Bonne Noel Tout le Monde
Friday 3rd December, 2004 - finally we complete!
We entered the notaire's office at 5.30pm and left at 8pm . How long does it take to complete a simple house purchase, apparently 2 and a half hours!. When we left the sellers very kindly invited us for champagne the following evening – that was very unexpected.
December's interesting purchases (succesful and not so):
Wood for fire - Our french friends ordered 3 cubic metres of wood for us from Madame le Bois (Mrs Wood). Madame Le Bois turned up in the biggest camion (lorry) ever. This really small pretty woman in overalls jumped out of this enormous lorry, asked me to move my car and then jumped up on to this hydraulic claw which she then worked to deliver our 3 cubic metres of wood – this was very exciting, I had to take lots of photos:
And I got a go in the camion:
A chainsaw - Dan believes this purchase is the debut of our acceptance into the community. All important is the make, the size, and the technique! Dan began to cut the wood delivered by Madame Le Bois. Monsieur Viallard (the seller) turned up wielding an enormous chainsaw, told Dan that his chainsaw wasn't big enough and set about chopping our wood whilst still piled high! When I turned up, Monsieur Viallard was showing Dan how he could cut from the bottom, from the side or the top of the pile. By this time Dan is standing well back. When Monsieur Villard saw me he stopped to tell me that Dan's chainsaw was too small and how he had chopped down loads of trees with his and his chainsaw was so good that he could cut a tree down one handed.
I left them to it to go to the post office. They were still at it when I came back - Mr. Viallard starts up his chainsaw again, Dan starts his up and the two of them were happily chainsawing away like they'd known each other for years – the fact that neither of them understood a word of what the other said was of no consequence.
A van - we tried to make preliminary enquiries into the purchase of a second hand van. Naturally, we went to Peugeot and requested information on a Boxer van. Monsieur Greasey salesman told us in a low husky voice, “ohh, c'est tres rarement” – Right so, the Peugeot Boxer van is very rare and difficult for a large Peugeot garage to acquire. Gosh, that's the first hurdle then. The second being, and of course we are talking hypothetically here – if, a huge Peugeot garage were to be in a position to sell to us a new (not that we wanted a new one) Peugeot Boxer van, how much would such a van cost. Monsieur Greasey salesman, left his desk, spoke to a collegue, returned, sat down and informed us that he had none but could get one from Cahors (because they are obviously not so rare in the Lot).
Very good, but how much will that be? Monsieur G (for short) looked at his brochure, looked at his list, telephoned a friend – 15 minutes later, we were still sitting patiently, “ Monsieur, combien?” - Oh, ca depend - Well, obviously, ca Depend, ca depend, what does ca depend on? Oh no wait, Mr. G. writes out on a piece of paper, the name of his garage, the make of the Boxer, he tells us it has a CD player, air – con, electric windows and it costs…..
He can't bring himself to tell us, is he embarrassed? He writes down “22,950 Euro”. So when it said “Special Prix – Boxer !5,590 Euros” – for a new Boxer van on all the adverts in and outside the showroom, that doesn't apply to us?
Oh, its ok, Mr. G has an explanation for my observation – that price is the price without TVA (i.e. VAT). TVA in France is charged at 19.6% so I calculate (and believe me I am not good at maths) that TVA on 15,590 Euro is 3055.64 Euro totalling18,645.64 Euros. Well, looks like we had a very special price at 22,950 Euro!
Needless to say we said we'd think about it, where upon Mr. G promised us that if we came back in January he would miraculously have a second hand Boxer van for approx 10,000 Euros (that being the top end of our original budget). He said he would buy it in especially for us – so the moral of this story appears to be, Boxer vans are very rare and very expensive throughout the year except for January. Top tip for all of you who wish to buy a Boxer van!!
Failed on the van idea, we try to buy a normal car
A car - We had our first experience of French banking limitations when we went to Toulouse to buy a car. We saw the car, test drove it, negotiated the price and agreed to buy it so we had to put a 10% deposit down. We couldn't because we had no cheque book. I thought we could go to the bank and get the money out of the bank but apparently not.
Problem is you can only take 300 euros out a week on your bank card and I had done that the day before to buy a chest of drawers and your carte bleu (equivalent switch) card only allows you to spend 750 euros a week and obviously I had spent some of that too. If you want to withdraw money from a bank (which may well be a branch of your bank) if it is in a different department, you can't because the computers are not linked – what is that all about??? We went back to the garage and explained, luckily the salesman said we could just pay 500 euros which I could pay with my carte bleu and we could pay the rest by cheque when we come to pick the car up. I was very grateful (though probably went over the top – as he must have been rubbing his hands together at the fact he had had such an easy sale!). Still I did get him to throw in a 6 disc cd player – which we're quite pleased with. I picked up the new car without a hitch – unbelievably to buy a car in France, you need only hand over a cheque – no guarantee card, no bankers order or even a phone call to the bank – there must be something going on behind my back – they can't just accept a cheque – I know I've got a trusting and innocent face but I could be a crook!
Progress this month:
Digging - We dug out the muck in about half of the floor of one of the barns. This was not just a bit of hay but seriously compounded animal dung which can only be removed with a pick, Dan picked, I shoveled the muck. Actually it was quite satisfying, we cleared half of the barn floor.
