The French have a name for a bill or an invoice. They call it la douloureuse, the painful. When we met with our project manager two weeks ago, I jokingly asked him for la douloureuse and good Lord he didn't disappoint. Fortunately for my ego I glimpsed the final figure before he handed the breakdown of the quotes to me and had just the time to compose a collected and non-expressive expression on my face. But my heart sank. It was 30 thousands over budget. That was a karmic slap across my face for having gloated to the bitch notaire about the school, no doubt.
I looked at Fox, unaware, collecting the tiles that didn't shatter when thrown up in the air when the storm that battered the Poitou the week before hit the roof of our préau. I wasn't too worried about the roof, I was happy to leave it to the insurance to sort it out (if anything I was disappointed that it wasn't the house's roof that didn't get damaged, I would have been delighted to pay the small deductible for a brand new slate roof). He too would be so disappointed, and I was saddened to be the one to break the news to him.
Luckily, we couldn't dwell on it as we were expected at the neighbours. All those living at the end of the village were up in arms against the Mairie for having stopped the collective sewage system just meters from their home, leaving just a handful, us included, on independent septic tanks. So they were putting up a fight and wanted us to join the movement as well as recruiting the English next door since they couldn't communicate with them. Besides allowing us to absorb the bad news individually, this meeting had the additional advantage to introduce us to our immediate neighbours and giving us the upper hand by being of service to them. But no matter how welcome this distraction was, we knew we would have to go back to the drawing board and rethink everything.
Sunday 22 February 2009
Monday 16 February 2009
12. the shape of things to come
I can't say I hadn't be warned. Better still, I should have remembered. Yet I am still raging about having beaten to the post by an anonymous buyer in registering a domain's name solely because of sheer incompetence and the legendary French laissez-faire.
Being happy with the service and products of the British company I use for my website I approached their French branch to buy the name of the domain. When I did so in the past all it took was five minutes and my credit card number and within 24 hours my website was up and running. I assumed things on the French side wouldn't be that different. Que nenni!
Fox and I were already gutted to have missed on the opportunity to buy our village's name with the .com address and after seeing what our neighbours had done with it we couldn't afford to lose out on the .fr address, which was still available, if we hoped to attract any visitors. Besides spelling and grammatical mistakes, they describe our lovely village, and I quote, as being "quiet and very much asleep. Nothing happens. If you are looking for a quiet life, L. is the place to live". Now, I don't want to be bitchy but we do hope to run a business and after reading this the only thing I could think about was damage control.
So it is gripped by a sense of urgency that I went on registering the domain. After filling in the usual name, address, email, etc, and keying the credit card number I was expecting a confirmation email and to be able to start repairing the bad publicity. But no. Instead I got an email telling me they were aware of my wishes and will need to call me to confirm my identity to help them in their fight against fraudsters before the registration could be finalised. It was a Saturday and this being France, they were closed.
The phone call never came but on Tuesday I got an email asking me to fax my passport and proof of address. I tried, tried and tried again but it was constantly engaged. By the end of the day and after a furious exchange of emails between their security department and me and yet another invalid number we were no nearer finalising the registration. Fox tried again the following day, to no avail. They must have sensed my growing irritation and my patience diminishing for I received an email confirming the registration which was odd since they didn't have the evidence they requested. It wasn't odd anymore when within hours another email followed informing me they couldn't proceed. Someone had beaten me to the post.
To say that I was blue in the face will be as much as an understatement as calling the Italian rugby team useless in the 6 nations tournament. The poor young girl who picked up the phone to receive my wrath was only saved by my inability to remember how to bitch politely in French. But she got my drift. I could have cried when she told me the guy who bought the .fr address did so a mere two hours before one of their idiots sent me the phony confirmation email, and four days after I placed the original request for registration.
In the end I closed my account with them and bought the .net address with the UK branch. I console myself in the knowledge that having been beaten twice to the post has only fueled my competitiveness and determination to put our village on the map. But I must admit being intrigued by all the sudden interest our little village has generated within only a few days.
