'Bigfoot' in the Pyrénées-Oriéntales

On Monday evening I was carrying a tray of glasses outside and accidentally trod on a football that the dog had kindly left by the step for me.  My left foot collapsed under me, the tray flew into the air, and I landed on the terrace surrounded by shards of broken glass.  On first inspection things weren’t too bad – a few cuts here and there, a scrape on the top of the foot, and I managed to hobble around for the rest of the evening.  By the morning my foot was twice the size and I couldn’t put any weight on it but still assumed it was just bruised and managed to ‘skate’ around the house on a towel.  Thank goodness for tiled floors!

By 11am, having discovered that there were just two plasters and a cough sweet in the medicine cabinet I decided that I would try to get to the Pharmacy for some sort of support bandage.  Using the clutch was so painful that I drove all the way there in 1^st gear rather than use it again.  I don’t know how many customers turn up wearing just one shoe and clutching an umbrella for support but the lady at the pharmacy was lovely and came rushing to the door to bring me a chair to sit on.  She took one look and said that I needed to go to ‘Urgences’ for an X-Ray as she thought it was broken.  She then lent me some crutches, helped me to the car, gave me a lecture on not driving, and asked if she should call the Pompiers to take me to hospital.  I actually burst out laughing at the idea of being driven to Perpignan in a shiny Fire Engine but she assured me that it is a normal part of their job.  I politely declined her offer and promised I’d get a friend to take me.

If ever you have an emergency, Phil is the person to ask.  As soon as I rang he dropped everything (seemed almost pleased to have an excuse not to go to the French Class with Jeanette!), turned up with a bag full of cold drinks, and off we set – and I much preferred being driven in a classic Audi convertible rather than a fire engine!

We were really impressed by the exterior of the hospital – shiny new building, manicured lawns and FREE parking, but inside it was another story; a poker-faced Receptionist, queues of people, a burly security guard and signs everywhere asking people not to attack the staff!  It reeked of smoke as there were groups of people (mainly the nurses) smoking right outside the entrance. Another ‘similarity’ to the UK health system was the fact it took 5 hours to get through the triage and X-Ray departments.  I was finally ‘signed out’ at 6.30pm by an enormous Russian doctor who spoke French with an even worse accent than me.  He said there was nothing broken but there was a bad sprain (is there any other kind?) and handed me lots of prescriptions to take to the Pharmacy.

I left the pharmacy with enough painkillers to warrant a visit by the drugs squad, a pair of purple crutches, a number to call to get a nurse to call in and inject me every day for 10 days with something to avoid blood clots, an enormous ski boot (to fit my enormous foot), and advice to wear flat shoes.  Who says the French don’t have a sense of humour!

As I always try to look on the positive side of life I will just mention that over the weekend I noticed that I had lost my little ankle bracelet  - and now that I am wearing the natty ski-boot I don’t need it!

And as a final ‘foot-note’ (sorry!) many thanks once again to Phil and Jeanette for all their help – and particularly to Phil who carried my handbag as if he wasn’t at all embarrassed!

A 'Cat'astrophic Day...

I recently wrote a blog entry about how much I loved living here because no two days are ever the same and I detailed strange events that had happened during a 5 day period.  All that pales into insignificance compared to a recent set of very strange experiences that happened over a 24 hour period – and I apologise for the length of this blog but it was a very ‘full’ day!

It started on Sunday evening when my new kitten vanished into the dark and windy night.  Luckily no cars were passing at midnight or they would have seen a lunatic woman in a hideous pink dressing gown standing in the road shaking a bag of cat biscuits and calling his name!  I left the outside lights on and the kitchen door open all night and didn’t sleep very well – mainly imagining what other strange animals might try to come into the house.  The next morning, fearing the worst (although actually the dog looked quite pleased) Loulou and I walked up and down the road looking for a dead body in the hedge, then I prodded the murky depths of the pond with a stick, then grappled with the pool cover imagining that he must have fallen in chasing a lizard and drowned, but luckily found nothing.  We then went to ask the neighbours to keep their eyes open – they are in their 80s, very fit and healthy and are out gardening in all weathers, but I was still rather shocked  to see Madame squatting over a bucket next to the water butt as I approached.  I hid behind a large cactus plant until she had finished and she didn’t seem at all embarrassed to be pulling up her tracksuit bottoms as I greeted her (happily we are on kissing terms not handshakes)   I was almost convinced I had been hallucinating but I googled it later and apparently fresh urine makes perfect compost accelerator, but it has made me wary of accepting their gifts of home-grown vegetables...

