Tricky Business

It is five months since we arrived in Busserolles – I cannot believe how fast the time has gone, nor how much we have achieved in that time. We have found and bought and moved into our new house. We have managed to get integrated within the rather complex French healthcare system, including the holy grail attainment of a French social security number (we have met English people over here who have been trying for two years to get that far!).

I have now got three businesses up and running (more about this below) and I have even paid my first tax instalment!

Our life here has settled into an agreeable routine. The baker’s van from the next village comes up to see us in the new house every Wednesday and Saturday. On the other days of the week I wander down to the village post office to collect my bread from the Busserolles baker (following his fire in August he has been baking in another village but drops off the bread to order – he hopes to be back into his Busserolles base before Christmas), stopping along the way to chat to the regulars I always seem to meet (average age around 85 I think but they are a hardy bunch who seem to be out and about in all weathers and always happy to chat to the Englishman).

The covered terrace at Le Clos des Chenes

Since our meeting with the Mayor and his council members in September, the Mayor and his clerk, Martine, have been incredibly helpful. Six weeks after they had written to the Conseil General for the Dordogne (a bit like an English County Council) to seek guidance as to how far back from the road our fence line would need to be, nothing had been heard. With our fencing contractor due to arrive this week, I called in to see if there was any update. The Mayor overheard my conversation with Martine and, clearly not best pleased that no reply had been received, called the Conseil General himself and spoke animatedly to some poor chap for about 10 minutes. True to his word though, the following morning an official arrived and proceeded to survey the road and the edge of our field. It took him an hour after which six luminous green stakes had been planted.

The fencing plan for Le Clos de Chenes

You might expect, as I did, that these stakes marked the fence line that we should follow. “Non” declared the surveyor. His luminous green stakes he explained marked a line that was 50cm in front of the line where we should erect the fence – obviously!

Anyway, back to business. In addition to my property photography business and my property finding business (www.i-spypropertyfinders.com) I have now got a third (and I think final) strand on the go. My status as a registered ‘agent commercial’ has enabled me to take up the offer from my friend Peter Elias to develop a property portfolio to sell through Peter’s Allez-Francais on-line estate agency. Covering the North Dordogne and the South East of the Charente, I will be looking to take on good quality properties for sale and to give them the I-Spy360 treatment with a mixture of quality still photographs, virtual tours and floorplans.

The first property in my estate agent's portfolio

Things have got off to a good start and in the first ten days I have taken on instructions to sell two houses, both of them beautifully renovated old farmhouses. Now though, I have hit a bit of a roadblock.

The nature of all three of my businesses means that I need access to the internet. To get access to the internet I need a telephone line. And thanks to Orange/France Telecom, as I write this I have neither.

I alerted Orange to our pending house move on the 31^st August, six weeks ahead of time. Despite my protests that I would not be able to work without telephone or internet after we had moved out of the rented house in the middle of October, the earliest date they eventually promised to get me hooked up was 7^th November. I even wrote to the Chief Executive of Orange in France to complain about how his organisation’s poor service was impacting my business! He clearly took notice and I have now had several conversations with a customer service adviser who was personally allocated to my account. Whilst they were unable to act any faster than the 7^th November, she received reassurances from the contractors that everything would be resolved and I received confirmation that a technician would arrive at 10am.

The outcome was spectacular – we waited in all day on the 7^th and nothing happened!

I received a call from the contractor at about 6pm to say that they would not now be coming until the 9^th but would arrive at 8am. As I write this blog, on the 9^th, the technician has just arrived – it’s 10.30am!

If you are reading this blog and it is only mid November then you will know that he has got us successfully connected to the outside world and business as usual can recommence.

A dog's life

Our Dad has had a really busy week and hasn’t had time to write his blog so we’ve been asked to help out. Our key board skills may not be up scratch but we’ll do our best to let you know what we have been up to since we arrived in France.

Our names are Tess and Rolo and we are Dad’s faithful dogs. Coming to live in France has been a great adventure for us although it seemed very unfair that we had to have lots of injections for Rabies before we could come whilst Mum and Dad didn’t need anything! It was a long journey to get here but we just settled down in the car and let the miles (or kilometres as we have to call them now) roll by.

Tess (left) and Rolo

What we have enjoyed most of all about France is the countryside which provides for miles and miles (sorry, kilometres and kilometres) of quiet paths for walks. It seems that every village has its own set of way marked paths which traverse through large forests, across open granite plateaus and meander along quiet country lanes where we hardly ever see a car. Exploring these paths has been great fun and along the way we have seen quietly grazing herds of the majestic Limousin cattle, complete with cows, calves and the odd bull.

Over the summer it was very hot at times and we didn’t go too far or stay out too long in the sun because sun stroke can be a very real danger for dogs. When the temperature reached nearly 40 degrees in August, Mum would have a wet towel ready to wrap around us when we came in from a short stroll.

As we write this there is frost on the ground and so we have to lay in front of the wood burning stove or face real risk of frostbite!

