Settling in to La Ganne and Escaping Roanne!

 

Our lap of honour with NB Puzzler before exiting the port!

My apologies for the lack of transmission over the last two(!!!) months…. We’ve been a bit busy…..  We have now become home owners again and finally made a break for freedom from the Port of Roanne, saying goodbye to friends on land and water as we set off on our summer marathon cruise (2500km!).  So with a bit of date manipulation (pretend it’s last week), here’s a catch up on what we’ve been up to until the end of March.

We signed for our new house on Friday 9^th February and the first thing we did was go to the supermarket to buy 2 plates, knives, forks, spoons as it turned out our ‘sold as seen’ deal didn’t stretch to the crockery and cutlery after all and we had nothing to eat our tea with.  Everything else was left however, though we did have to use pool towels for a few weeks until John Lewis delivered the bath ones.  The second thing we did was light the fire as it was bloody freezing (the micro-climate Jerry????!), and the third was have a bath.  We then headed to Jerry and Caroline’s to join them for drinks for Caroline’s birthday and meet some new friends.  It was a chance to reconnect with our neighbours and B&B owners we’d stayed with last visit, Jeanette and Richard, which was lovely.

At last - OUR house :)

Rather a wintry view from our bedroom window

Our friends Michelle and Kevin had put us up the night before we signed, they live about 20 minutes away.  When they came to us for lunch, Kevin brought his toy with him!

Walking from the house down to Jeanette and Richard at Labarthe

When we were building the concrete base for the pool heat pump, we had to clear some vegetation around our well, so then had to make it safe until we will restore it later this year.

Apparently the migrating cranes signal the arrival of spring.  I'm still waiting......

One of our many frogs from the garden trying to get into the sitting room!

We then spent the weekend unpacking what we’d brought from the boat and going through every cupboard and drawer in the house, clearing out what we didn’t want/need and shifting things around to how we wanted them.  On Tuesday we woke up to no water.  A quick call to Jerry, our estate agent (and friend) and he discovered that the previous owner had cancelled his contract meaning our water had been shut off.  Jerry had specifically told them not to do this, as he would contact the water and electric people and simply change the name on the contract from theirs to ours, thus preventing anyone being cut off…….  It all got sorted out by Jerry and by late afternoon, our taps were running again.

By the time Pete and Jane arrived for the weekend on 22 Feb, we’d set up our EDF and Saur (water) contracts and direct debits, tried to set up our internet, but the house didn’t appear on Orange’s system, so an appointment was made for an engineer to come out the following week, purchased towels and sheets for letting the property out over the summer, taken our lives into our hands and travelled to IKEA in Bordeaux for everything else we were missing, bought and had delivered a new tv, got a pool person and gardener in place for over the summer and found a couple of good local wineries (5 minute drive from the house!).  We’d also started the ball rolling to get a pool heater installed, which was going to prove to be a bigger job than we thought…….

We took a couple of days off to do touristy things with Pete and Jane; our local Chateaux de Duras, being one of them.

The chateau is a great visit and we were all greatly amused by the secret door in the wall!

Could've done with these bellows for the fire......

Super views of Duras from the tower.

And looking the other way towards our house :)

Then we went to St Emilion

Mike was there too!

When we were booking our hire car to take us to our house, we discovered that it becomes very expensive to hire for an extended period of time as they won’t hire for longer than 28 days.  The only way we could get around this was to hire for three and a half weeks, then return to Roanne for a few days, then pick up another car for another couple of weeks.  Unbeknown to me, Mike had decided to squeeze in a quick trip to Paris for a couple of nights as he had bought tickets to see First Aid Kit live on 5 March, as an early birthday present for me.  Very early – it’s not til the end of May!  We had a lovely couple of days and the concert was fab.  We then had a couple of nights back on board Quaintrelle and then it was the 4 and a half hour drive back to Baleysaggues.

