29th December
Well, it did and didn't start well. The first good bit was we did actually have heating as well as lighting in the main house. As I mentioned in the last post, however, as with everything French - almost! Well, from the ouvriers' viewpoint they are waiting for us to do various jobs, but there are still a couple of radiators which could be fixed and some of the electric sockets. Anyway, we've got used to this French work ethic and don't want to become one of those moaney customers - we want to keep friends with them.The second good bit was we decided on the kitchen providers and paid a deposit on the 'meubles' (just before the TVA (VAT equivalent) goes up) - so we should have a kitchen in March. My first thought was it would be great if it was early March, then it would be a birthday present! And we could have a soiree for the neighbours for both the finish of the major house renovations and my birthday. Realistically, though, (especially given what I've already said about French ouvriers) we are more likely to be getting ready for Easter before it is finished!
And now the bad bit - well, it had a good portion as well, luckily. I was browning off a large oxtail joint and dropped it in the boiling oil, which splashed all over my face. The good bit was it didn't go into my eyes, but I've been suffering with the burns for the last 4 days, picking off the bits of dried skin and looking like I've got measles with the red patches! It's not just the look, though, it is sooo painful. Next time I'll be a bit more careful, but accidents do happen.
5th January 2014
At the moment I'm sitting watching Miss Congeniality 2 up here in Normandy, and thinking about being more efficient! Hah! That'll be the day! But, it's the start of a new year, so it's the good old 'first clean page of the exercise book'. So let's get back to finishing the description of our first Christmas of our new life down in Nieul.As I mentioned in the last post, we'd got the bathroom in the main house refitted with a lovely walk-in shower, double sink unit plus black and white tiling, so we'd thought our Christmas present to ourselves would be to christen it on Christmas morning. We slept in the new bed in the main bedroom Christmas Eve, woke up there and had a beautiful shower Christmas morning. Trouble is, we also found out that using black tile grout is OK when all the tiles are black, but where you have a strip of black tiles amongst white ones, the black grout runs into the white grout. Oh well, hopefully it is just excess and will wash off soon, and then I'll just have to bleach the white grout round the edge.
As is our Christmas morning tradition, we had champagne and smoked salmon scrambled eggs for breakfast (really virtually brunch, but hey who's counting?) and started watching tv. This tradition was started when we watched the original 3 Star Wars films in one Christmas Day, just stopping to get dressed and for meals now and again! This year it was the first series of 'A Person of Interest'. The meal we stopped for was venison rather than turkey and it was brilliant, - starting with a taste test to see if we could decide which was best, foie gras of duck or goose. We preferred the duck, surprisingly enough. The other surprising thing was that the venison was English!
Boxing Day meat was rib of beef and we had both cold venison and beef for several days afterwards!
The only disappointing thing about Christmas was that we couldn't cook it or eat/watch tv in the main house. This had been one of the key points in our original plans, but hey, we didn't know about French workmen's scheduling skills when we originally made that schedule. And to be honest, why does it matter? When looking at it logically, there's just us so it's not like it is crucial that we had it finished. However, we do use times like this, and the visits of friends, to give us the impetus to complete one or more of the stages in the whole process, just not the optimistic one we started with. As Eric, the electrician said, 'Of course you can have the house finished for Christmas - just don't specify which one!' (he said it in French, obviously!).
We had planned to come up to Normandy the day after Boxing Day, but a combination of bad weather, not being organised enough, and realising there was no reason to rush, meant we didn't leave till Friday. The only downside of that is that we couldn't get to the doctors to get a new repeat prescription. The system over here is rather more complex than back home - or perhaps its not a France/UK difference, just a resident/non-resident aspect. We have told the UK authorities that we are no longer resident in the UK, so we were no longer able to use the national health system from the day after our phone call. To get under the French system, however, is a little more complex. We have to get the S1 form which says we are no longer under UK national health, birth and marriage certificates translated - but not by anyone, it has to be an authorised translator. Then we have to register it with the local authority here in Dieppe, and hopefully after 3 months we may get our carte vitale which means we get 70% of the cost of medicines repaid. Unlike the UK, no-one gets free medications here (mind you, we only got free medicines when we were 60, before that we either paid a fixed fee per item, or paid an annual amount to get free prescriptions for the year).
So Monday saw another first - an appointment with a French doctor. I took copies of our repeat prescription requests and it was quite interesting as she'd never heard of one of John's blood pressure tablets . How much difference 75 or so miles can make! Total cost of not getting our residency sorted out earlier was over 100 euros! Still, it was for 3 months' prescriptions (apart from one of my blood pressure pills, which was only a month's worth for some reason) and as soon as we start the process, we'll get reimbursed the 70% of any further medications we need when the process is all completed.
Tuesday - NEW YEAR'S EVE!!!!
Round at Carole & Martial's from 8 p.m., so we had a light meal at about 5 p.m. because we knew we wouldn't be eating till about 11 p.m. And we were right! Mind you, it was worth the wait - started with lobster, followed by fruits de mer (seafood platter), then cheese and dessert as per usual with French meals. Nice small group - just 11 of us, Carole & Martial, of course, then John, Mary, Dominique & Valerie, Igor, Lulu, and Igor's young son. We eventually left around 3.30 a.m. and in bed by 4, ready to start again for lunch. I do love the French concept that you should start your first meal in the New Year with those that you said goodbye to the old year with. The trouble is, no-one is really up to it so soon after the excesses of the night before. Lulu and Igor got to bed around 6 a.m., Martial and Dominic about half an hour earlier whilst Carole and Valerie gave up about 5 a.m. I think. Though I think Lulu's problem wasn't so much the lack of sleep as the bottle of whiskey that she and Igor managed to finish between them the night before. John and I only managed to last until about 5 p.m., of which I'm sure Carole was more than grateful.What a great way to start the first New Year of our new life!
