the pavement. They would probably fill your front room, so we spent a good day moving them into the bucher (woodstore) about 10 yards away. I came back from the boulangerie one day and here was Madame  carrying a couple of logs at a time to help Harry!

Well, it's now Tuesday, 14.00 and the boiler is now in the cellar awaiting installation. It was a bit like Laurel and Hardy – with the plumber, his little assistant who in build and looks is a bit like Stan Laurel, Harry and a man from the water company (Lyonnaise des eaux who used to own Northumbrian Water, I seem to remember) all helping. I couldn't work out whether the water fella just happened to be passing and called in for a chat, or if he had been asked to come and assist. Anyway, it was a bit of a performance as they had to take the casing off the boiler in order to get it down the outside cellar stairs (which have a kind of concrete roof over them, then a sharp corner at the bottom. We've been lucky up to now with workmen, or artisans as they are called here – they have a reputation for not turning up like English builders, etc., but they were here this morning at 8.30 just as we were getting up!

We had loads of rain last night and today is a bit fresh and cloudy – I started washing the windows outside (can't get away from these little panes of glass – loads more than at Logan Street) and considered doing some painting, but Harry has now taken over with that. Everything needs to be painted inside and out and French paint appears to be very expensive (I've seen 5 litre tins of emulsion for 40-odd euros!). We brought a lot of emulsion, which I had bought to tart up Logan Street, but very little gloss. Here they don't seem to go in for gloss, and the white that we bought looks too bright in the sun, so we may have to bite the bullet and fork out for French paint in the end.

I'll finish this now and hope to catch the post at 3 or 15.00 as we say now!

Monday 31 October 2011

And that was nearly two weeks ago now - scary!  I'll be adding something to this, maybe each day if I have time, as a 'Dear Diary . . .' and hopefully it will be of interest to family and friends.  I'll even add some photos if I can work out how to upload them.

A bientot!