Sacre Couer

Paris

The beautifully harmonic First Aid Kit - fantastically talented young ladies :)

This next chunk of time was spent getting the house ready for rental over the summer.  We’re not going to do this as a business, but we’ve bought a bit quicker than we intended and rather than leave the house sitting empty over the summer, decided to do some rentals.  The bookings would be managed by Tracy and David of HolidayCottagesandVillas.co.uk and we’d need to get House Managers in place to do the turn around between guests.  We had to have the house ready for a photoshoot presenting it exactly as it would be when rented out, so some tweaks here and there, painting some old tables to make them look more contemporary (thank you again Caroline!), and shifting anything not included out of the way and hiding all our own paraphernalia.  The visit with Tracy and David went well and they were confident we’d get a few bookings.  The only thing left to do was have a pool heater installed……..

On 15 March, we drove the long drive back to Roanne again as Mike had a commitment.  Over the long winter weeks, he’d got together with Dave (musician) and Roger (wannabbee, but more advanced than Mike) to play his ukulele.  As talk of the Roanne Rockers went around the port, there was much interest (curiousity?) and suddenly they were doing a gig at the Thursday night port social in L’Authentique on 15 March.  I got pulled in to sing a couple of numbers and thoroughly enjoyed myself doing so.  As Dave predicted, the night was a roaring success.

Then two days later, we were back in the car for a final 10 days at the house to try and get the pool heater installed.  Ordering the heater and arranging installation had been straight forward, until Paul the electrician arrived, and along with pool lady Katie, confirmed there was not enough power at the pool box and we’d need to install a new supply from the house to the pump – a distance of roughly 35 metres right across the garden, but more worryingly, right across the EDF mains supply to the house.  Mike spent a couple of days trying to find somewhere to hire a scanner so we could see the route of the mains, but they don’t seem to do this in France.  He contacted EDF who remarked on what an unusual request it was, but they’d pass it to their technical team.  With a week to go, Mike contacted EDF again, told them we’d be excavating that week and we really needed someone out ASAP to show us where the line lay.  By the way, Mike hasn’t become fluent overnight, EDF have an English Speaking helpline………  Someone would call us back.  They did.  They didn’t speak English, but they were only calling to say someone would call us back.  Yes, we know that, we were told that this morning by the English-speaking person…..  And then there was a call to say someone would come the next morning – wooohoooo!!!  At last.  I may have glanced over this issue on here, but it was causing us quite a lot of stress, to say the least! 

We could now book in Will, our grass cutter, with his mini-digger to dig the trench and we could begin lifting the turf on the part of the route before it would meet with EDF.

It was back-breaking, and there was only more to come……

My first ever concrete base - not sure I signed up for manual labour!!!

Then we lifted the turf

Mike digs around the EDF cable by hand - the wine bottles mark the route (as the EDF man had run out of spray paint......

Then having dug out the trench and laid the ducting, Will begins to fill it in again and re-lay the lawn....

The day after we dug, it absolutely chucked it down and whilst this was great for the trough across the grass as it settled the grass back in nicely, it turned the clay at the front of the house into slush!  Mike hurried off to the local Batiland (builder’s stuff) and bought several bags of stone which he dug into the clay and then tamped down with his new screwfix hammer.  Ten days on, he still has some soft tissue pain in his hand from this, and the front of the house was such a mess, we had to stop using the front door and use the side one instead.  The timing with Paul the electrician wasn’t great as he was going away for a few days so we were now faced with having dug in the ducting, he may not be able to pull the cable through and have to get Will to dig it all up again, and we wouldn’t be there.  The rain continued as we tried to get the house in the final state for renting, completed the Guest Information book etc.  Our House Managers, Stuart and Ursula, came round for a final visit on Monday 25^th March and assured us that they’d make sure everything was okay and not to worry.  Clair the gardener had also done her first session for us, and then invited us round for drinks before we headed off.  She also assured us that she and Will would make sure everything was tidied up and looked good after the installation was complete.