As for resigning myself to the French way of doing things, I'm not quite there yet.
Being happy with the service and products of the British company I use for my website I approached their French branch to buy the name of the domain. When I did so in the past all it took was five minutes and my credit card number and within 24 hours my website was up and running. I assumed things on the French side wouldn't be that different. Que nenni!
Fox and I were already gutted to have missed on the opportunity to buy our village's name with the .com address and after seeing what our neighbours had done with it we couldn't afford to lose out on the .fr address, which was still available, if we hoped to attract any visitors. Besides spelling and grammatical mistakes, they describe our lovely village, and I quote, as being "quiet and very much asleep. Nothing happens. If you are looking for a quiet life, L. is the place to live". Now, I don't want to be bitchy but we do hope to run a business and after reading this the only thing I could think about was damage control.
So it is gripped by a sense of urgency that I went on registering the domain. After filling in the usual name, address, email, etc, and keying the credit card number I was expecting a confirmation email and to be able to start repairing the bad publicity. But no. Instead I got an email telling me they were aware of my wishes and will need to call me to confirm my identity to help them in their fight against fraudsters before the registration could be finalised. It was a Saturday and this being France, they were closed.
The phone call never came but on Tuesday I got an email asking me to fax my passport and proof of address. I tried, tried and tried again but it was constantly engaged. By the end of the day and after a furious exchange of emails between their security department and me and yet another invalid number we were no nearer finalising the registration. Fox tried again the following day, to no avail. They must have sensed my growing irritation and my patience diminishing for I received an email confirming the registration which was odd since they didn't have the evidence they requested. It wasn't odd anymore when within hours another email followed informing me they couldn't proceed. Someone had beaten me to the post.
To say that I was blue in the face will be as much as an understatement as calling the Italian rugby team useless in the 6 nations tournament. The poor young girl who picked up the phone to receive my wrath was only saved by my inability to remember how to bitch politely in French. But she got my drift. I could have cried when she told me the guy who bought the .fr address did so a mere two hours before one of their idiots sent me the phony confirmation email, and four days after I placed the original request for registration.
In the end I closed my account with them and bought the .net address with the UK branch. I console myself in the knowledge that having been beaten twice to the post has only fueled my competitiveness and determination to put our village on the map. But I must admit being intrigued by all the sudden interest our little village has generated within only a few days.
As for resigning myself to the French way of doing things, I'm not quite there yet.
Sunday 8 February 2009
11. froideur...quelle froideur?
There seems to be a commonly held view that the French are snooty, cold and unhelpful. It's a view that seems to have trickled into my subconscious from various sources, either written, broadcast or social (including French ones) and something I was steeling myself for. This is a cliche that I am happy to dispel, not in a 'throwing flowers in a field in a romantic haze and la-la-la-ing' as a newly converted francophile, but in a sober 'ah, weren't they lovely' quotidian, kinda way.
I love the response French people give if you tell them this by saying 'oh, that's Paris!', which is probably true. My theory is that the denser the population, the angrier and bad tempered the people, which applies to most big cities. In the countryside where time is elastic, people have a much more approachable demeanour.
Having lived in London for over 25 years now, I realise I have been cloaked for a long time in that mind set of 'head down, don't make eye contact, push on through and if people talk to you rush by because they're probably insane'. It's time to let my guard down and enjoy this new found connection with my fellow man/woman/child.
On the day we bought the house a friend of mine called me. He and his boyfriend had been living in France for a few years now and he gave me some advice. 'One thing you have to remember now that you are moving here is that people are nice, and for no other reason than that. Give someone a seedling and before you know it they'll give you a tree and on it goes. Before you know it they've donated their house and their daughters hand in marriage. Just enjoy it! There are no suspicious underlying motives. It's just not London.' Ok, a slight exaggeration but you get the gist.
