Burning our Bridges

BURNING OUR BRIDGES?

Back home in the UK I looked up various properties on the Internet and found several possible suitable houses.  The broken English descriptions of some of the properties were a joy to read, including one which stated that the house had a large room dedicated to just a toilet, with a photograph to prove it.  Actually the room was a going to be a bathroom but was never completed – we saw it on another trip.

We had, by now, both decided we would like to live in France and we put our large semi-detached house on the market.  After several viewings by people we came to refer to as ‘day-trippers’ we finally shook hands with a family who really wanted to buy the house. 

We decided before we left the house that we would have a last BBQ as we would be moving to a small apartment until we could buy a property in France.  After the BBQ, I had a bath and Andy had a nap in front of the TV.  When I came down from the bathroom, I thought the neighbours were also having a BBQ as I thought I could smell cooking.  I wondered what they were cooking, as it smelled awful, then realised it was not a BBQ, but a fire! 

Andy had tipped the ashes from the fire onto a bare patch of soil in the garden, as he always did, and the ground had caught light and the flames had run to a small container in which we kept petrol for the lawn-mower!  The fire engines came roaring up the road to extinguish the fire in the garden, which, by then, had taken hold of the fence and the shed – we had a couple of large sheds and the next one along held all Andy’s collection of radios and my perfumes, packed, ready for the removal men.  Had the fire spread to my perfumes and after-shaves, there could have been massive damage as it is all very flammable, even though the majority of my bottles were empty.  As it was, we had to replace the wall of the shed, a couple of fence panels and a garden lamp-post.  Also my garden tools were welded together in one big lump.  Luckily, we were insured.

With the proceeds from the sale of the house, we bought a small, but practical, flat, which was situated above a parade of shops, and banked the balance ready to buy in France.  We had the removal men arrive for the boxes for long-term storage – our collections of radios and bottles and a few other items we would not need for a while.  There were over sixty large boxes to go into storage and we filled up two and a half huge containers.  As the removals company had quoted for two containers, they only charged us for two. 

It was slightly worrying to see that a large carton of radios, clearly marked ‘this way up’ was being used as a door-stop – upside down!  However, they arranged to get everything away and we set about packing for moving to the flat.

THE FLAT

The same removal men returned a few weeks later and I told them specifically not to touch my handbag in the corner of the room – this contained my blood pressure tablets, a black pearl and white gold necklace, a full Gucci purse (our float money for bingo) and various other bits and pieces I had to take to work on that day and which I definitely did not want put onto the removals van.  When I looked for my handbag, it had gone and with a full load on the van I had the feeling it would be some time before I saw it again.  Luckily, I managed to get an emergency prescription for my tablets.

We went to the Estate Agent to collect the keys to the flat and they would not let us have them.  We called the Solicitor and he said the deposit had not yet been received from our bank.  We all sat in the pub opposite the apartment, along with the removal men.  I kept calling the Solicitor who told us to stay put.  The removal men eventually said if there was any further delay they would need extra help and we would have to pay for it.

Andy walked across to check the flat, as the previous owner was supposed to have removed the old cooker, fridge and two huge boxes of rubbish.  He wondered if the man was actually inside the flat.  The door was wide open, as were the windows, and the door keys were on the kitchen top.  There was no sign of life, so we moved in.  The cooker had been removed – by cutting through the cable and leaving it on the floor (with the wires still live).  The fridge had gone, but not the two huge boxes of rubbish. 

I noticed a really bad smell – it was so bad that I was physically sick and flew to the bathroom only to discover that the toilet was filled with bright green mould.  The dreadful smell was coming from Helen’s room (youngest daughter), where food, including butter, cheese and other obnoxious things had been slowly melting through the boxes.  Under the box also dwelt the remains of a tin of paint – unfortunately, no longer contained by the tin.

