EDF & the Price of Wine

With Barbara still back in the UK visiting her mum it's been very quiet in Lagarrigue this week but it has given me the opportunity to complete the 'to do' list we'd compiled. It's great ticking off the jobs and it's only when you come to that difficult or messy task that you've been putting off to last that the good time feeling begins to diminish. Despite my hopes for rain the weather has continued to be glorious, made it into to 20's yesterday, so it was time to finish digging the holes for the fence & concrete in the posts. Having now completed the job I'm not sure why I had put it off, things went well & it was only the high winds forecast for Saturday night that gave me any worries. I shouldn't have been concerned as the amount of concrete I'd placed in the holes would be enough to support a fence 10 metres high, think I'd got a bit carried away digging! With that out of the way & with quite a bit of gravel left I used it to cover the earth floor in one of the cellars and although I'll need a couple of trailers more gravel to complete the floor it'll be another job done. So with the bedroom heaters wired up & in place, the small bedroom painted & the banister in place I don't think Babs is going to recognise the place when she gets back on Thursday.

I have had the opportunity this week to use my very sketchy French. I'd mentioned last week that EDF & the surveyor had rang to make appointments. I'd already marked out the land so explaining where the division was to go was easy enough & the meeting went without hitch and the land was measured up & staked out in less than an hour. EDF wasn't quiet as easy. I wasn't sure what they were coming to do & although I was hoping they were going to install the new electric supply, deep down I knew I was being a little optimistic. Turns out it was to survey the land and tell me what I had to do prior to them coming to connect the house to the mains. The nearest supply is across the lane at the back of the house and for their €700.00 EDF will dig the road up & run a cable to the edge of our land & install a compteur. It's then up to me to dig a 9 metre trench to the house, knock a hole in the wall & crepe a 60 centimetre square on the cellar wall for them to mount the main trip box. Once I've completed the work I have to ring them & they'll return within a month & connect up the new supply. So given that it was last September when we first contacted EDF things are now moving apace & it's now up to me to get a mini pel hired & the trench dug. That'll be fun. The engineer from EDF was so helpful, he spoke very slowly & when he couldn't make me understand something he drew a picture. He aso suggested we change the electric tariff we're on as our current one is très cher.

I hear that there are concerns in the UK that the days of a bottle of wine costing less than a fiver might be numbered. Click here to see the BBC report. Despite French inflation being the highest in Europe at 3.2% and it being blamed on the rise in price of food & drink, it doesn't seem to have affected the cost of a bottle of wine. You can still pick up a bottle of the local plonk in the supermarket for less than €1.00. Imagine the outcry if your local Tesco had booze on sale at that price? At five times the price in the UK it still seems to be causing problems Click here to see another BBC report. Anyway that's enough comment on the binge drinking culture of the UK, must get back to my second bottle of red.

Hold that plane

What a busy week it's been. A trip to Toulouse and Bordeaux, plastering, painting, digging holes, fitting the cellar door, cooking & trying to keep the house tidy. On Tuesday Barbara was heading back to the UK to be with her mum while she has a small operation & was booked on an Easyjet flight from Toulouse to Gatwick & then on to Manchester with BA. That was the plan & had we got to Toulouse airport on time I'm sure it would have all worked out perfectly. But thanks to hold ups at the toll booths, road works, construction work at the airport & the fact that we set off late we arrived 2 minutes late & the check-in had closed (yes I know we should have checked in online). We tried in vane to convince the check-in clerk that we were a needy case & that she should re-open the gate & let Barbara on the flight. It's not often that Barbara swears but I'm sure you can imagine how blue the air was as we walked away from the desk looking for the film crew from 'Airport'. The next Easyjet flight out of Toulouse was 9:20 PM & for an additional €50.00 we could transfer to that but Barbara would then miss the connection to Manchester. BA also fly to Gatwick and their flight would mean that the connection could be made so it was off to their customer service desk. 'Yes we have seats available on the 12:00 flight & that will be €830.00'. The air turned even bluer! Trying to think 'out of the box' we rang Rebecca & asked her to check flights from other airports that were within driving distance. There was only one, an Easyjet flight from Bordeaux to Luton at 4:30. The check-in staff must have overheard our conversation & offered to transfer Barbara's booking for the standard charge of €50.00, a saving of €60.00 on the price Rebecca had been quoted & so it was hot foot to Bordeaux, fortunately it was motorway all the way & this time we made it in plenty of time. Barbara eventually arrived in Blackpool at 11:30 PM just 3 hours late but a few pounds worse off & what should have been a mornings trip for me ended up with me driving 420 miles & taking the whole day. At least the weather was beautiful & under different circumstances it would have made a lovely day out.