My friend Vicky then arrived to carry on painting the living room and I had to leave for work – although the fact she had brought the 5 dogs again made it unlikely that the cat would be brave enough to return while I was out.  At 3pm I received a phone call from the plumber saying that he was at the rubbish tip and that he could see smoke on the top of the hill near my house.  I explained that although I was out there was no problem as my friends were at the house and hung up.  About 30 minutes later I rang Vicky to make sure that everything was OK, only to find that she had left 2 hours earlier.  On a positive note, it took my mind off the missing cat but I then had to ring the incontinent/eco-friendly neighbours just to make sure that my house wasn’t on fire.  It took a fair amount of explaining but they reassured me that everything was OK.  (Later I heard that the Mayor’s vineyard had been on fire but luckily it is not that close to the house). 

Shortly after that I was driving back down one mountain on the way to the second viewing, with the clients following in the car behind, when I heard a motorbike behind me – but when I looked in the mirror there was nothing there.  I then realised the noise was coming from the back of the car so I pulled in to the side of the road but could see nothing (nor could the bemused clients) so I explained to them that I thought I had a stone in the tyre so not to be surprised by any strange manoeuvres I might make once we got to the straight bit of road.  I then proceeded to wiggle the wheel and stamp on the brakes occasionally but nothing would dislodge it so I carried on driving to the next rendezvous almost convinced that I had a wasps nest in the boot but arrived safely in Cassagnes, 20 kilometres up another twisty mountain road.  When we had finished viewing the final property we all spotted that the back tyre was now completely flat.  The clients just happened to have a very handy electronic tyre inflator so they very kindly helped me – but to no avail, the tyre just would not inflate.  I then faced the embarrassing situation of having to unpack the entire boot area (bag of dog toys/dish/water bottles, supermarket shopping, beach towels, christmas decorations (?)) only to find that my car was the type that only came with a puncture repair kit and not a spare tyre. The breakdown service said they would send someone out within 45 minutes.  The policy here is that they get you to the nearest garage, not necessarily a tyre specialist and not necessarily near to where you want to be so the fact I was in a remote village miles from anywhere didn’t bode well.  There was obviously some event going on in the village that afternoon as well-dressed people carrying flowers and/or glasses of wine drifted in and out of the Mairie where I was parked so at least there was something to look at to pass the time, and when at last the breakdown truck arrived, everybody came out to watch, and who could blame them as it was an enormous black and yellow ex-army type vehicle with flags and flashing lights everywhere.   The mechanic found a huge piece of metal in the tyre and couldn’t repair it so was then thrilled to entertain the assembled crowd by using a remote control to engage the gadgets to raise and lower my car several times before towing it off to the garage.

The garage was in Ille-sur-Tet, a town slightly more in the direction of my village (which was a bonus) but by this time it was 7pm and the garage was closing so they would see what they could do to the tyre in the morning, and called for a taxi to take me home (paid for by the insurance company).  I was relieved to know that I would be home within 20 minutes but my hopes were dashed when the taxi driver then announced that he would be picking up another fare from Perpignan ‘on the way’ (local residents will understand my rage at this detour!).  It turned out that he was picking up an elderly person from the Clinic and taking him back to his home in Prats-de-Mollo, a village at the top of the Tech Valley.  Despite the fact that the patient seemed to be still suffering mild effects from the sedatives, he was aware enough to question the route that the driver was taking and had to be reassured several times that taking the ‘wine-route’ and dropping me off on the way would be a short cut!

I finally got home at 8pm, completely stressed and exhausted, to be greeted by an extremely excited dog who managed to convince me that what I really wanted to do was to play with her in the garden, rather than dive into a bottle of wine and relax.  Eventually, with my guilt at leaving her for so long assuaged by an epic game of football and double-portions in her food-bowl I was able to pour myself a generous glass of wine and sat out on the terrace while my Pizza cooked.  I half-heartedly called the cat’s name and heard a rustling sound from the bottom of the hedge.  Given the fact that I have seen a snake under there I thought it was pretty brave of me to investigate but, armed with a tennis racket, I managed to pull some branches aside and peer in and found an extremely shocked and exhausted kitten staring up at me.  It took quite some time to manoeuvre him out from his hiding place as I was terrified of hurting him even more as he was obviously injured, but I was so pleased to hear him purr as I held him in my arms. I had not had him for long and he was usually pretty wary of me - perhaps due to the fact that I had him castrated within a week of his arrival... 

So, apart from the fact that my pizza was burnt to a crisp, my bizarre day ended happily.  And the cat is now doing well – the vet had to operate on some pretty horrible internal injuries and said that he had been run over by a car – but he is now back home with a shaved side and a plastic bucket tied round his head and looks so scary that the dog hides when he appears!

Come fly with me - but only if you are an adult!