Andy and Helen donned face-masks and rolled up the carpet, complete with boxes of rubbish and took it to the local dump, whilst I tackled the toilet.  That afternoon we went to the carpet store and bought a new carpet.  Whilst they were at the dump I cleaned up, having already scrubbed the toilet, and started on the bath – only to give up almost immediately, as I would not put my feet inside it, let alone my body!  A new bath was promptly ordered.  I sprayed everything in the apartment and eventually got rid of the stench. 

Our bedroom, when we viewed the flat, had a broken extractor fan in the window, which had since been removed and replaced by a sheet of chipboard.  One of the smaller panes of glass had also been broken.  Andy replaced the glass whilst I carried on scrubbing.  I cleared up all the broken glass in our bedroom and then noticed that where the previous owner had removed the curtains from the main room, he had simply ripped them down, breaking all the curtain rails and these and curtain clips were all over the place, along with screws and nails and more bits of glass.

The delivery-men had given up putting boxes in their respective rooms half-way through and decided that the boxes could go anywhere, regardless of where they were marked.  When they lifted a large box of tinned food onto the work-surface in the kitchen, the entire top crashed to the floor.  Luckily they chose to put just the tins there and not the microwave oven.  The kitchen worktop had been held up with four nails!  I started to put away some of the tinned goods and found two of the kitchen units crammed full of empty drinks bottles.  Luckily the pub across the road had a bottle bank.

The mail was piled high for five separate addressees.  I made piles for each of these and took it all to the Post Office.  We opened the mail marked ‘Occupier’ and found red bills for water etc for well over £200.   Over the ensuing 2 years in the flat, we received dozens of letters asking for outstanding balances to be paid, and almost every evening we were called by debt collectors and, strangely enough, people offering loans to the previous occupier, who, we discovered, had possibly moved abroad.  We had decided to keep the existing telephone number to save any extra expense.

We switched the water heater tank on, and went across to the pub for a drink.  When we returned to the flat it was full of steam and condensation was pouring down the windows and walls and there were puddles on the windowsills and floors.  There was no timer or cut-off switch on the tank and it had just got hotter and hotter until it boiled over. 

Before we went to the pub, we had locked the door and pushed it to make sure it was locked.  It promptly opened again.  Andy had to fit a new lock before we could go anywhere.

We eventually managed to undo all the boxes and there was still no sign of my handbag.  It turned up months later.  The bedroom was piled high with clothes and linen and our new wardrobe came after about two weeks to house it all.  My PC and desk were up and running as I was still running my collectors’ club.  Andy’s workbench was also ready to use.  We had decided to use a small corner of the lounge and set our workplaces back to back as we only had the one swivel chair and could share it.

The boxes of alcohol we had packed were amazing – every time we had had a BBQ, people brought bottles of various drinks, usually drank my home-made punch, and the ‘Bring your own Bottles’ were rarely opened.  We had also won quite a lot of bottles in games at our local club’s Bingo night.   It seemed that every time I brought another box to unpack it was alcohol.

After a lot of hard work, cleaning, unpacking and storing, we finally had a place to sit and relax.

When we first got settled in the flat – merely a place to sit, eat, and sleep, whilst waiting to move to France, it appeared to be very nice.  It was a bit like a holiday hotel room at the front with a small balcony where we could sit and watch the world go by.  Everyone seemed to know us and they all stopped to speak to us.  Previous to moving into the semi-detached house we had just sold, we had lived in that particular area for about twenty years.  I thought we could be happy there.  Then – the new neighbours moved in.

The second house we wanted to see was a much larger building, but the agent just drove by.  It seemed that if you did not have the money ready to buy, you were a waste of time.  No good explaining we had travelled for over 10 hours and covered many miles for a half view of one house.