Removing a tick 

Tess was the first of one of us who found out about ticks. They are insects which live in the grass and attach themselves to passing animals to suck their blood! One day she had some little lumps on her head and our French neighbour Nadine explained what they were and how to remove them. She gave Dad a small, green, two pronged fork and showed him how to get the tick out properly. The problem is that if it is removed incorrectly it can leave the mouth parts of the tick still stuck in the skin and this can become infected. They pass on a nasty disease called Lyme’s disease which can make both dogs and humans very sick.

Tess was very good at allowing Dad to remove the ticks but Rolo didn’t like it at all and got very cross whenever the green fork appeared! Fortunately for us, Dad was able to buy something called Frontline which was applied by dropping it on our necks (hurray, no injections!) and it meant that any ticks that tried to suck our blood after that would be killed – dead.

Tess is 15 years old and is getting quite stiff because she has arthritis. In England she used to get some pills from the vet and so she was taken to meet the new lady vet in France. She declared herself to be horrified that Tess had been taking these pills for so long as they can apparently cause liver damage. The vet took a blood sample (ouch!) and the results showed that her liver was not working very well and so she suggested some new tablets for her arthritis which would also allow her liver to get better. These tablets are loads cheaper than the one’s Tess had in England and her arthritis is no worse – so Tess is happy and Dad is happy! (Actually we think Dad quite fancies the young French lady vet).

Rolo has made friends with some of the local dogs, especially a Gordon Setter called Titane. One day Dad was out walking with Rolo and they walked through the little hamlet where Titane lives. Rolo didn’t know this however so when a large dog came hurling out of a house barking for all its worth, Rolo panicked and ran back along the way they had just come. Expecting he would soon realise it was Titane, Dad just laughed and waited for him to come back whilst he had a chat with Titane’s owner, Jean-Louis. And waited……and waited. Eventually Dad retraced his steps and ended up back on a country road where he shouted and shouted. Meanwhile, Rolo had made his way into someone’s garden and they tried to catch him but Rolo remembered he should not talk to strangers! He ran back onto the road and was startled to see a moped come round the corner. Rolo is frightened of many things and mopeds and motorbikes are pretty high on his list of major dislikes – so he ran for all his worth.

Titane the Gordon Setter

 Fortunately he ran in the direction where Dad was waiting for him so over the brow of the hill came the sight of a startled Rolo being closely followed by (‘chased’ is Rolo’s view on the matter) an old man on an even older moped!

Rolo and Dad were reunited and decided it was best not tell Mum about their little adventure because she is always telling Dad not to let him off the lead. They walked back to see Jean-Louis and had a bit more of a chat when suddenly a very harassed Mum appeared. It turns out that even though they hadn’t caught Rolo, the people whose garden he had gone into had managed to get the ‘phone number from his dog tag – they had called Mum and said that they had nearly caught her dog but that he had run away again! Mum had therefore come out in the car in a panic and had spent 10 minutes hunting for Rolo only to find him and Dad having a jovial chat with some French friends!

That’s it from us, hopefully Dad will be back with more stories of life in the Perigord Vert next week.

Vive La France Rurale

It has flown by at an incredible rate and it is hard to believe that we are now five months into our French adventure. So much has happened in that period, what with moving into our permanent home and getting three (yes three!) different property related businesses off the ground.

Mist rising during an autumn evening in Busserolles

As we move gently into the golden glow of a Dordogne autumn, I thought it would be worth reflecting on some of the idiosyncrasies of life in rural France. I don’t approach this from the perspective of having a moan about the French, I’ll happily leave that to some of the incensed ex-pats we have encountered who just can’t understand why everything is not the same as it is in their beloved England. These are inevitably the same people who make no effort to speak any French and sit in the bars with like-minded characters reading their Daily Mail and wondering where the fish and chip van is going to be parked up next Friday.

We moved to France because we were attracted to the French way of life, to the civility of the people and the opportunity to find our own tranquil corner in which we could watch the sun set cradling a glass of Bordeaux Superieur.

To make the most of it all, learning the language is essential and I am now making decent progress with the help of my French teacher, Isabelle. I walk down to the village for an hour once a week and we mix sessions covering some of the grammatical building blocks with gentle conversation about family and French life. It is an old adage, but it is true, that the French people are really helpful and sympathetic if you are prepared to have a go with their language; they really do appreciate the effort and respond in kind. They don’t get upset if you confuse masculine and feminine, avoir and etre or put an adjective in the wrong place.

It doesn’t matter who I meet in the village, I always offer up a ‘Bonjour’ and engage in a brief chat if they seem willing. I learn so much from them about what is going on around the village and they are always so patient with me as I try to explain something or struggle to understand what they have said. This week I learnt from a spritely 90 year old called Margarite that I should not miss the annual draining of the lake on the 1^st November because all the large fish are caught and offered to the locals for their dinner table – now that has to beat the fish and chip van!