In amongst all the housey stuff, we had also being thinking about our winter mooring for Quaintrelle next winter.  I’d initially contacted the port at Castets en Dorthe, who had sent a booking form and pricelist, which we’d held back on completing until we’d looked at all our options.  It turns out that Clair, our gardener, and her husband David have just bought a boat that they are refurbishing, and it is moored at Fontet, so on her recommendation, we went and had a look round the port, found the prices online and emailed the local Mairie, who manages the port, about wintering there next year.  When we visited, there appeared to have been spaces, so we were confident it would be all systems go and were therefore slightly shocked when we got an email saying sorry, they were full.  We had a back-up plan though, and headed to Meilhan sur Garonne, where we had visited last year when on a house-hunting trip in September.  Last year we had met the English Capitain, Mike, who was retiring and now the port had been taken over by someone else, who it turned out, was the father of one of the girls opening the new florists in Monsegur, the opening night of which we’d dropped in on when visiting Clair and Dave for drinks…. (to keep it short!).  He was there working on the Capitainerie and was more than happy for us to over-winter there, although it all seemed to good to be true when he said it wouldn’t cost anything, we could just stop.  He gave us his contact details and said to ring him round about August to remind him, so it was all a bit loose, to say the least, but he was a nice guy, spoke good English so we were confident there hadn’t been a misunderstanding.  As we were about to leave, Mike, the old Capitain turned up, thankfully, as once the new Capt. explained what was going on, he quickly said we couldn’t, despite the DBA guide notes on the mooring saying you can…..  Up until 2011 you could over-winter there, but then the licence changed and it became a Haulte Nautique, rather than a port, and under which terms you cannot overwinter.  Mike suggested Castelnaudary, but that’s too far for us to get to the house and back to check on the boat, and Buzet sur Baise, where an English couple run the old port and take over-wintering.  We knew we still had Castets on a back-burner, so Mike contacted Buzet and they said yes, they’d be happy to have Quaintrelle over the winter, and at a cheaper rate than Castets.  We haven’t seen the port, but as we won’t be living on her, it doesn’t matter so much.  As long as it’s safe and secure, and it’s only a 50 minute drive from the house.  The deposit’s been paid and that’s another thing ticked off the to-do list!!

And so, leaving a half-installed pool heating system, a big hole in front of the house and a pile of clay under the tree we handed over wadges of cash to various people who we’d only just met, left them with our house keys and drove off into the sunset.  Well, we drove off into torrential rain and had a horrific journey back to Roanne on Wednesday 27^th – it absolutely chucked it down for all 5 and a bit hours back – exhausting.  We really did have mixed feelings.  We are so excited about the house and have only just started making friends there and we’ve had to leave them until October.  But we were so excited at the thought of being on the move and cruising again, breaking jail from the port.  But we’ve got some great friends there, who we’ll miss……….

Meanwhile, Marmande Piscines managed to install the heat pump in between the rain, but we’re still waiting to hear from Paul if he’s managed to install the electrics.  Once he has, Marmande will go in and connect it all up and test the pump.  I hope it all works.  And then, if it ever stops raining, Clair and Will will be able to go in and fill in the holes left and make it look nice again.  Crikey, it’s making my heart race again just thinking about it all.

Back at Roanne, it was a quick catch up with friends and then stocking up ready for our departure on 31^st.  Saturday dawned cold but bright and sunny – a good cruising day!  Just after 9.30am, Sally and Andy on NB Puzzler pushed off their mooring and headed down the port towards us, amid blasting horns from the other boats and shouts and waves as they passed by.  We were even accompanied by the sound track to Titanic at one point – thanks Nikki – we’re still afloat!!!  We followed them out to complete a lap of honour and were at the lock to the port ready to leave at 10am.  All our friends came to the lock to see us off, it was really quite emotional, but what a great feeling to be out on the canal again and on the move.  We did quite a long day, stopping at Artaix for the night, and I couldn’t stop staring out of the window at the trees and rolling fields that provided my view, instead of the back-ends of Portheus and Grizzled Skipper!  These are boats by the way……… 

On your marks!!.......

Here comes Puzzler - Get Set!!!.......

Go!!!  Saying goodbye at the lock.

Puzzler taking it easy.

Roanne and the Odd Trip Here & There (Or, Where the Hell did January Go???!!!)

A snowy port on Monday morning!

 I can’t believe I didn’t do a single blog entry throughout the whole of January!!  Of course, I could back date this one and do a couple of entries……  Nah, let’s go for it!

