Off to a Busy Start

It it now Wednesday, July 6 just before 9hr. (9:00am) It is a beautiful morning, and I enjoyed my first morning coffee on our balcony overlooking the village.

Petit déjeuner

Steve and I have been busy since my arrival on Saturday afternoon. Along with trying to track down the missing suitcase, and arrange delivery, we have been gardening, and putzing about.

The first big job was the garden. I began to clean out the overgrown vines and weeds along our fence with the neighbour. You couldn't see that I had cleaned up the garden, and edged it back in March when the hyacinths were in bloom. It is amazing how nature takes over, its just too bad it doesn't take over with wild flowers or other attractive growths. I worked down the fence towards the "garden" area. The previous owner had covered the patch with black plastic, so I began to pull back the blanket. There were a few roots, but the plastic had performed well, with the exception that it didn't keep out the ants. I uncovered quite a nest. Using every tool in my shed, I got a small plot of the garden ready to plant. I probably should read up on how to plant lettuce and cucumbers, but it will be an "adventure". I do have a neighbour, and tried to emulate his garden at least in looks. If the seeds fail, the plant store had lettuce plants I could always transplant. The ants seem to have found new accommodations, so I don't have to use the ant killer, which probably wouldn't have been a wise move in a vegetable garden.

Along with the vegetable garden, I took and cleaned out the flower pots and planted some impatiens, geraniums and petunias. I also bought a lavender plant, since we are in France, so now the deck looks a bit better. Some day we will have to redo it, but it works just fine. Steve and I also tried to fix my rain barrel. The facet leaked, leaving no rain water in the barrel. We will add this to the ongoing repair list, as the first attempt failed.... back to Brico Marché (the local Home Depot).

Along with work in the garden, the past few days have been topped up with walks through the village to the grocery, garden and hardware stores. Also, we stopped by the pub on Sunday night to watch France defeat Iceland.

Yesterday, the Tour de France passed through Le Dorat, the next village along the train line. Eleven minutes later we wandered up through the village to find the course. Being such a small village, it wasn't hard to find, also the loud music and racing cars of the "Caravan" gave away its location. The Caravan is a very quickly moving parade of the sponsors of the Tour. They pass by tossing out advertising souvenirs to the crowds that have gathered early along the road way. The family next to us were chasing down anything that came their way, and filled the shopping bags that other sponsors had already tossed out. You had to be aware of incoming flying souvenirs, as most tried to toss them to your feet, but others were at face level. I was able to catch a France flag with BIC advertising on one side, and a squishy cow key chain from the official cheese or milk sponsor. The elderly woman sitting next to us looked longingly at it, so I offered it to her. A few items fell and bounced off Steve, but they were quickly scooped up by an gentleman standing next to us. All is fair in love and Tour de France "stuff".

With time to kill before the actual race, we headed back to the village square and enjoyed a beer or two before returning to our position at the intersection of the D4bis, D675 et Rue Robert Laypayrière.  Near the estimated time, the front 4 cyclists raced past our location accompanied by their entourage of cars. This was followed very soon by the peloton. We had our cameras ready, but it was an event where we should have just witnessed and not tried to record it. The peloton moved by so fast, that all I really can remember of the event was the rush of air they generated. But looking back at my pictures and video, it was an amazing, but short lived event.

Steve in the Fountain Square

After the race we spent some time wandering the village again before the train trip back to home. In the brocante shop (flea market) Steve found a pair of binoculars at a great price. It was a perfect afternoon out. On our walk back from the train station home, we stopped by another second hand store to see if they had any curtains for us to use in the attic room to break up the space. We found 4 panels for only 15 euros. A great deal considering the Eco-mart had one panel for 10 euros. You never know what you will find in Richocette.

So today, I have updated this blog, updated my I phone, done some laundry, went for a nice country walk, and now we still wait for ma valise. During the phone call on Monday we arranged for delivery on Wednesday after 2. They were going to deliver it yesterday. So what started out to be delivery on Sunday, turned to Tuesday, and we had to postpone it to Wednesday. I still won't believe it until I see the bag..... and now I see it. It was a great relief when the delivery van arrived with the suitcase. As I had broken a few rules such as having my prescription pills in the bag, ( I did have enough until Saturday with me), and I meant to take a picture of the bag, and ensure my name and address were inside the bag in case the luggage tag went missing, but one gets busy.....