Having said our farewells to the agent and mentally scratching him from our ‘helper’ list, we drove to our second appointment, arriving just before lunch-time and a couple of hours ahead of schedule.  Never mind, we thought, these agents are British and should be easier to deal with, at least we would be able to understand them.  We also found out when we finally met her that the lady’s first name was one we recognized – could she actually be the Fairy Godmother we were looking for?  This place wasn’t a shop, but appeared to be a private house in the throes of being completed. We knocked on the door – no answer.  We could see people inside and knocked again.  No answer.  After knocking a third time a woman came to the door and told us that even though we had driven over 300 miles, we were too early and should come back at the right time.  We decided to call in at the café across the road, have lunch, and call back later. 

We opened the door of the little bar/café and went inside.  People were eating and drinking at the bar and looked at us a bit puzzled. 

“What do you want?” 

“We would like some food please.”

“We’re shut!” 

“But it’s lunch time.” 

“Yes, that’s why we’re shut!” 

Funny customs in this village we thought.  This was to be the same around most of the villages we have since visited.  Almost everything shuts at 12 noon for two hours, even some of the cafés.  Lunch is a leisurely pastime and regardless of whether you are in a shop, café, bank or whatever, at 12 noon, they shut.  Lights go off and doors are locked.  We were given proof of this when, having queued for about half an hour to see the cashier at the bank, we got to the desk and the assistant turned off the lights and said “Lunch!”  Luckily there was a bar next door to the bank which actually remained open for the whole day.

We finally went back to the agents for our appointment at the correct time.  We asked if she was the Fairy Godmother we were looking for and were told definitely not – they knew the reputation of this ‘other Fairy Godmother’ and did not want to be confused with her.  Judging from the attitude of the ‘wrong’ Fairy Godmother, the right one had to be far better.  Manners maketh man, but obviously not woman! 

The agent and her husband told us they only had one house for us to look at and we were driven to a house which they said was  ‘just round the corner.’  After about 25 minutes, we arrived!

We were told we would not be able to get into the cellar of the house as no-one could find the key.  As we got out of the car I noticed that the ground was very spongy although we had not had any rain for quite some time. 

The house was quite nice.  Only a small front garden, in a triangular shape with a small fountain.  There was a lovely dove-cote at the front of the house and a set of stone steps to the front door.  Inside the house we were met by a large wooden staircase which looked pretty impressive.  Each of the rooms had a lovely plaster ceiling, complete with light rose and moulded pictures around the coving of the ceilings. 

We started up the huge staircase.  We noticed that the stairs cut half way through the windows at the side of the house and realized later that the original stairs had long gone and those we had climbed were obviously bought from another house and put in to ‘almost’ fit.  All the rooms were large but there was no heating installed so we thought it may be a little expensive to have heating put in.

Whilst inside, the agent mentioned that English people owned the house and were moving.  That would account for the unfinished plumbing, bad restoration, the dreadful linoleum on the floors, and the locked and boarded cellar door.

The agent took us to the rear of the house and showed us the barn, which was part of the property.  I started sinking in the ground and began to realize that the land around the house was extremely water-logged and that the cellar was probably flooded – hence the ‘loss’ of the key.  The barn was reasonable on the ground floor but the floorboards were extremely dangerous on the first floor and would need replacing, in fact, most of the floor had rotted away completely.  This could have been other major expense.

Back at the agent’s house, we again bade farewell and said we would be in touch.  Not a hope!

(I was going to call my book "Tashmoosh" as we had spoken to a lady in the after sales part of a large department store here to whom we had been guided by a shop assistant.  In quite good English, she asked 'Did the man have a Tash-moosh?'  Many phrases in France seem to be the opposite of what we would expect, for example, this year, last year and next year become 'This year, Year last and Year next!')

MASTERING THE LANGUAGE

 

During the previous twelve months, we had attended an evening course to learn French and were delighted to attain our National Vocational Qualification’s (NVQ’s) at the end of the course.  Classes had been fun, and we made a few friends there, some who were just learning a new language, others who had holiday homes in France and still others who were contemplating moving permanently, like us. 