If you are flying on a budget airline with small children YOU NEED TO GET TO THE GATE EARLY OR BOOK SEATS OR BUY PRIORITY BOARDING! This is fairly self-explanatory but I understand that not all of you will have used budget airlines so I will explain.

Budget airlines pretty much ‘do what they say on the tin’ in that they fly you from A to B at a very low ticket price. It is important to be aware that ‘B’ can often be 40 minutes away from where you imagine it to be i.e. “Girona Barcelona” is actually Girona, rather than Barcelona and that “Paris” is almost definitely not Orly or Charles de Gaulle Airports. The basic ticket is dirt cheap so naturally the airline will be keen to make money by selling ‘add-ons’ but if you already have your own travel insurance policy, can travel with hand-luggage, don’t need to pre-book a seat and don’t need confirmation by text message then it is perfectly possible to stick to the original ticket price.

Experienced budget airline travellers are instantly recognisable at airports – they are the ones constantly watching the screens waiting for the ‘gate’ announcement, at which point they will run as fast as possible to be the first in the queue and to seize the chance of picking the good seats. By ‘good’ seats I mean seats next to the person you are travelling with or (even more important) with space in the overhead locker so that your hand luggage is instantly accessible for a quick getaway once the plane lands.

‘Hand luggage’ is always a great bone of contention at the departure gate. Everybody checks the weight & size that is permitted to be carried on board but, it seems that not everybody checks the smaller print which states that “Only one piece of hand luggage can be carried on board”. In effect this means that the last minute essentials you bought from Boots, the latest paperback & magazines you bought from WH Smith’s and, more importantly, your handbag, has to fit into one tiny piece of hand luggage. Even if you manage to cram everything into one bag there is a metal cage right by the desk and they will insist that you place your luggage inside to prove that it conforms to the measurements. (On yesterday’s flight I was carrying a plastic 3d relief map and I have to admit that the Pyrenees have not fully recovered).

I realise all this may sound most peculiar and to those of you who are used to proper boarding passes with allocated seat numbers but, as long as you know the ropes and are expecting ‘no frills’ then it is a very cheap and convenient way to travel. What I cannot understand is what exactly goes through the minds of families who are travelling with young children. During the online booking process it is almost difficult not to request priority boarding or pay to have a seat allocated so why oh why don’t they do it? On yesterday’s flight some of the last people to board were a couple with a toddler and an 8 year old and they seemed quite surprised that they couldn’t find four seats together. In the end they had to put the 8 year old in a window seat next to a middle-aged couple (not us thank goodness!). In fact he turned out to be a charming well-behaved little boy and it seemed that the couple actually enjoyed their conversation with him so all was well – until we started our descent and the poor little chap was overcome by a sudden bout of travel-sickness.... The middle-aged couple were brilliant in the way they reassured him and dealt with the aftermath but they should not have been put in that position in the first place. Parents travelling with young children - YOU NEED TO GET TO THE GATE EARLY OR BUY PRIORITY BOARDING!

(The picture at the top of this blog was taken by me on a “budget” airline flight. It was the first one of the season so it seemed that only me and 4 other people felt the need to leave Perpignan in May). Miracles do happen!

Purchase of 'The House with no Name' - nearly there!

After a ‘quiet’ few weeks where very little seemed to be happening, everything is now back in full flow again and we have a completion date. The old couple who are selling the house to us were having trouble finding a new one to move into and while legally (thanks to the wonderful french system) we could have forced them out on a certain date, even I would have felt a bit mean making a couple of 80 year-olds homeless so we gave them a bit more time and have all now agreed on July 28^th!

Technically this now means that we are ‘homeless’ in France for a few weeks as we have a tenant renting our apartment in Perpignan so I am now back in the UK and trying to sort out the move ‘long-distance’ which is even harder than doing it in person and not to be recommended. The traumas of moving all our personal possessions out of a 5^th floor apartment (with a very tiny lift) and then cramming it all into a Peugeot 206 to transport it all to store it in a room in the new house pale into insignificance compared to dealing with all the relevant ‘services’. EDF were initially quite easy to get hold of but when I told the girl on the phone that I had no idea which of the 4 meters in the communal cupboard on the stairwell related to my apartment she just suggested I turn each of them off in turn. As I was leaving the building I figured it didn’t really matter whether my neighbours hated me for plunging them into darkness so went out to the cupboard and then realised that none of the meters even had ‘off’ switches. I tried again the next day and apart from an initial argument when the man accused me of giving the wrong account number (I later had to admit I thought I was talking to France Telecom!) managed to give all 4 meter readings and we managed to guess which one was mine! France Telecom was a different story – you can ring the customer helpline until you are blue in the face but if they are busy there is no option to ‘hold’ forever, they just tell you to try again another time and hang up on you! I must have tried 20 times with no success. I even tried from the UK on the ‘english-speaking helpline’ (which, naturally is only open from 9-5). During the ‘we are very busy’ speech they do suggest that if you speak good french you could try ringing the french helpline BUT you cannot access it from the UK! Grrrr. I did manage to get through on one occasion and was told that ‘yes, it is easy to cancel your phone-line but you must ring back tomorrow’ which seemed bizarre and when I questioned her further, she admitted that the computer was down! So near and yet so far. I ended up writing them a letter but am probably still paying for the landline even now!