Now, as most of my friends will confirm, I do possess a healthy dose of cynicism, shaken with a dash of nihilism and stirred with a the steely reserve of a Londoner, but I am pleased to say that my guard is melting, and it's a welcome thaw. I am relishing the thought of giving away homemade jams and chutneys to neighbours, or swapping eggs for a decent tartiflette recipe in my gingham pinny. For the first time we will be able to actually have people round, sit at a table and have dinner. Our flat at the moment prohibits this. I am also finding a renewed interest in cooking again, something I used to do when I first arrived in London and people had dinner parties.
Maybe my spectacles are rose tinted, but anything that gives you back faith in your fellow man has to be embraced. And I'd like to thank all those people who have so far shown us small butterfly wing kindnesses which in fact transform themselves into great bear hugs of happiness in our day. The obvious lesson to be learnt is to pass it on.
I love the response French people give if you tell them this by saying 'oh, that's Paris!', which is probably true. My theory is that the denser the population, the angrier and bad tempered the people, which applies to most big cities. In the countryside where time is elastic, people have a much more approachable demeanour.
Having lived in London for over 25 years now, I realise I have been cloaked for a long time in that mind set of 'head down, don't make eye contact, push on through and if people talk to you rush by because they're probably insane'. It's time to let my guard down and enjoy this new found connection with my fellow man/woman/child.
On the day we bought the house a friend of mine called me. He and his boyfriend had been living in France for a few years now and he gave me some advice. 'One thing you have to remember now that you are moving here is that people are nice, and for no other reason than that. Give someone a seedling and before you know it they'll give you a tree and on it goes. Before you know it they've donated their house and their daughters hand in marriage. Just enjoy it! There are no suspicious underlying motives. It's just not London.' Ok, a slight exaggeration but you get the gist.
Now, as most of my friends will confirm, I do possess a healthy dose of cynicism, shaken with a dash of nihilism and stirred with a the steely reserve of a Londoner, but I am pleased to say that my guard is melting, and it's a welcome thaw. I am relishing the thought of giving away homemade jams and chutneys to neighbours, or swapping eggs for a decent tartiflette recipe in my gingham pinny. For the first time we will be able to actually have people round, sit at a table and have dinner. Our flat at the moment prohibits this. I am also finding a renewed interest in cooking again, something I used to do when I first arrived in London and people had dinner parties.
Maybe my spectacles are rose tinted, but anything that gives you back faith in your fellow man has to be embraced. And I'd like to thank all those people who have so far shown us small butterfly wing kindnesses which in fact transform themselves into great bear hugs of happiness in our day. The obvious lesson to be learnt is to pass it on.
Monday 2 February 2009
10. the bats are gone
It is a hugely frustrating to be physically in one place and yearning to be in another. Every waking moment is spent thinking about what I could be doing at the school or in the garden. And when spoken to I cannot refrain from blabbering about how frustrated and unhappy I am to be here doing nothing instead of there weeding, digging, building things (I know, that does sound wrong even to me but it's rude to point it out) and scouring the brocantes for furniture.So instead of enjoying being stuck at home for the second day because of the snow, I look like I reverted to my The Cure listening, Bram Stocker reading, chronically incapable of smiling, chain smoking, arguments picking adolescent self, moodily looking at the window while my thoughts turn yet again to the school.
And this morning my concern is about a couple of bats we spotted in the cellar on our second visit last October. Papa and I were trying to make sense of all the pipes and of a flexi-tube slightly buried in the gravel when he asked me to look just above my head. At first I could see nothing, I was still looking for yet more pipes, and then I caught sight of them. They looked like two hairy ping-pong balls in bondage outfit hanging from a beam. And the sexual connotation isn't out of place as I've learned since then that at the time their reproductive period was in full swing (forgive the pun).
When we came back for the signature of the Acte de Vente in December they were nowhere to be seen, neither were they when we came back for Christmas. I thought we might have disturbed them and, feeling threatened, that they had left. That did upset me a little, so I went online to try to find out more about the little leather fetishists look-alike.
The good news is that their absence is most certainly due to them hibernating somewhere else and that, being sedentary, at least one of them, the male, should be coming back next March. I'm just hoping that our living in the school, after 16 years of being uninhabited, won't deter them from staying.
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