Bellac, Week One

Wednesday, March 16:

Well here we are at 2:14 am on Tuesday, March 15. Wide-awake when only five hours ago we couldn’t stay awake driving along the A20 to Bellac. It was a long 24 hours to get here, but all went well. The KLM flight to Amsterdam was smooth, the connection to our Air France to Paris flight was very seamless and even picking up the Enterprise rental car at Charles de Gaul was painless. ( see last year with our adventures with Eurocar) The drive down here was a bit longer than we had realized. We did avoid the confusing Paris Boulevard Peripherique traffic by taking a slightly wider loop around the city and we did stop a few times to rest and refresh and even took a tour along the A10 instead of the A71. This is what happens when the navigator has to drive and navigate. We also planned to stop at a grocery store to pick up some first night essentials, sparkling wine, croissants, brie, a kettle and a sheet for the fouton. On arrival, it was déjà vu driving up past the pub (not open yet this season) and across the railroad tracks and then finally the last right-turn onto rue Traversiere. We parked in front of our garage, where the real estate agent had hidden the keys. Once we figured out how to open the garage door, it didn’t take long to find the keys and then across the street to cross the threshold for the first time. I had braced myself for viewing it empty. It wasn’t as quaint had our last viewing, but this time it was ours. It took a while to figure a few things out like the front door lock, finding the water valve, turning up the heat, etc…. 

A quick call to our estate agent got the water figured out and then it just took time to figure out the rest of the quirky nature of the house. Every time something new came up, I headed to the living room to check out the millon euro view just to calm myself. We decided to call it a night around 11:00 and hoped that everything looks better in the morning. The first night essentials weren’t touched except for the sheet for the fouton. 

Vern dans la cuisine. 

We made the bed with the new sheet and a crocheted blanket from Steve’s sister. Not quite designed for early spring evenings in France. A low of 0 degrees is expected, after a mostly sunny day. It was great to see all the stars that we remember from last summer. Well we did get some sleep, but the cold woke us up, so we decided to go with the flow. And things did begin to look up. We found the adapters plugs for our computer and phones, added the phone and internet plan for Steve’s iphone, made some coffee, and started to get some things settled. So even though it is only 2:44 am, things are looking brighter (although it is still dark outside). Tomorrow, well later today, we expect the first furniture delivery, talk to Orange to set up the internet and get to work on the to-do list. Now to try a bit more sleep and then get set for a busy day.

Well not much sleep last night, but the sun is rising and it is the start of a new day. Our first petit dejeuner of croissants and coffee got the day off to a good start. I checked out the back yard and le abri (garden shed). It was chock a block full of new and old garden tools. I am the proud owner of at least 2 tondeuses à gazon (lawn mowers). While I was playing Eddie Albert from Green Acres, Steve was busy on the phone. He contacted Orange, and someone forgot to order the “box” which was supposed to be waiting at the local Bureau de Poste. So now we are limited internet wise until peut-être (maybe) vendredi we hope. We did hear from Maisons du Monde that the delivery of the deux canapés (couches) would arrive entre 11hr et 13hr, which gave us just enough time to run to the grocery store.

Notre table de cuisine. 

Les deux canapés (couches) arrived and all we had to do was put on the legs. The delivery guys took them upstairs, unpacked them and took away the plastic and cardboard. We set them up and rescued a relatively stylish area rug from the attic and now have the beginnings of our new living room. After lunch, we headed out for some more shopping. We encountered some issues with the lock on the front door, and with the help of a neighbour, we think we have figured out how to lock the front door. The other issues we need to address are the mailbox won’t open and the lock to our shutter door had to be cut so the agent could get in. Not big things, but things to keep us busy. 

Our shopping trip out took us to Brico Marché for hardware and garden ideas, and then the Eco-mart for housewares and a last stop at the second hand store where we found a cute chair and a breadboard for only 11.50. This was followed by a stroll through town to check out some new shops and of course our favourite boulangerie for dessert tonight. Our first almost real dinner was lasagna, served with bread and a nice bottle of red. We were only missing a table. Maybe tomorrow.