Andy and I got the nicknames of Popeye (because of his pipe) and Fag-Ash Lil (I am a smoker and dived for a cigarette instead of coffee during our breaks in lessons).  At the end of the course, we had the NVQ certificates, but realised we could not speak French, could not read French and certainly could not understand it.  However, once we got to France all the words we had learned fell into place and although pronunciation is extremely important (many words sounding almost identical), we muddled by. 

Towards the end of the course we were told by our tutor that the entire evening must be in French only, anyone caught speaking English would be fined and the money given to charity.  Andy struggled with the words and whispered “What’s ……?”  I whispered back “Meatballs!”  He did not hear me and asked again.  “Meatballs!” I said, a little louder.  The teacher shot over to my side – that’s 50 pence please!  She had not heard Andy, just me.  Never mind, I was not the only one, she had collected around £20 sterling by the end of the evening.

A chance of a course called “Get by in French” came up by accident at work.  Normally these courses are aimed at Naval personnel who are about to leave the Navy and civilians are not allowed on them.  However, someone had forgotten to put ‘Service Personnel only’ in the advert and I jumped in straight away. 

I had been working in the Occupational Health Centre in Portsmouth Naval Base and several of my friends there were helping with my French.  Peter, the Environmental Health Officer, knew quite a lot of French and was a frequent visitor to France on holidays although he did not own a property there.  Sian, the Head of one of the departments, knew a lot of French and was really helpful.  She also visited France a lot on holidays with her family and would be a visitor to us once we were established there. 

Our teacher at evening classes had been English, teaching French, and the teacher in the Naval Base was French-Canadian.  There is a difference in French spoken in France and French spoken in Canada, where the words can sometimes be a bit archaic.  We actually learnt a lot of French, but when arriving in France we found that words are fairly easy but that actual conversation is much harder.  All French words are either ‘masculine - le’ or ‘feminine - la’ and you have to use the correct ‘gender’ for each word.  Also, if there is more than one item that you are speaking about, the le or la has an ‘s’ added.  Strangely enough, when the ‘s’ is added you don’t pronounce it with the ‘le’, but add it to the next word – for example, an English woman is – la Madame Anglaise, an Englishman is le monsieur Anglais but a man and a woman become le s’anglais.  Hard to learn but eventually it becomes easier.  I think the strangest thing is that an English man and woman become English men!  Even if there are 100 women and just one man – they all become men!

On the ‘tashmoosh’ theme, an elderly, white-haired gent becomes ‘gentleman ancient, hair white’.  

How we got here

I am going to try to let you know how we came to be living in France.  Here goes:

I originally planned to turn this into a book, similar to the ones by Peter Mayle but from a woman's perspective, but the publishers weren't interested.  .

I was woken up early this morning (OK, so it was 8 o’clock) by the sound of the running engine of a large bus.  For one awful moment I thought I was back in England, in the dreadful flat we had bought prior to moving to France almost six years ago.  The engine belonged to the school bus, collecting two children to take them to the nearest school for the day.  When we first moved here there was a small mini-bus, this has grown to a full 54-seater coach.  The coach is due to leave at 8 and nothing in the world is going to make it leave before that time, so it just runs its engine until 8.

The flat we bought before moving here was sadly situated at the terminus of the Portsmouth bus route and despite many pleas and even notices posted by the bus company on the bus stop poles, the buses arrived and ran their engines for sometimes up to half an hour, ensuring that no-one could get back to sleep – the service started in the wee small hours and ran almost to midnight.  Luckily we were not to stay too long in the flat, it was just a means to an end.  We had a large house close to a castle and had sold that and bought the flat and a new home in France, which we intended to retire to.  As it turned out, Hubby, Andy, was offered early retirement and I decided to quit work shortly after him.

At the time I started to write this, England is in recession, the snow is over a foot thick and the country can’t cope, with schools closed and public services not running.   My small pension has been cut by around a third because of the Euro exchange rate and Andy does not get his State Pension for another three years.  So, would we be going back to the UK?  Would you?