We spent New Year at the port and saw in the bells on Eendracht with other boaters from the port.  It was fairly civilised as after a few weeks of overindulging my system wasn’t happy and I was off the booze.  I stayed off the booze for a whole 10 days, and have managed to keep my units down – apart from straying slightly during our week’s skiing……..

The first ‘exciting’ thing to happen in the port in 2018 was a fire on one of the boats.  It happened late on Friday 5^th Jan and although the owner was out, his dog and three cats were in the boat.  Two cats ran off when the fire crew popped the door open, the third cat was pulled out from under a bed alive, but suffering badly from smoke inhalation and sadly the wee dog was pulled out dead.  It was awful, such a terrible thing to see, someone’s home in flames and losing his pet.  I happened to be passing as it all kicked off so when the fireman passed the cat out, I took her.  One of the other boaters, Kerry, was a vet in a previous life so she checked her over and said to keep her quiet and keep her eyes and nose clean with saline solution.  Kerry and our friend Jane tried to resuscitate the dog, but it was too late…….

Antara (or Mimine for short!), a bit shocked and suffering from smoke inhalation

On the Saturday, Guillaume, the owner of the burnt boat, came round to see Antara.  He was very pale and in a bit of a state, but very pleased to see her.  One of the other cats had come back but the other was still awol (it eventually did return to the boat and is now safely living at Guillaume’s parents with him and the other cats).  We all agreed it would be best for Mimine to stay with us as it was quiet and she didn’t get on with his parents’ dog, and he was staying with them for the time being.

Starting to feel a bit better

Oh!  Is that cheese?  I'm quite partial to some fromage........

I know which laptop I prefer :)

10 days later feeling very at home, having ousted the AppleMac.....

She quickly settled down and after a nervous first 48 hours started to improve and eat and drink as normal.  On Monday, Guillaume collected her and me and took her to the vet to have her checked out and she was given anti-inflammatory meds and an antibiotic shot, as she was coughing quite badly.  She was thoroughly checked out by the vet who said that she was absolutely fine apart from some inflammation from the smoke and with a week’s course of tablets, the cough should clear in around 5 days – she was right.

I headed back to the UK for a few days, having realised I’d seen more or our friends in the last year than my family, leaving Mike and Mimine in charge.  Well, more the latter………. She had him wrapped round her little finger!! 

I flew into Manchester and took the train up to Kendal to spend a couple of nights with my brother John and catch up with Helen, Alex and Fran and meet the dog, Willow.  It was brilliant to see them and John and I talked non-stop for two days reminiscing about family, friends and places and all about our new ventures.  I finally got to meet Kate, John’s partner, which was great, as he’s been with her for over a year now!  I’m happy to say, she passed the ‘Sister’s Approval Test’ with flying colours…..

I then boarded the train and headed up to Fife to see my mum for a few days.  Another flying visit I managed to squeeze in a coffee with Susan and a legwax at The Crescent in Aberdour, catch up with my mum and nearly catch up with my Aunty Nancy and cousin Diane but the bad weather put paid to that.

Not looking good for the taxi coming....

As always, it wasn’t enough time with mum and at 4am on Wednesday 17^th my taxi made its way gingerly through the snow to pick me and the snowboard up to take us to Edinburgh airport for my flight back.  It was touch or go whether the taxi would make it as he skidded around trying to pull away from mum’s and the main road outside of Dalgety Bay wasn’t much better!  However, once on the dual carriageway heading towards the road bridge, the gritters had cleared one lane and we arrived in plenty time for my flight.  Being the first flight of the day we were only delayed by 30 minutes while they defrosted the plane but I had a tight transfer at Brussels, but it turned out, so did a lot of people and the crew were great finding out what gates our connections were at and reassuring us that they’d had it confirmed that we would all make our connections with our slightly late arrival time.

