We had found a furniture store and a DIY type store. All stores are shut on Sundays and man on Monday mornings – the Tourist Information is closed all day Monday in Vire, our nearest city. Some stores close from lunch-time on Saturday. The majority of stores, when open, close for lunch between 12 and 2 (some till 3) and open again until 7-8pm.
I walked over to the Mairie (mayor’s office) to see if we needed an appointment to see the mayor on the following Wednesday. It was lucky I did that, as that was the last day the Mairie would be open until September. Most of France takes the annual holiday in July and August and many large companies close completely.
The mayor was just leaving his office to visit someone but I managed to tell him about a tax form we had mislaid, and also about our collections/museum. He thought a museum would be a wonderful idea and told me to that his Secretary, Mary, who spoke some English, would be able to help with the tax forms. The mayor spoke very little English and I wondered if he understood what I meant about our collections.
I went looking for ‘Mary’ and found a lady cleaning the office – she did not look like a secretary. Then I realised, the mayor had said the Secretary of the Mairie! ‘She’ was a man! He told us we would not be paying the local taxes until we lived in the house but the other form could be sorted in Tinchebray. The office in Tinchebray said we would have to go to Domfront and find the Cadestre – another type of legal person.
Bastille Day was on the Monday. Everything stopped on Saturday at noon and re-opened on Tuesday – no-one works at all on Bastille Day as this is a holiday throughout France. (Fete National)
The following day we went to Vire and bought some real beds and 2 clic-clac sofas (banquettes). The store wanted to charge quite a lot for delivery but I pointed out that we had spent a lot of money with them. The lady said she admired the English “cheek” and cancelled the delivery charge.
Everything was delivered the same day we bought it and at no charge. The man who delivered it all asked if we needed help to put the items together but Andy said he could manage. The delivery man left his boards on wheels (for transporting heavy items) and as he did not come back we returned them to the store next time we were in Vire. The sofa beds will seat three and will sleep two people each. Goodbye camp beds! Before he left, the delivery man put the cushions on the sofa beds in a flat position. He told us that the French way was to have them flat, the English prop them up.
Our plans for a new kitchen did not work out very well at first. We had measured everything out in units of 500 or 1000, as in the UK, but the French have units of 40, 60 and 120! Back to the drawing board. We found some nice units which would fit, but different styles of unit came in the wrong sizes and we had to carry on searching.
I had drawn out each of the rooms in the house on graph paper and made cut-outs of all items to go in – a lot lighter than shifting furniture then finding it looks dreadful! As I did everything to scale, this made buying flooring etc a lot easier.
THE PLUMBER
We found a heating/plumbing store in Tinchebray and went to ask for a quotation for our central heating. The lady said that the manager was the only one who could give estimates on work to be done and he was on holiday the same time as us. She said she could send a man to see if he could help with our problem of the hot water and was apologetic that he would not be able to come before lunch! She said she could arrange for him to visit around 1.30pm. Knowing French timing, I had a feeling he may be a little later than that (in the UK it could take weeks!) and we waited until around 6.15.
By that time Andy had decided that the plumber was not going to come, despite my argument, and decided he would walk to the end of the village, to the gardens with the statues, to take some photographs. He must almost have got there when the plumber arrived. I telephoned Andy and he had to come back. Luckily, I had only just showed him how his mobile worked. I could phone him, although he couldn’t phone me.
If you ask a French worker what time he is likely to arrive – watch his hands – the higher he raises them, the later he will arrive. The young lady said “1.30?” with her hands almost at head level!
After a lot of indicating and “pah ici sil vous plait” (this way please, hopefully) Andy showed the plumber the overflow tank in the roof, the boiler/immersion tank in the extension (cave) and the water taps. The plumber eventually went to a cupboard under the sink in the kitchen and turned a tap! Voila! Hot water! He also showed us how to work the heating as well as the hot water.
Andy checked out the heating and that worked too. We had to see if we could get the oil tank moved to one of the outhouses and filled with oil before the winter. We also needed more logs for the fire.
There are two meter readings on the electricity meter. One is for heating, the other for house electrics. We hoped the heating system was economy type. It wasn’t!
By 9pm the water was hot – hot showers at last – no more boiling the kettle to wash up. The plumbing engineer would be eating out for ages! “I went to the house of the English, they had no hot water. They hadn’t turned the tap on!”
We had thought that the tap under the sink controlled the tap in the garden for hoses etc. French plumbing is still an enigma!
On 10th July there was a heat wave locally. We still went out. (‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’ and all that).
We found some kitchen units which we both liked in a large furnishing store in Vire. We paid a deposit and we would have to pay the remainder at the end of August by which time the units should have arrived. As we had intended to pay for the complete kitchen and had taken the full amount of cash with us, we used the remainder to buy a nice cooker – electric, with one electric ring and three bottled-gas rings. There is very little ‘mains’ gas in France and it is usual to use bottled gas. Strangely, although the oven is electric, the heat indicator is the type you find on gas cookers so I had to consult my cookery books to find out what the corresponding electric setting was for Mark 4!
We also got a small rug for the TV room. We met an English family in the store where we found the rug and I asked if they knew what you had to do when you found something you wanted to buy (meaning the rug). The lady misunderstood me and said – “Well, we had a small bungalow and sold it, and bought another one ….” at which point I stopped her and explained what I meant. She said sorry, she thought I was just being nosy!
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