The Mairie in Busserolles

Village life and administration is centred around the Mairie and I was keen to follow up on everyone’s advice to get to know the mayor. Our mayor in Busserolles is a local Christmas Tree farmer called Guy and I duly requested a meeting with him to introduce myself. I was also keen to make sure that he would be happy with our plans to put a fence around our field to make sure that Rolo and Tess would not stray too far. What came as a shock was that when we arrived for the meeting, it was not just Guy that we were asked to present our plans to but the whole council assembly – none of whom spoke any English!

With the aid of a few drawings however, I managed to get my plans across to them although they were not happy with my plan to put a gate across our driveway. It turns out that our driveway is actually classed as “Chemin Rurale” (a bit like a bridleway) and is the responsibility of the Mairie. I could have argued that it only went to our house and no one ever came up it apart from us but I clearly won brownie points by thanking them for pointing it out and instantly changing the fencing plan. The meeting ended with handshakes all round, particularly when I expressed my support for the “Chasse”.

The “Chasse” is a big thing in rural France and encapsulates the Frenchman’s right to roam the countryside and hunt creatures such as deer, wild boar and pheasants. It is highly organized and Sunday mornings during the hunting season resonate to the sound of barking dogs, shotguns and hunting horns. I support it because it is a traditional part of country life and is enjoyed by people from all walks of life. It is not at all like the organized shoots in England where super rich merchant bankers pay thousands of pounds to shoot tame, reared birds that are driven to their death by beaters who earn a pittance.

A sanglier (wild boar)

The hunters of Busserolles all seem to drive battered little old vans that chug their way around the hills and valleys on a Sunday morning. They love to tell tales of their hunt and are generous to a fault in sharing the results of their day. We have received packages of roughly butchered meat that could be anything from wild boar to venison, we often don’t know exactly what it is (or was) but cook it up slowly in a rich wed wine and it all tastes quite delicious! 

Le Clos des Chênes

On the evening of the 2^nd October we arrived in a state of nervous excitement at the offices of the Notaire in Montbron who had been selected by both parties to handle all the legalities associated with buying a house in France. Unlike the UK where each party chooses its own solicitor to carry out the conveyancing process, it is quite common in France for the same notaire to act for both the buyer and the seller. Their role is to ensure that all the relevant checks and searches have been conducted and that all the relevant legal paperwork has been completed to ensure that the purchase is properly registered.

It is worth remembering that unless you ask for it, the notaire is not obliged to initiate a private consultation to provide you with tailored advice about your own particular circumstances. It is not their job to hold your hand throughout the process in the manner that might be the case with a conveyancing solicitor in the UK. We were fortunate in that there were no contentious issues between our vendors and ourselves – primarily this was because we all got very drunk together one evening and sorted everything out!

The Notaire in Montbron had been selected because he spoke good English and would therefore be in a position to ensure that we fully understood what we were signing. However, we were greeted with the news that he had been unavoidably delayed on another appointment and would not be able to meet us that evening. The look of utter disappointment on our faces must have been obvious – we weren’t going to become property owners quite as soon as we had hoped.

The day was saved though by one of the Notaire’s colleagues who offered to stand in and conduct the meeting – in French! She spoke very little English and my French is hardly good enough for a conversation involving legal jargon but we decided to give it a go on the basis that if we were really unhappy, we need not sign anything.

As it turned out, between us we worked everything out and by the end of the meeting we had signed umpteen pieces of paper and the words we were anxiously awaiting were duly spoken: “Vous êtes propriétaires”. Not since we were declared Man and Wife had anything sounded as satisfying as being declared the owners of our own piece of French paradise.

We had even come up with a name for our new home – ‘Le Clos des Chênes’. It means something along the lines of ‘the oak enclosure’ and reflects the fact that the house sits in the middle of a wooded field, the majority of the trees being oaks.

We had the lease on the rented property until the end of October so we now had a good four weeks to get moved in – quite a luxury compared to every other house move I have ever done. We set ourselves a target date of 24^th October to be living in the new house so that we then had time to clean the rental property thoroughly before handing back the keys.

Good plan I thought. The problem was that the day after the signing was our wedding anniversary – not a problem in itself except that we spent that evening sat on the covered deck, eating a huge steak cooked on the barbecue and drinking far too much wine as we watched the sun go down. Sod the plan - we knew we wanted to be living there just as soon as we could.

The next morning we started loading up the car and ferrying our belongings across in small batches. Our lovely neighbour Nadine took pity on us and offered her the use of her husband’s old Citroen van. This was a Godsend as it meant we could not only move larger batches but we could also move the larger pieces of furniture (Nikki had not been happy at my earlier suggestion that she take one end of the sofa, I take the other and we just carry it the 300 meters to the new house!).

We unpacked as we went, feeling like kids at Christmas as we opened up boxes containing all those little things you take for granted and miss so much when you’re without them for so long. Sharp knives – oh, how I had missed my sharp kitchen knives!

We were all done by the 13^th October – eleven days ahead of schedule! That night was a cold one but we lit the wood burning stove and basked in its warm glow.

We were totally, utterly, at home.