Connection caught and arriving at Lyon, I couldn’t find the snowboard at baggage and resigned myself that it hadn’t made the connection at Brussels, but when I went and asked about missing baggage, I was pointed to the correct place to look for outsized bags, and there it was sitting waiting – woohooo!!  This delay meant by the time I took the tram into Lyon station, I had missed my train to Roanne and the next one wasn’t for a couple of hours.  But looking at the board, I saw the train before mine, had been delayed and hadn’t departed yet.  So I headed up to the platform where on arriving the 40 minute delay was increased to an hour, so I had a 20 minute wait – but better than two hours!!

I got back to the boat late afternoon exhausted, but very pleased to see Mike and the cat! 

The next couple of days were spent packing our ski stuff as on Saturday 20^th Jan we headed off to La Tania in the Three Valleys, for a week’s skiing holiday.  We also had to reluctantly hand Antara back to Guillaume, though we did insist that if she did not settle at his parents with the other cats, we would take her back on our return.  Sadly, for us, she DID settle at his parents and he popped in a couple of days ago to show us some photos of her ruling the roost, give us a wee pressie for looking after her and tell us his news about the apartment he has bought.  Although him and his dad are repairing the boat, he’ll just use it for weekends or summer breaks and is moving into an apartment in Roanne.  Anyway, back to the skiing…….

Lots of snow - no people! :)

Warming up with vin chaud at the Ski Lodge

Here come the hot chocolates :) :) :)

The Telemark's 'Cocktail of the Day' proved a popular aperitif.

After a difficult start to the week and threats of retiring, by the end of the week, perfect snow, blue skies and sunshine retracted the threats and we left the group on Saturday 27^th with promises to ‘see you next year…..’.

Meanwhile, over the month of January, in the background of all the above, we’ve been progressing with our house purchase, which involved chivvying up the estate agent and paying to have some of the checks expedited, and watching the exchange rate like hawks to ensure we transferred the cash over at a good time.  During our week in La Tania, we received an email from the notaire confirming that all the checks had been done and we would be completing on 9 February.

Well, of course, we’ve been besides ourselves with excitement and the last week has been spent staring at pictures of the house, showing other people pictures of the house, looking into insurance (which you have to have in place for the signing or the house won’t be given to you!), looking at coffee machines, speaking with the rental people who will manage it over the summer for us, making lists of what we need for the rental, looking at table tennis tables, pool towels, high chairs and travel cots, staring at pictures of the house……

One of our Christmas pressies 'Mushrooms in a Box' did well :)

A port outing to the 10pin bowling was great fun - does my bum look big in this????!!!!

Since the new year we’ve kept up with our running and Mike went round the port twice in his fastest time last week – 20 minutes and 58 seconds!  Mike has also joined a band!!  He’s been inducted into the Roanne Rockers, playing his ukulele, and is practising hard for a gig on 15^th March.  At least we’ll be leaving the port shortly after that to embark on this season’s cruising, so if he makes an arse of himself, we’ll not have to face folks for much longer…….

Whilst he was at practice yesterday afternoon I went for a lovely, long snowy walk with Nikki, Gorette and Bailley the dog – it was cold!!!

Nikki and Gorette just visible at the end of the bridge in their high-viz hoods :

Quaintrelle shivering under a blanket of snow :(

The next couple of days will be spent getting packed up to move into our house for the next few weeks….. there’s no place like home………

Unfortunately it's not quite going to look like this on Friday, with forecasts of -5 on the cards!!

Roanne (Or, Better Get One Last Entry in for 2017!!)

 

Christmas in the Port of Roanne

We have now been in Roanne for two months.  Well, that’s not strictly true, Quaintrelle has been in Roanne for two months but we’ve been out and about and probably only spent a few weeks here in total.  Roanne has a fantastic boating community and there is always someone popping in for a cuppa – usually Billy from Lazybones who comes in for a quick cuppa and leaves three hours later……  It’s rather nice to be honest, having plenty of neighbours to socialise with, but Roanne also benefits from good transport links which we have been taking advantage of.  Our first trip was just a couple of short weeks after we arrived and we hired a car for a week and travelled four and a half hours south west to have another house-hunting session around Duras.  We spent a day with each of the two agents we’re registered with and after a second viewing of two properties on Wednesday 8^th November, were cracking open champagne that evening as news arrived that our offer on La Ganne had been accepted!!

