Lost en France

A Surprise Delivery The day after the signing of the Acte de Vente we booked out of our hotel and moved into our new home properly. At around 9 am the door bell rang and there was an oil tanker parked outside with 2000 of fuel oil that we hadn't ordered! I had written to a local supplier enquiring as to whether we could arrange delivery, asking how much they suggested for priming the empty system (as it happens it wasn't empty anyway) and how much it would cost. We'd had no reply. It appears the supplier had decided to send 2,000 litres anyway. I told the driver that was way more than we needed and asked if we could take just 500. That was fine and he pumped the fuel into our tank - I suspect that this will least several years as we won't be in the property much over the next 2 - 3 years, and when we are it will tend to be the warmer months. Now, I hope the meter on the storage tank is inaccurate as after the delivery of 500 litres on top of the 150 that was alr

I'd like to think that this past couple of weeks will be remembered for the fact we enjoyed the pomp of the signing of the Acte de Vente and moving in to our new (second) home - but I fear the abiding memory will be of yellow paint - and lots of it. But lets start the story at the beginning... The Trip Down Straight after work we hit the road for the 3-hour drive to Portsmouth. Getting out of our town was a pain due to traffic, but the rest of the journey was a breeze and we arrived in plenty of time for  boarding of the 10 pm ferry to Caen. The overnight crossing was smooth and trouble-free. The cabin was very compact but the beds were comfortable enough and we both slept well enough. We had invested in a new SatNav for the trip (cheaper than updating the seven year old maps in the Skoda's on-board SatNav) and it served us well in getting out of Caen and down to Uzerche, a trip of around six and a half hours. It also doubled as a Km speedo as the Skoda only displayed M

Saturday's job, once we'd got back from doing the money transfer at the bank, was to get the car packed ready for heading over the channel. As the ferry journey isn't until Wednesday, you'd be forgiven for thinking this was premature (and I suspect Sally may agree with you), but here are my reasons: I will be away from home from early evening on Sunday and then working from home (and doing a long day) before we head off at 5pm. There simply won't be the time to pack on the Wednesday. Sunday is an option but we'd be working to a hard deadline (the train departure time for my trip 'up north'). I much preferred not to have this added pressure - especially as I knew the packing would be a challenge - and the more rushed you are, the more likely you are to forget something. So, for the sake of one unnecessary day sitting packed and parked, it was a Saturday job as far as I was concerned. I reversed the car onto the drive, This was partly to facil

Money Transfer  So, the main job today was to to finally decide which FX company we were going to use to transfer the outstanding funds for the house, the Immobilier's fees and the notaire's fees. This was the big one (well not that big,by many people's standards , considering what we're paying for the house, but still probably the biggest lump sum transaction I have ever done with my own money). My working week makes sorting this sort of thing difficult, but Fridays are a non-working day at present and so perfect for this. What is great, and unusual for us, is that the £ has been modestly but noticeably improving against the € for a few days. It had even recently broken through the 1.15 level that had seemed to be foiling it for a while. I had three FX options I was considering: Britline Foreign Currency Direct Currencies Direct Research had already identified that any of these would give me a better rate than a high street bank, what I now need to know w

With the completion date now quickly approaching, and with Fridays and weekends the only time available for me to talk to people (for reasons I'll not go into), yesterday was spent sorting out various bureaucratic aspects such as banking, insurance, utilities, the boiler, etc. It was a stressful and frustrating day. I know French bureaucracy has a bad reputation but, to be honest, it wasn't that which caused the stress and frustration. It was the sheer volume of things I needed to get sorted, the limited time I had (some individuals or businesses that were likely to be available on the Friday were less likely to be available over the weekend), and the fact that French (which regular readers will know I don't (yet) speak) would be a significant feature of the day's work. So, what were the tasks, and how did I get on? Insurance We need proof of insurance before we can complete the act de vente and so securing insurance was a priority and the first task of the da

Yesterday was exactly one-month before the completion deadline - and we'd still not been given an actual  completion date. Whilst this isn't really a surprise, it would be nice to have some lead time for the booking of leave and flights so, I dropped the immobilier an e-mail to see if she's heard anything from the notaire and, to give a bit of motivation, I did enquire as to what would happen if due to the need to book leave/flights, we missed the deadline. Cassandre replied quickly as usual  saying she had spoken to the notaire and would 5pm on the 19th April be OK? Aaagh! It is suddenly very real and rather exciting. I checked the flights and we could fly in that day but not land until 16:30 - then there was the time to get through immigration, collect luggage and drive down to Uzerche. The drive alone would be an hour so there was no way we could be there by 5pm. To get there in time would mean flying in on the Tuesday which would mean three wasted days and the need