Settling in…a double life begins

Wow…that was a long and eventful month! We have done so much and at last are beginning to relax a bit and enjoy having some time to ourselves. It’s really hard trying to decide where to start this month but here goes…

New Year really passed us by as usual. I have never been a fan of the OTT celebrations, probably because I don`t drink and so they have never held much interest for me really. We had a quiet night in watching TV, but were really pleased when our daughter and son in law called in to “first foot” on their way home from a party. Fortunately, we were still fully dressed and not in bed! It was really nice to see them though and we took it as a good start to our life here with them so close by. We went up to see them on New Years Day for a drink, which was also nice. It was good to see how well the dog has settled in with them too…there seemed to be lots of new toys and cushions around for her!

We have settled into our flat really well. Everything now has a place and we have donated to and bought a couple of “new” furniture items from a great charity recycling unit which is a few streets away. We have joined the library in Carlisle and received (but not yet used) our bus passes. Geoff has been to a Pilates class a couple of times and has found a guitar teacher. I have made contact with an art class and am looking forward to going to the first session in February. We are getting our heads around the shopping at last, although it is frustrating not to be able to buy some of the favourite items such as non-alcoholic aperitifs, soups and sauces that we had grown to love in France. I have re-discovered and am loving delights like fluffy white breadbuns, ham and pease pudding sarnies and custard tarts…all things I`d almost forgotten about! We have also discovered Aldi and have been very impressed with the range and quality of produce there (apart from the fruit and veg choices) and Hazel and Phil have introduced us to some of their favourite market stalls and fish and meat suppliers, so we have eaten very well! Carlisle is full of lovely coffee shops (so many of them!) and we are enjoying testing them out! I am also enjoying visiting all the little shops in town too and Hazel keeps taking me to other disastrous (for the credit card anyway) places like Hobbycraft. OMG…the choice of stuff there…I was like a child in a sweetie shop! I discovered another local “disastrous” place the other day…a fab garden centre with great kitchen ware and clothes franchises in store…and a coffee shop attached. Heaven!! I can see my credit card being hidden soon!

We also met up with our friends Linda and Mike who are now living about half an hour s drive from here in their cosy little cottage. They came to have a look at the flat and then after a good lunch in Carlisle we ended up back at their place. Geoff and Mike went off for a walk and Linda and I had a good old chinwag. It will be good to see more of them again. Linda is always up for coffee and cake meet ups :blush:

Geoff is still wading his way through all the administration odds and ends which need to be tidied up. Closing some of the insurance stuff down is a long drawn out experience and as for closing down his business …well its best not to ask! There is no sign of any French pension being sorted out either. I still dont know how French people cope without money for so long. I closed my business and retired in the French system at the end of September, remember. Geoff has been working hard on getting his UK private pension sorted too…and again this has not been without problems as they wanted to know the name of our GP. We havent got around to registering with a GP yet so we had to get that process going very sharpish. Unfortunately, we can`t have our initial registration appointments until the end of February (which suits me fine as I hate things like that!) so we are keeping our fingers crossed that the information we have supplied to the pension people is OK until then.

We have bought a “new” car too. We wanted a small run around and found one with very low mileage – a Skoda Citigo – at the right price. We collected it last Monday after a bit of struggle to get it insured. It turns out that although we have been quite good drivers all our lives the flipping speed fine system in France did for us with a lot of insurance companies as the codes just didn`t correspond with the DVLA codes on their systems. Nightmare! I hasten to add that we still have French driving licences – that is next on the list to get those changed – but they are both infraction free now. And as for trying to explain our only accident claim…I was hit by a wild boar remember – that was fun! Eventually we did get insurance through NFU and so were able to collect the car at last. We like it very much but it will take some getting used to as its so much smaller than we have had for a very long time. We now need to get rid of the French car and plans are in place for that maybe next week. There is a firm in Leeds which specialises in taking LHD cars and more importantly, deals with all the paperwork which is what we need. Negotiations are going on as I write.

Right in the middle of all these “settling back into the UK” actions, we set off back to France! We flew from Manchester to Nice – with a couple of overnight stays, mainly as we wanted to take it easy and the train times on a Sunday didnt correspond with the flight times going out. We stayed in a nice little apartment in St Aygulf (which I would recommend) until the Thursday when we finally signed the Acte de Vente for the flat there. We did have a minor blip when we went to collect the car from the garage we are renting in St Aygulf, as we had a flat tyre. Sylvie car has no spare, but the “bombes” which we have always been a bit sceptical about, worked and Geoff was able to inflate the tyre sufficiently to get to Frejus and get it repaired. The first place he went to (Feu Verte) told him he needed 2 new tyres and wouldnt contemplate putting the 2 spare tyres we have on, as they hadn`t been bought there! Geoff found a little garage after that, where the guy raised his eyebrows at that story, mended the tyre, blew up all the others and charged Geoff 13€! Guess who will be getting our car business from now on!

