October Remembered (?)

The October visit had the principle objective of closing the house up for Winter. Neither Sally nor I maintained a daily blog on this visit, so this is a summary post (of what I can remember three months later).

You may recall that Sally had stayed in August, when I returned to the UK. In that time, she’d been doing a little decorating in the loo (not a euphemism) and a lot in the main bedroom. I was especially impressed by what she had achieved with the latter – the white walls and black beams looked really nice (& traditional).

Though closing up the house was the main reason for this visit, I was also hoping that the taxe d’habitation bill would be waiting for us on the door mat. My understanding was it was due in October and we’d received no demand in the UK. It wasn’t waiting for us so we popped to the local treasury office. We paid the taxe fonciere (which had reached us in the UK) but were not able to pay the d’habitation yet. We did eventually get the demand back in the UK and so were able to pay and avoid any penalties. However, it did include an audio-visual contribution (effectively the TV licence) of over £100. WE don’t own a TV in France and so I wrote to appeal and – if I’m reading the slightly opaque response correctly – they have granted the appeal.

Having made a taxe payment we now have access to the online system and have set up Direct Debits for future payments – you need to have made at least one manual payment before you have access to these facilities.

We hadn’t actually intended doing any real work this visit but once there, we couldn’t resist. As well as hanging the doors Sally had painted during her last stay and touching up the timbers in the main bedroom, I took down the bedroom’s shutters and frame (plastic and steel), cleaned them up and painted the external window frame.

It wasn’t all work and no play (though it came close).  

To celebrate our wedding anniversary, we dined out at Table M – one the two ‘up-market’ restaurants in the town. We’d been meaning to come here for some time and the current menu looked good. The menu I chose had veal with rice and snails as a starter – veal is not my meat of choice on (probably suspect) ethical grounds but the rest of the menu looked really nice (and I wanted to be brave and give snails a go). Also, rice with veal seemed a little odd, but who knows what the French deem normal?

Turns out Veau Riz is not veal with rice. It is more typically referred to as riz de veau and, I now know, is veal sweetbreads. My first sweetbreads ever (and with escargot)! What a brave lad I was. I ate all the snails and half the sweetbreads (it was a generous portion too!), at which point Sally took pity and finished off my starter for me (giving me half of hers in exchange – a far more sensible plate of fois gras/pate IIRC).

The meal was lovely though, as were the staff and the restaurant itself (and the clientele – with one older French lady latching on to Sally and saying how much she loved the English accent).

On our last full day, we drove around some of the local scenic villages. On a previous visit we’d picked up a brochure from the Tourist Office that showed a suggested route around some of the local villages. We’d followed around half of this and so now decided to complete it. I have to say that I have no idea why some of the destinations had been selected as there was nothing of note that we could see. Others were very nice though, especially Masserat with its tower, the remnant of an otherwise demolished chateau.

Well, that was it. We drained the hot water tank ready for winter (the heating system had been left drained from last year, turned off the water and electricity and bade farewell to Uzerche, already itching to return in 5 long months’ time. Oh, and we had a car full of wine, again, to take back to friends and colleagues in the UK.