Hopefully this may inspire you to up sticks and move here.  I recommend it highly but you must learn at least some French before you do.  If I use any French words, I will try to spell them phonetically as well, but I hope not to use too many.

Two Years Before We Moved

 ‘So, how do you feel about moving to France?’  This was the question that started everything off.  I was a bit bemused as Andy had never shown any inclination to go to France for a holiday, let alone live there.  Apparently, someone with whom Andy worked commuted from France on a weekly basis, his wife lived there and drove him to and from the ferry.  Another of Andy’s work-mates took some brochures of French properties to work and Andy borrowed them for a few days.

I was taking a home language course in Italian at the time and looking forward to the day I could stretch out on the sunny Italian beach and be able to understand what the locals were talking about.  I used to commute to work in the Portsmouth Naval Base, on the bus, complete with headphones, murmuring phrases in Italian, complete with all the Italian hand-signals, much to the amusement of fellow passengers.  Andy persisted.  He suggested we look on the Internet and see what was available.  We also decided to buy a French Property magazine for a few months, just to see what type of properties were available.

At the time there was a programme on TV which took people to France to find them houses there so we applied to go on the – A Place in the Sun.

We had to submit a video of ourselves, explaining why we wanted to move to another country, so we arranged for Laura, a friend of our daughter’s, to film us with the video camera she had received for Christmas.  As we were getting on a bit – both nearing retirement age – I thought it might be a good idea to stick a large piece of card to the garden fence behind Laura so that we would be able to remember all the points without looking too thick!  The film was a disaster, to say the least, we looked frumpy and old and even with the ‘prompt’ sheet, still got a bit tongue-tied.  When we saw the result it was obvious we were reading a script.

We introduced ourselves, mentioned our huge collections of 300 vintage wireless sets and over 6,000 Avon perfume decanters.which were out-growing our current home, and said that we would like to move to France where the houses appeared less expensive than in the UK and that hopefully there would be room to open a little museum for them  The whole film was extremely stilted and looked dreadful.  We sent it anyway and the reply came back that France was no longer being included in the programme as they were now looking for people who wanted to move further afield.  It could have been that the producers took one look at us and decided ‘enough was enough’ and that they wanted younger, more aesthetically pleasing people to film for their programme.  Sensible idea I supposed, as the make-up department would need more Polyfilla than foundation to make my lines disappear.  I have always been a happy person and it showed in the ‘laughter’ lines – not so much a ‘lived-in’ face, more a ‘squatted-in’ one.

 Whilst going through the French Property magazines for a third time, Andy found an advert for an exhibition in London for people considering buying abroad in France and Spain and so we went for a quick nosy around.  Andy was obviously impressed, far more than I was – I took a couple of days to get over the shock of paying almost a fiver for a beef-burger – the drink to go with it was way out of my price range!  It was quite a high-class affair and most of the people looking round seemed rather more affluent than us.  Of course, there were a few there who had obviously just gone for a day out and had no intention of buying property – they also did not buy the burgers! The houses on offer were rather more expensive than we had in mind, but most of them were ready for moving into and we would have preferred something a little less ‘up together’.  We did however find the addresses of several companies who had agents in France so decided this would be our next approach.

We eventually signed up with a company in London who were exhibiting at the show and who had estate agents (or Immobilier) in many areas of France, and decided to go over for a couple of days to look at some properties, just to give us an idea of what we could afford if, and when, we ever really ‘took the plunge.’  I was still not too keen to leave the land I had been born in, even though it had changed a lot since I was young.  I originally only went along with it for a holiday break.  When we were newly married, England still had the £10 emigration to Australia deal and I had believed that there was where our future lay.  I had not realised it at the time but Andy had only gone along with me for the ride!  Like Andy was with France, so I was with Australia, full to the brim with enthusiasm.

We duly received appointments with two Immobilier.  One was in Vire, in the Department of Calvados, quite close to the ferry port, and the other a bit further south.  We were assured that they were both expecting us and that they each had several properties ready for us to inspect.  We were also told they would drive us round to view the properties in their company cars.