We woke from a great night sleep at about 6:30 am. The new duvet was much better than just the blanket. Also, the house is warmer as yesterday was a warm sunny day, and we had the heat on all day. Today we had a busy day ahead. The electrician, Hedley came and Ikea delivered 2 bedrooms worth of stuff and a kitchen table. Every thing went as planned. No drama. Once the Ikea arrived, we busied ourselves making beds, night tables, chairs and a table, while our electricians worked on upgrading our fuse box, some new wiring up in the attic, and getting our hot water tank working. Once the final chair was assembled, I took all the cardboard across the street to our garage until we find a place where we can recycle it. We escaped to the living room to read through the pile of fliers delivered today as the electricians continued up in the attic. After the electricians finished for the day, we headed out for our daily grocery run. Coming home, we found out the handle of the front door wouldn't work, and we were locked out. A phone call to our estate agent brought help. She was lucky to contact a iron worker, and he agreed to help. It started a series of events, which are still not finalized as I write this on Sunday night. He got lost trying to find us, and somehow found the unofficial English mayor of our neighbourhood, who came down to introduce himself. Thierry had to go back to get a part, and Ron invited us up to his and Jean's place to keep warm, dry and hydrated (beer in other words). Thierry returned to announce that the door was open with a temporary fix. What a relief! So even though it put a scare into us, we met our new neighbours and they would come in handy later..... The night ended with a quick supper and off to bed. 

We tried the next day to buy a new handle at the local Brico mart (Home) depot like, but we couldn't figure out how to take it apart. We checked in with Thierry to pay him for the service call, and he said that he would come by after work to see what he could do to improve the fix. Mean while we have been to many local stores furnishing the house with sheets, toaster ovens etc... . We even stopped at McDonalds for lunch and to get our email. Orange was supposed to be here by Friday.


To be continued....

Blogger doesn't handle pictures well, so sorry they are a little scattered. I will keep learning. Also, the fonts and sizes are all out of whack too, sorry Ce n'est pas moi. 

(I started writing this as a journal, and now that we finally have internet, I am finally posting it, I hope you all enjoy)














































 

La Maison sur Rue Traversière

14 Rue Traversière, Bellac, France

Well what started as a two month adventure in France has now become an adventure of a lifetime, or at least for now. While we were in Bellac last summer, falling in love with the village, the idea of buying a retirement home was germinated. It began to take root when we found that the house just 3 doors down from our rental house was for sale. The house shares the same view that we were in awe of from the first day and we savoured every day after that. We contacted Lisa, our bilingual real estate agent, and had a tour of the house, but not really with the fine eye of buying. We were the lookie loos who must drive agents mad. Well with the real estates email in our contacts book we returned home with a dream, but never really thinking that it would come true. With countless emails back and forth, more pictures, questions, quotes, concerns and approvals the dream evolved into a reality.

Looking back up at the house from the garden shed.

The offer has been accepted and the paper work has been processed and the house is ours. Now the tough stuff happens, as with any move. This is when the credits roll on House Hunters International and no one tells you about the unseen episode that should follow the fun episode of choosing a new house. Steve has been in touch with the electric company to get the account switched over, the phone and internet company to get this service ready and even arranged an electrician to meet us there to up grade the fuse box and to wire the attic properly. This has been made easier since there is such a large population of English living in France, that many companies have English phone numbers to help set up the small details of life. We arrive at the house for the first time on March 14 for the two weeks of my Spring Break. We had planned to use the time for shopping to make the house our home. We had previewed a few near-by stores on line and had picked out some things that we wanted. With further investigation, Steve discovered that it was less expensive and much easier to have the furniture delivered, so our quiet street will wonder who is invading when we arrive. We will have the internet/phone company, two furniture deliveries and the electrician all arriving during our first few days there.

We hope that we will be able to assembleFrench Ikea beds, kitchen table and chairs, (I am sure the illustrated instructions are as confusing in any language) but the two couches will arrive fully assembled, or at least thats what we think Maison du Monde's website implied. The other major activities during the two week trip will be to open up a bank account, get a French will (dealing with the house) and clean up the back yard. Also we hope to get reacquainted with our village and the good life in France. Somewhere in there we am looking to relax and enjoy some (lots of) French wine and cheese.