Connecting the water - First, we worked out that the route of the existing water pipe runs from the presbytery next to the old church. We were shown inside the presbytery – it is an amazing 17 th century building. Inside, the ground floor is a construction of stone archways like the cellars in a castle and there is an underground passage to the church so that the monks did not have to go outside to ring the church bells. Unfortunately, we did not have a camera with us.
Next, we organised for Sogedo water to come to insert a water meter to the new water pipewhich we then connect to the house before the water is turned on. The morning that the water technicien arrived was very eventful. You would expect a water technicen/fitter or whatever his title, to turn up wearing overalls, maybe have a few spanners, at least a pair of gloves or some waterproof clothing incase of leaks, this chap rocks up looking like he's set for a round of golf in some country club. He jumps out of his car, I explain what needs to be done, he says “oui,oui, pas de probleme”, before I know it he's whipped out his meter connected it to the end of one pipe and jumped back in his car saying he'll be back at 4pm to turn the water on which gives us 5 hours to buy the bits to connect the new pipe, turn off the old pipe, cut the old pipe and reconnect it with the new pipe. I thought that from my sweet explanation and the way he was saying “oui, oui, pas de probleme,” I had managed to persuade him to do the whole thing. Apparently not.
So with 1 hour to go before the shops closed for their usual 2 hour lunch, we drove like French people (legged it) down the country roads to Daglan to the“Tout pour la Maison” (shop called “Everything for the house”) except it seems the reducer which is essential to connect these pipes. We hooned it to Gourdon to the Bricomarche and……returned to the house with the wrong sized reducer – oh good. 2pm back to both shops – finally we got the right bit and returned to the house for 3.20pm . Lightening Jack turns up early – Dan is off at the Presbytery turning the old line off – I can't pin Lightening Jack down – he's off in his car to turn the water on – I try to explain that we haven't cut the old pipe and reconnected the new one so infact there is no pipe attached to the meter yet – “oh pas de probleme” and he's off.
Dan returns – god knows where Lightening Jack is. Best way forward appears to be to continue with the connection. Just when Lightening returns, jumps out of his van by which time Dan is screwing the final connector together. Just as Dan finishes, the water tap is opened and the water gushes through the pipe and unfortunately out of the meter – luckily on the side that Lightening screwed on – i.e. before it got to the meter. Just before Lightening flew off, I called to him whereupon he flashed a wrench by the meter and announced “c'est bon”. Off he went. Must have been a very pressing game of golf.
Telephone line fitting - Lucky that the architect was here when the telephone technician arrived. I got his pic:
The telephone man was very jobs worth. Apparently to fit a phone line, you must have electricity that conforms and has an earth – well, I suppose I can see his point but oh my god, stop talking about it and just do it!! Our electricity is so old that it doesn't conform. I think that after a long conversation, of which Dan and I understood exactly nothing, Mr. Jobsworth agreed to fit the new line.
Removal of render - On the advise of the architect, we removed the render from the exterior of the Pigeonnier and the farmhouse revealing the original stone. There is a clause in the Certificate d'urbanisme which states that the exterior of the house must remain in its original state – which may be ambiguous. Inorder to avoid any such ambiguity, the architect, Dan and I thought it best to just remove the offending render before anyone from the batiments de France comes to look at the house and outbuildings.
Social events:
Pancakes with the Mairie - An evening of pancakes with the Mayor and his wife at our franglais friend's house went very well, I think. French was spoken 99% of the time and I think both Dan and I are starting to understand more but it is difficult and takes a lot of concentration. The locals have a regional accent which is more “sing songy” and the majority of them also speak Occitane as well as French - they speak very quickly and the words do seem to merge onto one another – all in all it is not so easy to understand.
The Salles des Fetes (the village hall) - Classic entertainment, we went to the Salles des Fetes (the village hall) at Florimont for a quiz conducted by a local radio station Perigord Bleu. The teams consisted of 8 people from the Commune of Florimont – Gaumier against 8 people from the Commune of St. Aubin de Nabirat. The 8 people were made up of 2 over 60's, 2 under 25's and 2 women between 25 and 60 and 2 men between 25 and 60. Florimont - Gaumier had to get a ringer from Perigeoux for one of the under 25's! The idea was that the team members were to give the answers but the audience could run up and whisper the answers to the team members – hence all participated. The radio station and teams were at the front of the hall and there were chairs placed on both sides of the hall for the supporters of the team – supposedly segregated but there were many more supporters for Florimont – Gaumier so the hall was split 2/3rds to 1/3 rd .
The evening kicked off with a couple of tunes on the accordion – then the DJ's started the quiz with their jingle and a lot of clapping!! From then on we tried to decipher the questions but a rather jumbled translation resulted, for example, one of the questions was when did someone die and I thought it was when did someone disappear – close but not that close!
The mairie of Florimont – Gaumier was the funniest – not only did he turn up with an encyclopedia which he gave to our french friends to look up the answers, he was Mr. Competitive – jumping up and down to give answers – running through the chairs to get to the team – but it paid off because of course Florimont – Gaumier won by quite a margin.