 

FIRST TRIP

As was almost always to be the case with the ferry company number one, the ship was delayed by about 2 hours.

For one of our future trips, I won a return ticket with the same ferry company by completing a sponsored fun-run around the Naval Base and getting the most sponsorship.  For one of our future trips, I won a return ticket with the same ferry company by completing a sponsored fun-run around the Portsmouth Naval Base, where I worked as a Medical Secretary, and for getting the most sponsorship.  It was funny, as I am overweight, a moderately heavy smoker and ‘fit’ is not a word I know, so everyone thought they were on to a good thing and I was heavily sponsored.  I was obviously the last to finish the run – actually, the Marshals had all gone back to the office and I managed to do an extra circuit as there was no-one left to tell me the correct route.  Eventually, the organisers sent a motor-cycle policeman to find me and escort me to the finishing line.  As we turned the last corner, he told me that they had put the tape back up and that everyone was waiting for me at the finish line and I would have to run the last 100 metres!  I was dressed in a furry Bugs Bunny costume and it was decided my costume was the best so I got a small plaque for that too.  I received the plaque from the Commodore of the Naval Base but kept my rabbit mask on, as I was totally purple underneath!

On drinking our complimentary coffee at the ferry port in Portsmouth, Hampshire, (you are always offered a complimentary drink when the ferry is not on time – must cost a fortune in coffee!) we fell into conversation with a middle-aged couple who had bought a dilapidated farmhouse in France, which they had restored and moved into, and who had been back to Wales to check their UK property was still OK.  They spent most of their time in France, returning to their UK address as, and when, they needed to.  They could not wait to return to France.  As we talked, they told us about this wonderful woman who had acted as their agent when they bought their French property.  She sounded fantastic, quite the ‘Fairy Godmother’.  She had found their house for them, done all the translating all the way through, sorted their driving permits, their health insurances, cards etc and had become such a good friend that she often spent Christmas with them.  As the couple had not been married at the time, Fairy Godmother had even suggested they ‘tie the knot’ and promptly arranged their wedding for them, even arranging the catering for the reception.  This lady we had to meet.  We gave the couple our card and asked them if they would ask Fairy Godmother to contact us.  (It eventually turned out that the Fairy Godmother vanished in a puff of smoke after we bought the house having promised to help us with everything, like the taxes, meeting the mayor, gardeners, house-sitters, etc etc.)

The channel crossing from Portsmouth to Cherbourg is about 7 hours long and we visited the gift shop, the Duty Free shop and spent the rest of the time in the bar playing cards and other travel games, which I always packed along with passports and tickets.  There was a quiz and a game of Bingo on board and I won a small cash prize.   I eventually started to win prizes for the quiz too as they used the same questions every time!

The ferry docked at Cherbourg in Northern France and we made our way through the town of St Lo, not realising at the time that there was a route which by-passed the city.  We inevitably got lost and asked several people for directions.  We managed to ask correctly, but could not understand a word of the replies, so finally went into a large petrol station to see if anyone there spoke any English.  Luckily, one of the staff spoke a tiny bit of English and told us we should go to ‘Carrefour’.  As I remembered passing a Carrefour hypermarket, we returned to it and turned left as instructed.  ‘Carrefour’ also appears to be French for other things.   After several twists and turns, we ended up back at the petrol station and tried again.  This time they told us to go to ‘total’.  This time we imagined ‘total’ to be the end of the road – no, it was ‘Total’ another petrol station!  We eventually figured it all out and eventually found ‘Vire’ on the road signs.  Actually, after several journeys to France we have discovered that the road marking are incredibly easy to follow.  Normally you just follow signs with your destination on.  If these are on the right hand side of the direction boards, you are on the right road.  When the destination becomes the bottom name on the sign, you take the next turn-off.  Easy,unless there is a deversion.  The make-shift signs say ‘detour’ so you follow them until they suddenly stop and you are in the middle of the country side without a clue where the next sign is going to be. 