Wednesday it was back to work & making a start on the long list of jobs I wanted completed by the time Barbara got back. One of the things I planned to do while she was away was to fit the windows in the barn but on Monday we'd received the devis from the company we'd been to in VDR & too say we were surprised at the price is an understatement. It included fitting & had come in ever so slightly more than we thought we'd have had to pay for just the large front door & window we needed. Although the Brico Depot window fitting had gone well the quality did not in anyway compare with the ones from VDR so it looks like I'll be removing a window rather than fitting more. I think I'm making good progress with the other jobs & have only had a couple of distractions. Wednesday I received a telephone call from the surveyors wanting to arrange a rendezvous to come & split the land up and although I managed to understand some of the conversation there were some questions I was struggling with. It's always easier face to face so off to VDR I went to hopefully get a better understanding of what was going on. I did & the meeting is scheduled for Tuesday at 2:00. The other phone call was from EDF, once again to arrange a rendezvous to come and install the electric supply for the barn. That conversation was easier & they're calling on Wednesday between 8:00 & 10:00. Things are moving fast.

On Monday we'd had the local estate agent round to give us a valuation for the house. We were pleased with the price he thought the house would achieve & if he manages to get it sold by the end of the summer we'll be even happier. Sunday I treated myself to a morning off & hit the road on my bike. It must be nearly 6 months since I've been out for a serious ride & it wasn't perhaps the best idea to do 38 kilometres, especially as there was a strong wind & it was very cold. There were no holes dug in the afternoon & it was even a bit of struggle to get the painting brush out.

Bonjour, bonjour, bonjour

One of the great things about working from home is being able to listen to the radio during the day. Being of a certain age we listen to quite a lot Radio 2 (truth be told we listen to nothing else) and this week Jeremy Vine had a feature about living in France. It made interesting listening and one or two of the contributors made our little adventure over here appear pretty tame. One women had a small shop in The Languedoc region that sold everything including English paint. Perhaps a side line we should consider. You can listen to the programme yourself for the next 5 days by clicking here.

The French are not big on Christmas cards but they do like to send out happy new year cards which they send out any time during January and we were delighted to receive one from Thierry who had pointed the house & invited us to his daughters baccalaureate party. I gave him a call to thank him for the card, which he had written in near perfect English. I'm glad I rang as he asked if I fancied helping him on a job & in exchange he would do some work for us. Sounds good to me & we agreed that he would ring me in early March when he's ready to start the job. I'm sure we'll find something for him to do! It's been a glorious week weather wise with the sun beaming down from dawn till dusk and even the early morning frost has disappeared by 8:00, yes we have been getting up at 7:30 just to see the sun come up. Well not really it's been an early start every day this week as we've worked hard to get the house ready for the market. Wednesday we had to head to Brico Depot, the French equivalent of B & Q. We had a long list of supplies and as most building items are considerably cheaper than the local store we use in VDR we hooked the trailer up to the Lightweight & headed for Montauban. We managed to pick up skirting boards, fencing, a door for the cellar & mastic before we were asked to leave the store as it was approaching 12 noon when they closed for their 2 hour lunch. By now you'd have thought we would have taken this into account when we planned the day but you don't really expect a place so big to close for lunch. After a very slow lunch & a leisurely stroll round the local supermarket we headed back for the rest of our supplies. Screws, jointing plaster (yes there are more joints to be covered), & a double glazed window complete with frame. The window cost just €105.00 & having now fitted it in the barn we look as if we'll be able to save a good few Euros by using Brico Depot. By Sunday night it wasn't just the window that was in place, all the skirting boards had been fitted which, when you consider how uneven the floors are, went very well. So well that Barbara was able to apply another coat of varnish & get the guest room ready for visitors.