 

Apologies for the screen shots but I can't edit pdfs so can't lift the photos out :(

It’s a bit sooner than we’d planned to buy, but the Brexit thing rather forced us to decide to have a house and be resident before March 2019.  The good thing about this house, is that we have bought all the furnishings and fittings as well, so we will rent the house out next summer while we continue our boating taking the boat south to the Canal du Midi late summer, and then onto the Canal du Garonne, where we’ll take a winter mooring and live on the boat for a couple of months while we knock some walls around and then hope to move in in time for Christmas next year!  That’s the plan anyway…..

Back in Roanne for a few days we caught up with friends at the port, unpacked then promptly repacked as on Monday 13^th November we were on the train to Paris to catch a flight to Edinburgh to spend a few days with mum, get my hair done, legs waxed, dentist, eye test, repack our summer stuff before heading off to the Maldives for a couple of weeks of winter sun.  Whilst I was attending my various appointments Mike was doing a couple of days work for a client so it felt good when Friday 17^th arrived and we boarded our flight to Gatwick where we would pick up our connection to Male.

 

Arrivals lounge......

Once you've stayed a few times at Komandoo you get your own villa :) (And yes, there should be an apostrophe there......)

Not thinking they would say yes, Mike asked if he could drive the dive boat.  The pilot seemed to enjoy his time off and just flicked his hand now and then to keep Mike on course before letting him try and moor it up, which he did brilliantly and to a round of applause from the crew :)

Have to suck my stomach in these days for such photos..... ;)

Sally does the dive briefing at the Kuredu Caves

We had a great couple of weeks and did more diving than we’d done before as, prior to our holiday, we’d taken the online course to enable us to dive with Nitrox, which gives you a longer bottom time,  and meant we could go on the two-dive boat, which goes a bit further and usually means you see bigger fish!  The Manta Rays had been in abundance right up until the day of our arrival so we were hoping we would have our first sightings of them.  However, that was the last day they were seen at the nearby cleaning station and by half-way through our holiday the ‘How Many Manta Were Spotted Today’ board was put away until the next Manta season…….  We did see lots of turtles, sharks, and some eagle rays, and as always, the reefs provide plenty of small, pretty fish to look at.

All too soon, our time on Komandoo drew to a close and we were packing our damp wetsuits back in the bag for the journey home.  Towards the end of our stay the weather had been somewhat mixed and on the morning of our departure it was windy and rainy to the point of ‘stormy’ and we could barely see the next-door island at times.  All of us that were scheduled to leave hoped and prayed that the seaplane wouldn’t make it and we’d have to stay, but after one false start where we headed out to the ‘airport’ (seaplane pontoon), and had to come back, our plane arrived and we headed to Male International.  There was minor chaos at Male as so many of the seaplanes had been held up with the weather, and it turns out that the main airlines will wait as long as they can for passengers, especially if there is only one flight out, as there was with ours to Gatwick.  At the end of the day, we touched down at Gatwick just under two hours late.  Luckily we’d decided to stay the night at Gatwick and take our connecting flight back to Lyon the next day, as we would’ve missed the last train back to Roanne if we’d gone the same night.  After a minor fall out trying to find the hotel and discovering one of the shower gels we were bringing back to France had shattered and spilled all over the wetsuits, we had a shower and climbed into bed and were sound asleep by 9pm.

The next morning we were up sharp and enjoyed a full English breakfast before boarding our Easyjet flight to Lyon.  As we came into Lyon we could see snow on the surrounding hills and when we disembarked it was absolutely freezing!!  No hanging around for trains though, as Dave and Mel were joining us for the weekend and having arrived a couple of hours before us, had picked up their hire car and were there to meet us.  Driving back to Roanne through snow capped hills made me feel as if we were going on our skiing holiday – very strange……

Back on board we quickly got the fire on but couldn’t get the cooker to come on to put the kettle on.  Oh well, not to worry, we just cracked open a bottle of bubbly instead and as we chilled out, with the fire and the central heating on the boat soon warmed up as did the Heritage stove and it miraculously sprang back to life and boiled the kettle for a cuppa.