We finally arrived at the first Immobilier, in Vire, only to be looked at over the top of the man’s spectacles and asked, “What do you want?”  We explained we had an appointment to view some houses and we were given the old ‘Gaelic shrug’ and sent outside to look in the window to see if anything interested us – some system!  We selected just two houses in our price range.

I asked if I could use the bathroom as we had travelled for some time and was directed to the public WC across the road, where I was confronted with the obligatory ‘hole in the ground’.  Wearing tight jeans, I decided it was a physical impossibility and returned to the shop to ask if I might use the office one.  When we finally moved to France we visited a fair and I saw what I thought was a row of Portaloos.  Amazingly they all had the ‘hole in the ground’ and I looked in several of them and came out again.  Some French ladies saw my problem and kindly showed me how to use them.  Really quite simple once you know how.

Comfort regained, the agent drove us grudgingly to the first house and told us we couldn’t actually go inside (as we weren’t ready to buy) but could just look round the grounds.  Never, ever, tell a French Estate Agent that you are ‘only looking to see what you could afford’.   It was a lovely, large, bungalow with a terrace all round, a sensible sized garden (neither of us being Percy Throwers) and it had an underground garage and even a vegetable plot and a chicken run.  Absolutely perfect.  The village in which it was situated had one of each type of shop – grocer, baker, butcher, doctor etc, even a pub!  We were already smitten with France.

Back in the office!

Hi all.  I am really missing not doing the newsletters for the Magpies Club.  There was just nothing left to write about, at least not enough to fill 6 pages.  I had been doing newsletters for over 16 years and covered a load of Avon things.

I miss contact with people a lot.  There are very few people around where we live in France.  Our French is falling behind a bit as visitors to the museum mostly want to try out their English and we end up teaching them things in English - not a lot of good when we want to learn more French!

Boot fairs have been quite good recently and I have found a couple of bits of Avon I did not have in the museum.

I managed to buy a whole load of Avon samples at one boot sale.  I usually make up a small packet of samples for each lady visitor so they can try out the items and them order directly from their own Avon lady.  Funny, as I have just sent a letter off to Avon in Paris (again - this is about the tenth time I have tried to contact them) asking for samples that I can give away.  Bet I get no response this time either.

Weather is fantastic although I am currently working inside the house.  Have had visitors and trying to put everything back as it was.  All the washing has been done, dried, ironed and put away so that is a good start.

We have sold our car - the main one we use - as we got a buyer almost as soon as it was advertised so we thought it would be a good idea to let it go straight away.  Our new car will not be ready until mid-September so we are currently just using "Christine" our Sunbeam Rapier.  Unfortunately she is a gas guzzler so we won't be going far for a while.

We all went to a zoo in Jurques - bit expensive but loads of nice creatures.  The other local zoo at Champrepus has larger animals and is slightly cheaper for entry.  If these places were to charge half the price they would get at least twice as many people and make more profit - is it only me that can see that?  The more you charge, the less people can afford to visit, especially whole families.

I am still making fairies and will be taking them to our local village boot sale next week (called Vide Greniere here - empty attic) but in France you are only able to take part in 2 per year or you have to be licensed (different one to having a shop).  As I don't drive it doesn't seem worth it to do more than our local one - it is just across the road from the museum so we can walk and carry tables etc with us.  I used to have the larger car there so I could sit inside if it rained etc but Christine is a bit small and won't have room for a table and thins for sale.  Never mind.

I have decided this year to have three parts to my table - 50 cent things, things for 1 euro and things for 5 euros.  I will be taking a lot of Avon wit me and also some of my jewellery.  If anyone shows interest in any of my bits and pieces I can direct them to our house.  I have a load of English novels and other books which usually go down well but if friends want them they can borrow them for free, if not, they are sold for 50 cents and usually the money goes to charity.