The view of Bellac from our back deck.

With two weeks to go, we have begun to pack some basic necessities of a new house as well as some reminders of our BC house. For only an additional $96, we can take an extra 23kg. on our KLM flight. The extra bag is full of peanut butter, some basic tools, duck tape and favourite art. I'm sure there will be an ongoing adding and subtracting of items in and out of the bag. We keep checking the weight to take full advantage of the 23kg limit without going over. We just have to keep in mind that we will be arriving in a vacant house, but we will have the fun of making the house our home. This is something we haven't done since moving into our current house over 20 years ago.

Hoping the pub down the street is open!

As the adventure continues, I will continue to share it with anyone who may be interested. We will be taking reservations soon, so keep in touch.....We will be returning to Bellac this summer, Steve for 4 months, and just 2 for me. We are looking forward to our first guests to arrive.

A bientôt!

Joyeux noël

As we wake up on a sunny but cold Central California Christmas morning, we have become French home owners. The ten day cooling off period ended yesterday, and unless they throw something else at us, the only thing we need to do is make the final payment by the end of January.  While it seems exciting, it is a little scary. I'm sure nothing is going to go wrong, but we have watched and read enough to know that the unexpected should be the expected. It isn't Bella Tuscany or A Year in Provence, it will be our own adventure with with a happy ending.

Between now and our first visit home, we have to arrange for the property taxes, the electrics, home insurance and the Internet. Most can be done with the help of our realtor, but for some of the tasks we will be on our own. We are planning on being there for Spring Break, March 14 through March 29.

les derniers jours de l'été

I'm not sure what happened to the last week. We were busy with a trip to the beach, a day at the lake and a day seeing castles/chateaux of Richard the Lion Hearted. On Tuesday, we drove Evie and Kevin to Poitiers train station so they could head back to Paris for the last few days of their vacation. This gave us a chance to wander around the historical city before returning home to an empty house. Some wise poet once wrote that you don't know what you've got till it's gone. While the chaos of a full house was sometimes overwhelming, the peace and quiet of an empty house can be the same. We have begun to get used to it again, and are spending the last few hours seeing just one or two more picturesque villages and church steeples.

On Friday, we have the clean-up and packing. After two months, we have our stuff spread across all 4 floors of the house and the car. Some laundry and some gardening will also help us fill our last day. Dinner is a hamburger in the local pub down by the river. A great way to end our summer.

We also just found out our connecting flight from Toronto to Vancouver is "delayed" by 30 minutes. Not sure how Air Canada can forecast this type of delay so far in advance, or is it a schedule change? Which ever, it adds 30 minutes to our journey, which is long enough.

....

Well now it is Saturday night at 22:30, and I look out our hotel window and watch the planes take off from Charles De Gaulle airport. It has been quite the day. We were up early to finish cleaning and then packing up after an incredible 8 weeks in the House With Blue Shutters. We had arrange to meet up with the caretaker at 10:00, but he was late so it was a twenty minute delay before Gary arrived. Someone had parked in front of his garage, and he had to scour the neighbourhood finding the culprit and get them to move their car. It didn't seem to be an issue as we had more than enough time according to the GPS to get to the airport and drop off the car by 17:00, we thought 15:30 at the latest.  In fact I was planning a dip in the hotel's swimming pool before dinner. Well that all changed as we neared Paris. Firstly the GPS suggested a route change due to traffic which we ignored. There seemed to be  an air show that was occurring near the expressway and this may be why she suggested another route . This was no problem for us so we continued on the original route with little or no traffic problems. As Paris approached the traffic got worse and worse, and the GPS kept telling us that there was no alternative route that could be suggested. We kept moving forward like a slow moving army, and kept our eyes on the GPS, the map, and a downloaded route I had on the i pad. With only one mistake, getting off the E15 at Port Vincennes which the navigator, me, thought for a split second was the way to the airport, we were able to quickly get back on the E15 as we made our way across a wide open plaza style intersection with no lines on the road making a maneuver that really wasn't planned for and continue back to the A3. Then the A1 and then finally to the gas station just before Charles de Gaulle airport to top off the tank before we returned the rental car. We had started getting confused around Orly airport where the road varies from being the A6a to the A6b to the D126. I finally decided that we needed to get on the Blvd. Peripherique heading east. This is known as the E15, the E5 and the Blvd. Perpherique, depending where you are on it, not that maybe confusing to anyone. We were treated to a nice view of the Tour Eiffel, but with 4 lanes of traffic, we couldn't enjoy the view to its fullest extent. Finally as we crossed the rivière Seine, we began to see CDG on the destination signs.  Through persistence and a bit of luck we finally found the A1 and then finally to the gas station just before Charles de Gaulle airport to top off the tank before we returned the rental car.  It was quite easy to follow the signs to the parking garage at Charles De Gaulle terminal 1 and the rental car drop off location. The parking lot office was closed, so we were lucky that a passerby, probably a worker getting off shift, told us to go down the the office on the Arrivals level. We had taken pictures of the car, just in case, and when asked where we left it, we were able to show the agent the picture with the parking stall number on it. Within minutes we were on our way to our hotel. Seems unusual to complete a major transaction such as renting a care for 57 days with a "That's all". I guess we await the final invoice. Quite an end to a 6 hour ordeal.

