So, I have given myself some stern words about doing more with said arm and will now work hard to get back driving. I can now kind of feed myself if I move my head down in the direction of the food at the same time I bring the food up to meet my mouth with a utensil in my right hand...It must look a bit...um...you get the picture!
So what have we been doing since we chatted last??
Crikey! I dont know if you can put 'waiting' on a scale of 1-10, but I think we are at about a 9. We continue to wait for everyone behind the scenes to do what they do, all the while we send mail to the various people who run our lives...read 'Bank'...where things continue to be lost in translation.
One HAS to have a sense of humour! Merde!
We took a quick trip into Verteillac this morning at 10.30, to post all our signed papers for the Insurance Company. We have a printer but no scanner. Why do people just assume you have a scanner?? So we normally take photos of everything, but these pages were too large to get the whole signed thing in, so just told them we would post them. Fortunately we had bags to send them! 2.90 eur. to expedite to a nearby town! phew! Post lady asked me how I wanted to send them.."VITE" (quick) was my reply! Hopefully tomorrow.
We have signed our lives away for our insurance, but at least we HAVE insurance. Our domestic disaster insurance is especially welcome, I have to say.
Previous to this we had been into La Couronne to the large Mall there, on the north eastern side of Angouleme. We wanted to visit the Orange telecom store to sign up for our home phone/tv/digital whatevers, as Waz hadn't been successful signing up online. It is all in French, so no wonder. Of course the prices are all internet specials, and to buy the same program from the store is almost double the price. The price paying the warm bodies, no doubt. No English spoken but we did get the message to go home and try digital again! sigh.
Anyhoo, we wanted to visit this mall, and we found some lunch there before walking the mall, taking a good look around the Auchan supermarket there...WOW!!! talk about choice! HUGE fruit and veg section, fish looked gorgeous and the bakery was awe-inspiring:) as only a bakery can be. I tried to be surrepticious with the camera, but I ended up doing the 'Hi, Im a tourist from NZ...pardon my camera!'...lol. My favorite fall-back:)
That big fish at back is huge. All the fish is fresh with bright eyes still and no smell! Lovely!
Waz had to literally drag me out of there and on the road to Castorama. We needed to price some items for our renovations, when we return to France.
We are looking to add two bathrooms. There is only one at present, with a toilet room under the stairs on the main level. It is a large bathroom, and we can literally cut it in half, put a door into the bedroom wall and make the one half into an en-suite, and the other half which opens onto the hallway, into a shower room. We dont need a bath-tub, so that will be replaced by a shower and loo on the one side and a handbasin on the right. Not much space needed to dry off or use the bathroom, really. The other bathroom will back to back with the other two, and open into the large master bedroom, without taking up too much space. We though the prices quite reasonable. See what you think.
I dont like free standing basins because you still have to put extra loo paper somewhere, even though they are easier to clean around. Wall mounted toilets are nice too, but much more expensive.
As we have a fosse septique (septic tank) and the pipe size is smaller upstairs to downstairs, we need a macerator toilet, a bit like the one we have on the boat. Those run about 250eur each.
It is all a bit much, after a while and we were happy to go home. We checked out the water softeners, heated towel rails, heaters for bathrooms, double paned windows and French door units among other things. Our heads full of details, prices and visually overloaded, it was good to put the kettle on when we arrived home and just veg for a bit.
As always, our arrival home was disturbed by e-mails needing attention, from the various people currently running our lives. Those dealt with, and then it was time to get ourselves sorted to entertain our neighbor, Chris.
We had found some beautiful salmon at SuperU on Tuesday and so I seared that in a pan with some walnut oil for grease, and finished it off with huge capers and plenty of cream to reduce. The result is always delightful and light. I baked some tiny new potatoes, steamed lovely sweet carrots and broccoli, and voila! Dinner.
Dessert was Eton Mess. Christ knew all about this, being English...well, he said he did! lol....and we had failed on the strawberry front on Tuesday...all the strawberries, though they look divine, have no taste. So, undeterred, we opted for Compote de Abricot. Apricot compote, which was suitably puckerish when mixed with chunky crushed meringues, and layered with sloppy whipped cream. All this presented in a tall glass, topped off with an intact meringue and lightly chopped dark chocolate. It was the perfect end to a delicious meal, in my opinion. The men thought so too, I might add.
I obviously didnt take photos...would have been a bit rude, actually....so you will just have to imagine it all:)
Today, Thursday.
I had e-mailed all those who organize our lives, and told them to insure the new car so that we could pick it up today. I also told the garagiste that we would be over to pick it up. I never received his reply, so it was all lost somewhere in the ether. I still havent received it, some 10 hrs later!