My abiding memory of finally moving out of the apartment was when I dropped into the agent’s office to drop off the last set of keys – there were two girls at the reception desk and as I greeted one with ‘Voici les clefs de mon appartement’ they both burst into song and assured me that there was a famous french song entitled ‘Here are the keys to my apartment’......!

I gave in to temptation!

Regular readers (hello to both of you!) may remember that a few blogs ago I mentioned that, despite being a townie, I was beginning to feel tempted by some of the more rural properties I have been viewing. Well, we are now in the process of buying one!

I had asked some of my regular agents to keep an eye out for anything ‘especial’ and a few weeks ago was taken to see a house that I fell in love with. Despite the fact that his visit coincided with the 3-day ‘monsoon’ we experienced in March, my husband also loved it, but (being a typically sensible man) insisted on not rushing into making an offer there and then but to wait a couple of weeks until his next visit and see it again on a sunny day. He also wanted me to check out irritating little details such as whether we could actually afford it! I had an agent out to value our apartment in Perpignan and decided that rather than sell it we would rent it out fully-furnished which seems to make a lot of sense as property prices are very low so it is not a good time to sell. The rental income will pay for a French-mortgage and we will therefore only have to sell one of our two children to be able to afford it!

We went back to the property on a beautiful sunny afternoon and now that there were no clouds or rain obscuring our views of the Pyrenees, the decision was easy. Everybody had smiles on their faces when we said that we would be making an offer – particularly the agent – and he gave us a Proposition d’Achat form for us to fill in with our full names, addresses etc. and the details of our offer. He had asked me to fax it over to him that evening but in the event, was so excited about the deal that he actually came to collect the document personally the next morning, took it to the vendors, rang from their house to negotiate further (they weren’t smiling so much when they saw our offer apparently!), and then came back with their signed acceptance later that afternoon!

So, here we are again at the beginning of a purchase process, which will no doubt run totally smoothly – watch this space!

Trials & Tribulations of Property Finding - Part 1 of many!

I have had two terrible house viewings today. There was nothing wrong with the actual properties – it was the owners! The first house was owned by a gentleman who had designed and built the house himself and was naturally extremely proud of it and insisted on showing me every last detail, including the original blueprints. The house was on nine ‘levels’ which I actually found quite dangerous – imagine carrying a tray of drinks and having to remember that there is one step down to the living room, two steps up to the tv corner, and seven steps up to a mini-mezzanine level. (And also imagine remembering all that on the way back to the kitchen, having drunk the contents of the tray of drinks…) We looked in every single cupboard – although I would dispute the fact that there is a tiny step down to ‘Le Dressing’ counts as one of the levels. I left the house thinking that bungalows were a fantastic idea!

The second visit was twice as bad because there were two of them! A really sweet elderly couple for whom our visit was obviously the highlight of their week – they had even laid out a tray of coffee & cakes. Luckily the house was fantastic but it was very hard to see as they preceded us into every room (even the tiny toilets) so it was difficult to take my usual realistic photographs – even my picture of the ‘spectacular sea view’ has Madame’s tightly permed head in the corner! The worst thing was that Monsieur had obviously had little else to do since his retirement than to invent ways of ‘improving’ the house. He was delighted to show me the special light-system in the entrance hall which showed whether the garage door had been closed or not, the electrically-operated sunshades on the 3 terraces (all of which were extended to 10cm and then closed to prove that they worked), and the recycling system for rainwater which was somehow involved the sprinkler system and the pool filtration unit. There was absolutely nothing that hadn’t been thought of. Even the ‘Summer Kitchen’ had electric shutters to protect the barbecue from the winter weather. We watched in sarcastic awe as he pressed a button and the shutters went up and down, and then he explained that he had found a solution to a problem that we hadn’t even thought of – what if there was a power cut and you couldn’t open the shutters? This would obviously be une catastrophe! But no, he smiled, and produced a special key which allowed one to open the shutters manually!

This house is definitely on my list of recommendations for my clients to view BUT only when I find out when the owners are on holiday and the agent has the keys!