We knew that the Hilton at Charles de Gaulle would be a nice treat after the summer and it was. The air conditioned room with a view of the runways of the airport was what we needed. As we had been driving through the Paris traffic, we were imagining sipping a beer in the hotel's bar, but instead on arrival the bed won out for a while. One of the problems of a four star hotel are the prices in the bars and restaurants, but being a captive audience so it was just one of those things. Dinner and drinks were expensive, but at least the food was good, but should have been great at the prices. After dinner we took a walk around the area. We found that at the Ibis hotel complex right next door had a couple of restaurants and a take away snack bar. We stocked up on after dinner drinks and snacks all for less than a second beer at the hotel.

We did have breakfast as part of our rate on Sunday morning. The buffet was very good with lots of choices. The one very strange item was the scrambled eggs. It appeared very runny, but I went ahead anyways. It seemed to have hard boiled eggs chopped up and then added to a sauce. While it wasn't awful, it was interesting. After breakfast it was over to the airport to catch our 12:30 flight to Toronto. It was a good flight with the best airplane food we have eaten in a long time. So much better than the bland, tasteless food on the flight over to Paris. Even the snack just before landing, a spicy Thai chicken wrap was good. The 3 bottles of red wine didn't hurt either.

The arrival and transfer to the domestic gates in Toronto was quite easy, with the exception of the luggage drop off. An elderly gentleman was working there, having troubles with conveyer belt, and the luggage wasn't going anywhere and the line up was growing. He didn't have any support, and didn't have the people skills to explain what was happening. Surely the managers should be near by to help out in situations like this. The last time we connected in Toronto to the US, we were herded into a chaotic hall to attempt to find our luggage and then had to find out where to go. Someone in Toronto needs to design a much more human system of transfers from one flight to another.

Arriving at our gate, the sign said the departure for our Vancouver flight was at 5:00. We had just been notified about a delay to 5:30 via email, and even our boarding pass printed in Paris stated it was at 5:30. On asking the agent at the desk, she was confused and thought the flight was at 5:30 so she went off to get the to the bottom of it. Strange way to run an airline. As it turned out the flight was to leave at its original time at 5:00. This meant a quick phone call home to alert our pick up of the changed time. On boarding, it was noticed that one of the overhead panels containing the air mask had descended. Hopefully not a sign of things to come. They called maintenance to fix  the problem but watching the two men fix it with nothing more than stuffing them back up into the compartment and the quickly shutting the panel before they could drop back out.

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Well we survived the 5 hour flight which seemed like an eternity. Arriving back in Vancouver, we were greeted by my brother to drive us the final leg. Parts of the city were still in darkness after the big storm on the previous day. As if BC Hydro knew we were on our way, our power was restored just before our arrival. Now our last thing to is to over come the jet lag. We are still trying to sleep at least till 5:00 am, early in the week it was 2:30 am. With a little luck, all will be back to normal by Tuesday as we return to work and real life.