We had engaged Chris (neighbor) to drive with us to Angouleme to return the rental car.
On the way, we would stop off for some lunch at the Carrefour mall in Soyaux, and then we would fill the car up full for the return. We did all this, with the fellas having the Americain sandwich...a half baguette filled with hamburger meat and French fries, and a warm quiche Lorraine for me. We had coffee and grand crème and waited a half hour to make our way to fill up and then to the Station.
Who would have thought that the Hertz office was closed for lunch??? ARGHHHHHHHHHH! It is a tourist thing, rental cars...but merde! C'est France...so we bought yet another coffee across the road next to the station in Angouleme at the Relay store, (out of a machine...instant kind for 2 euros each..ouch!) and waited another half hour for the office to open. We had been anticipating paying to drop the car off in a place other than where we had rented it in the first place...however....because Hertz/thrifty insisted on us presenting ourselves every 30 days of our 3 month rental, at a local office somewhere to sign another 30 day contract, I felt that we shouldn't have to pay anything. Our 2nd rental was due to finish on the 18th March, so we decided to donate three days worth to them rather than open a bag of worms with relocation charges. Let sleeping dogs lie, as it were. Chris was a bit disgusted I didnt have a 'discussion' with them about the charges, but NOPE, I donated 21 euros to their cause for the pleasure of walking away without charges! DONE!
We all then made our way to the Peugeot dealer where we would pick up our new car.
There it was, front and center, all clean and lovely, in the showroom. A card on it said 'welcome' to us and this is our new car! Nice touch!
While sitting outside drinking our coffee and watching the Hertz office for signs of life, Waz borrowed my camera to take a photo of the bedding hanging out of the window, against the painted building. Neat! :)
Waz is driving until I ask him if I can do it for a little while to see if I CAN drive. I kind of can, but as I said, therapy needed, obviously. Im not safe yet, so will work hard on that if the shoulder/bicep allows me. I just took a painkiller, as the extra use of the arm today, have made it very achy.
Exhausting day!
When we turned up at the garagiste, he told us he hadn't been paid yet! WHAT?? We personally went to the bank 10 days ago to make sure they got paid by the bank...with our money, of course.
So, on the way home, driving the car that had not yet been paid for, we stopped off at the bank. Our regular banker is on vacation, so we ended up in the office of the lovely young man who speaks the best English. He made an express payment to the garagiste while we waited. We are now poor again! lol.
We found out that they were waiting for us to tell them to pay the garagiste...another thing lost in translation. sigh! We will get it all right one day, but Im sure we will find more of this in the years to come. Just tells me we desperately need to have better French language skills. This is all good for the brain, but Im pooped, tonight.
Oh, I forgot! We went from the garage to the P.O in our new town. We needed to get our address correct. The owner Celine was there, and her English is pretty good...well, we all made ourselves understood, put it that way, and after we ascertained the 'correct' address for our mail, we had a much needed other grand crème...her first to make, she told us, and it was perfect:)
Her father came into the bar while we were there. We were introduced, shook hands, they welcomed us to the neighborhood, which was very nice, and looked forward to seeing us again. I think we will like this neighborhood:)
After a couple of wrong turns, coming from the Garage, and up hill and down dale for a bit...not to mention the skinny curvy roads around the hills near our place, we eventually arrived outside the new house and down the hill to the village for said address and coffee.
The return journey eventually led to N10 motorway, which was good in the scheme of things. We needed to get to the bank, and after the bank, I needed food. I had hit the wall!
We went into Flunch in Soyaux, and were a bit early for dinner, but we bought anyway and waited...and waited for our food to be bought out. Fortunately I got myself some salad as an entrée, so some food was in my stomach while we waited. Waz opted for the roast 1/4 chicken, and I had (yet again) the poisson Pane...breaded cod, with some fresh and very hot fries....dipped in mayo. We finished off with a ball of ice-cream each, and felt MUCH better. I think we were also dehydrated, so lots of water also. We forget to drink, in between all the activities, but it shuts you down pretty quickly if you dont hydrate, that's for sure.
Home, a cup of coffee, no dinner to make, fortunately and we have made a fire!...well, Waz has.
Im going to have a good sleep tonight, methinx.
Tomorrow we need to find me a haircut. Like most things, an appointment is necessary. Very few walk-in places here. Not bad, but ruins spontaneity!
Time for me to call it quits. I can hardly see, anymore.
Ciao for now. We have our new car! We will get our new house eventually! At least we will have access to make things 'normal' for us when we arrive back 'home' in May. Cant wait!
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