We were still a bit jet-lagged and Dave and Mel had had an early start, so we made arrangements to meet them at 7pm after they’d got settled into their digs for the night, and go for something to eat.  Unsuccessful at the first restaurant we tried, the second had plenty of space and HUGE steaks, which we enjoyed with a couple of bottles of wine and then headed to our respective homes for a  good night’s sleep.  

We slept well but woke early, but poor Dave and Mel had a terrible night in their bizarre accommodation, which was like a room in an apartment, but they only had access to their room and bathroom and someone else was in the room across the landing……..  The room had been to hot and the only way to cool it was to open the window which allowed the noise of the late-night revellers in, so they arrived slightly groggy just before 10am and we had a lazy morning, then a walk round the port, then a late lunch/early tea on board Quaintrelle.  Dave and Mel had cancelled their second night in Roanne and given the weather conditions and an early flight on Sunday morning, headed off to Lyon to spend the night at the airport just to be on the safe side.

Whilst we were away we had expected to receive the Diagnostic report on the house from the Notaire and the Compris du Vente, which is the pre-sale agreement you have to sign initially.  As neither of these had arrived we did a bit of chasing with the estate agent, started preparing for Christmas and thinking about our next trip in a week’s time to York.

The documents (154 pages worth) arrived electronically on Friday 10^th December, all in French, which meant we needed to go through them with our English estate agent and he wouldn’t be around now until after the weekend.  I used google translate to try and get the gist of some of the stuff in bold, which I assumed was things we should take note of and it appeared there was an issue with the electrics and the septic tank (which we’d been told to expect as they seem to change the compliance rules of these every year, so even brand new ones often no longer comply!).

We were sitting at the station at Lyon airport having just arrived to catch our flight to Birmingham when Jerry rang on Tuesday 12^th.  He hadn’t seen the report, so after a chat with him about various things we sent him the link to the files and he promised to read it through and ring us back.

Meanwhile, we waited at the quietest airport in the world for our flights to Birmingham, arrived at Birmingham, picked up our hire car, checked in and had dinner at Fawkesley Hall (our work’s night out for MPQ Safety Leadership Ltd) and headed to bed with no phone call from Jerry.  France time is similar to Canal time apparently.

 

Waiting at the strangely quiet Lyon airport

Anyone there...?????

Our stunning digs for the night at Fawkesley Hall

Elizabeth I and John Merrick have stayed here.  Not at the same time clearly....

We had tasks to do the next day so were up sharp (for us), breakfasted and heading to Northampton by 9.45am.  Mike wanted a new pair of Tricker boots so we were heading to the shoe-making district of Northampton where Trickers still have their factory and a little outlet shop.  Whilst he tried on a couple of options I (obviously!!) looked at the ladies ones and ended up with a lovely pair of red brogues for my Christmas.  Then it was on to Majestic Wine for some supplies and then onto our old stomping ground at Weedon to catch up with Jim, Steve and Keith.  It was good to see them all and have a guided tour of Jim’s latest creation, ‘Joy Louise’ – very nice – and beautiful paint job by Steve.  Not too keen on the green Heritage though…..

After a cuppa there it was into Braunston to the marina to stock up on various filters, and then as the rain washed away the last of the snow, we headed up the M1 to York.  About an hour into the journey Jerry rang with good news.  He’d actually gone up to the house as he didn’t understand what the problem was with the electrics and wanted to see it for himself.   It turns out a little bit of the plastic white cover has come off a bit of trunking, that you can’t reach without a ladder, but will cost a couple of euros to get a new bit and click it back on.  And then new compliance legislation in France states you must have a little removable cover in your shower in case you need to access the electrics there.  We don’t have one.  But we also don’t have any electrics under there so why would we put a removable cover in that could cause leaks, to look at nothing……. Good old France………. ;)

The problem ‘Majeur malfunction’ with the sceptic tank is because the surveyor doesn’t know where the drainage field is, which renders the whole system as not complying.  But it works, doesn’t leak and if we really want a digger in to dig up and destroy the garden to find the drainage field, then we can, but we don’t really need to.  Unless at some point the Marie insists we do, but as long as we’re not spilling sewage anywhere, he’s unlikely to bother, so it’s another of these French things; officially it doesn’t comply, but you don’t get fined or anything for not complying and you don’t really have to do anything to make it comply unless your Marie tells you to……….