The actual signing went well although I was very miffed to be told that we had to have an interpreter present (at a cost to us of course) and frankly he got his money for nothing IMHO! As soon as we got the formalities out of the way and were in possession of the keys we went to the flat and prepared for the removal guys to arrive. This part of the moving process had not been without its problems either, as the French removal company we had used, were not keen to deliver the stuff on the date we had agreed, as they insisted that we had signed up to a delivery as part of a multiple delivery using a mega truck and this would be the next week! After a lot of foot stamping on our part, and parting with yet more money, of course, we got them to make a special journey and deliver on the date we wanted. In the end it all went well apart from the guys not having been told they were supposed to re-assemble the bed and therefore had not brought any tools to do so. Fortunately, our lovely estate agent, Bernard, was there and went home to get some equipment and Geoff and he managed to get the bed sorted. When everyone had gone, we set about unpacking and putting stuff away until we were too tired to do more. Thank goodness the bed had been made as we were pretty worn out by then! It was fantastic though waking up early the next morning and watching the sun rise over the Med from our own little balcony. It was also flipping freezing too! All in all, we had a very good week and we managed to get a lot of stuff done both in the flat and even had time to do a bit of exploring of the local area too. We drove up into the hills one day to visit Grasse and saw all the mimosa (I love mimosa) which was just coming into bloom. I had “tested” many of the perfumes in the shops in grasse and Geoff reckoned the car smelt like a tarts boudoir on the way home! How he knows what a tarts boudoir smells like Id like to know!!! We also met up with our friend Mandy for lunch one day which was great too. We felt very much at home in our little flat and once we had sorted out the TV and managed to get the wifi going we were very relaxed. I think we will love being in this part of France in the future. We already love the climate! The flat needs a lick of paint and we need to sort out some electrical stuff – there is a chronic lack of plug sockets and lights, especially in the kitchen – but it felt like “home” already. It was a bit of a wrench having to set off back to Carlisle at the end of the week. We did the “bus route” back to Nice Airport this time and it all went very smoothly, so we will be able to do this both ways in the future. Our only problem with the journey was that the planes departure was delayed for over an hour due to fog at Manchester, which meant we missed our train back to Carlisle despite us running (and I DON`T RUN) to make the connection. Happily, we were able to exchange our tickets and eventually got home about midnight. We were very tired bunnies by then I can tell you!

One of our big reasons for moving back to the UK was to see more of our family. Obviously with Hazel and Phil living so close we have seen a lot of them. We have also though seen quite a lot of Matthew and the grandchildren too. We usually meet up half way(ish) between Carlisle and Manchester which suits us all, especially as Matthew and Susie are having an extension built at the moment and so their house is a bit of a mess just now. So far, we have met up at Sizergh Barn a couple of times (they make fab milk shakes there btw) and last Sunday we went to Bolton le Sands, a first time visit for us. It was a dreadful day with strong winds and driving rain, but we all had a “bracing” walk along the salt marshes there. We had taken Xena with us that day and although we all ended up soaked, everyone had a good time. It is great to see more of Ethan and Hadley and we are loving it! Ethan had a party to go to so we made the most of the early start back home by driving through the Lake District which we enjoyed very much. Xena got another walk and I was thrilled to see so many snowdrops flowering in the road verges. I love snowdrops – they remind me so much of my dad, who also loved them – so this was a special treat for me :blush: I think we have chosen well with our place to live…having the Lake district so close will be wonderful.

And so, our first month in our new homes comes to a close. I think we are adjusting well, although the time changes are still catching me out especially with my radio programmes! Looking at the calendar for next month, February looks like being a bit busy. There is a quiz night planned, my first session at the art group, a football match meet up in Preston to name but a few events. And, of course, its Geoffs birthday - a weekend away is planned for that and I will tell you all about it next time. You will notice that I have avoided any mention of it being Brexit day today…so sad in many ways, but I dont trust myself to say what I really think. That would take a whole new blog :frowning:

A bientot mes amis…

Great yarns Christine,

Sounds just like friends who are now selling up in France and have bought near to Penrith. Sounds a nice area, pity about the rain…

Indeed. We are struggling to adjust to the rain. I haven`t needed to top up the bird bath since we arrived!