Barbara is heading back to the UK on Tuesday for a couple of weeks to be with her mum whilst she has a small operation so when Saturday arrived it was time to head to VDR for supplies of ready meals & drink. The only problem is the French are not big on 'TV dinners' and it looks like I'll be doing a bit of home cooking if I don't want to go hungry. Oh for a Simply Food in La Fouillade. One French tradition we haven't adopted is having a glass, or bottle, of wine with our mid day meal. Today it was just as well as the Gendarmes, contrary to popular belief, were carrying out random breathalysers at 1:30 in the afternoon. This is the first time I've been stopped by the boys in blue & asked to blow into something & although I hadn't had a drink I was relieved when the Gendarme showed me my score of 0.00 and bid me bon journée.

Planning & Plastering

We were expecting one big party this weekend with the news from Paris that M. Sarkozy had married Ms Bruni at the Elysee Palace but the village bar was devoid of celebrating locals. Like most things that happen in politicians private lives here there seems to be little interest. Anyway congratulations to them both & thankfully it makes his state visit to the UK next month a little easier for Buckingham Palace to deal with.

We're now the proud owners of a fully working bath & I had thought that we'd have a picture of Barbara christening the tub but she wasn't all that keen on the idea. With the bath in place it was time for the Regourd family to finally pack up their tools & leave us to continue plastering the cracks. Of all the jobs we've done over the last 12 months it has to be one of the most laborious. With so many different levels of plasterboard the joins we have to cover are taking considerably more than a couple of coats of plaster. At least the guest bedroom & en suite are now fully emulsioned &, after a visit to Brico Dept later this week, skirting boards will be in place & it'll be time to take some photographs and get the house on the market. There are still lots of smaller jobs still to be done & I'll have plenty of time to get on with them when Barbara heads back to the UK on the 12th.

Back in October we'd organised for the water company to separate the barn & house supplies. We'd filled in all the forms, in duplicate, sent them a cheque and awaited a call from them to arrange a rendezvous. But the call we got was from the people we'd sold the house to back in Bury to say they'd received a letter from France with our cheque enclosed. They were good enough to send us the documents back & we headed to the architect to help us decipher the letter. Turns out they'd got us mixed up with someone else & that if we still wanted to continue with the work they'd have to reissue the devis. It arrived on Saturday & had gone up by €50.00! It's times like this that you wish you could speak the language & get on the phone and attempt to sort them out. We did have a bit more success when we visited the local surveyor to arrange to split the land between the barn & the house. Within 15 minutes we'd explained, in French, what we wanted done, arranged for him to visit & paid a deposit. If only everything in France was that easy.

Tuesday was my birthday & we'd planned to have an easy day. It started well with a leisurely breakfast and a bit of light sanding down and then we headed off to VDR for a spot of lunch. Half way through the meal we got a phone call from Thierry Roussel to say that he'd loaded his van up with the fire wood we'd asked him for and he'd like to deliver it at 4:00. No feet up this afternoon watching day time telly, well not until the logs have been stacked up. It was still an enjoyable day & I'm already looking forward to the next 50 years. Thursday Barbara had been invited out again, this time to attend a meeting at the local salon de thé. It had been organised by a local French lady who wanted to learn English and thought that an informal discussion group would be an ideal way for both French & English speakers to learn each others language. Barbara enjoyed the afternoon, probably because she was able to get dressed up & get away from me and the plastering for a few hours.