With that we were able to send the 154 initialled pages back to the Notaire in France, which would take 3-5 days, but two of these were the weekend, when they’re not at work anyway, so when I posted them on Thursday morning, we knew they’d be there by Tuesday at the latest.

Meanwhile, we’d arrived at our digs at Norfolk Towers and were delighted to see the Robertsons again – it’d been a while.  Whilst they were in the throes of work and Christmas activities Mike went to see his accountant and financial adviser and I busied myself doing Christmas cards and calendars and various other tasks around the town.  Friday night was a curry out with Vicki and Stuart and Debbie and a couple of drinks in the Phoenix and on Saturday we crossed the cold but gloriously clear North Yorkshire moors to see the rellies in Whitby.  Uncle Ronnie was on good form for his 89 and 10/12ths despite being recently widowed and having terrible pain in his knees from arthritis, and there was the usual chaos up at Becca and Lees as they kept the kids entertained while Becca baked a mountain of goodies for Lees parents’ 40^th wedding anniversary party the next day.  Becca’s dad John was there too which saved us a trip up to his house, and it was lovely to catch up with all their news.

Back in York for Saturday evening we took Caitlin and Ollie out to Wagamamas for tea, trying to console Ollie as he’d been at York’s away game in Kidderminster which proved to be a very long journey for no return – they lost – again…….. 

 

Waga-tastic!!

After breakfast on Sunday, a quick coffee at Nicola and Dan’s and we were back on the road to Birmingham where Mike had a day’s work on Monday at the other site of his Edinburgh client.  I had a shopping list of things to take back to France for Christmas and spent the day doing various trips between the shops and the hotel as I could only carry so much.  Halfords for filler was our last port of call on Tuesday morning before heading to the airport to return the hire car, have a full english breakfast and then return to Lyon.  Back at Roanne Christmas preparations were in full swing and over the next couple of days whilst Mike finished off some documentation for his client, I stocked up the fridge for the next few days.

 

Looks like Santa has been!!!

And he wants me to look like him!!!  Bringing a lovely red duffle coat to go with my red tricker shoes :)

We had a lovely Christmas day spent on Pete and Jan’s boat with Bill and Jane and Nicky, Gorette and Chris with us all taking along a contribution.  We got off lightly with responsibility for dessert and availed ourselves of the stack of M&S Mincemeat pies we’d brought back with us, along with a Christmas pudding, brandy sauce and a bottle of toffee vodka.  Good cheer, food and wine was a-plenty and we really enjoyed the day, staggering back to Quaintrelle and into bed just before midnight.

Boxing day was a quiet affair and we stayed glued to the settee, watched both series of SPACED back to back and ate sweets.  By 6pm my body was reneging and in need of a bit of exercise so I went out for a walk around the port while Mike took the shortcut and his Christmas present and we met up at Lazybones for a half hour chat.  Our running around the port has been somewhat sporadic since we left for the Maldives – well, our being here has been somewhat sporadic – but that will change in the New Year.  Won’t it Mike?!

That will be if I can tear him away from this:

 

Looking very pleased with himself for having already mastered Twinkle, Twinkle and Frere Jaques :)

So, with lots of new adventures planned for 2018, I will leave you with our boating stats for 2017 and best wishes for the New Year.  We hope it brings you peace, joy and happiness, wherever you may be.

Stats for Our First Season in France:

We travelled 1971kms

Passed through 748 locks

Spent 1147 euros on prop diesel

Spent 507 euros on domestic diesel

Spent 1854 euros on boat maintenance (incl painting, engine servicing and repair to bowthruster)

Spent 2238 euros on moorings (of which 1068 were winter moorings, 400 when going back to UK, 230 in Paris!, leaving 540 for other ad hoc moorings whilst cruising.)

And most importantly, we spent 2200 euros on booze – a mammoth 570 of which was spent in August on Champagne!!

Changed times from the daily grog ration..........