My book of hints and tips has been printed and is ready to go.  Priced at 6.50 a percentage will go to Cancer Research.  The promised advertising did not happen and all that has been printed about it was in a charity section of a newspaper and obviously resulted in no sales.  I did sell a few at our church though.  A very handy book with hints and tips about all kinds of things, housework, cooking, cleaning, gardening, how to behave in France (don't park on a verge - look it up!).  Some French words are known as 'false friends' as they sound like English words we know but mean completely different things.

All for this time - hope to write more now I have found the way back to my 'dashboard'.

Happy New Year to all

Well, Christmas is finally over.  Very quiet here as most neighbours are renters and seemed to go back to their families for the Christmas season.  Most of our Brit friends went to the UK.  We stayed here, hoping someone would visit - no luck!

Finally got legal and now have Siret number so I can open my little Brocante.  I have for sale, hand made crochet items, knitted items, costume jewellery (old stuff), doubles of my Avon bottles, some novelty radios, miniature perfumes (not Avon) and hundreds of English books for sale or swap, plus many other things.  My new book of hints and tips for ex-pats and holiday home owners in France is currently being printed in the UK and should be here any time now.  Costing 6.50 it contains hundreds of hints and tips - no, not about your taxes, mobile phones and things like that, but good, down to earth things, a lot of which we knew before and many which we have found since moving here 6 years ago.  A very small print run to see how it goes but can always order more.  Available from our museum, or email wendy.avonmagpies@wanadoo,fr for more details. (That should be a full stop rather than a comma in the email address but thought this may confuse those people who search the web for website addresses to send junk mail to)

For those of you who have previously asked if Avon's Skin So Soft is any good as a hot oil treatment for your hair - the answer is YES, I just tried it out and hair is much less dry than it was before.  I used a small sachet and just floated it in the bath to warm it up.  Excellent (will keep the flies off too!)

This blog has been missing for a while as I forgot how to do it and found out by chance today.  Happy New Year once again.

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Still not sure if I am getting the hang of this blog thing,. but will persevere.  Not a lot of Avon about at the moment although I have two ceramic figures someone may be able to help me with?  The figurines (both the same) are of a little girl, similar to the most common Avon Bottle of all.  She is supposed to be a greeny-blue but of the two I have, one is orange and the other pink.  If anyone can help I would be grateful.  I already contacted the USA clubs but they suggested the figures may have been left in the sun and faded - how blue can fade to pink (all the way around) I don't know.  I wondered if these were made before deciding that the blue version would be the best.  I think she may be called Jennifer, but again, not completely sure.

I have just finished a book of hints and tips for ex-pats living here and hope to get it published shortly.  If anyone is interested, please let me know.  Pages have already gone to a couple of English/French newspapers and I am currently waiting for a quote on the actual printing.

Well, I managed to create a blog.  Many people suggested I have one - many people were going to help me!  Thank you Marcus and Julia for helping me to set it up.  I still have no idea what I am doing and you may notice that I was editing the original page instead of adding new posts each time, so the order may be a bit awry.

I had been expecting help from many people for many things, from fixing tiles to setting up a proper EBay site,  but I finally realised I am on my own.  I can only do my best.

Our best friends who returned to the UK no longer really keep in contact although they were going to write at least once a month and I still miss them.  Obviously people have their own lives and are busy so I will carry on regardless - probably making a complete hash of most things.  Years ago I taught many people how to use computers but technology is moving so fast now I have difficulty in keeping up - could also be that I am a pensioner, or silver surfer, as we are known.

Back to the original Avon then.  Shortly before stopping the newsletters I bought a little white bottle in the shape of a man with a top hat, monocle and walking stick.  No paper label but I was sure it was Avon.  On a village trip to le Harve and surrounding area I found the house of a write who had created a character called Arsene Lupin and he fits the description perfectly.  I have shown the bottle to several French people and they agree that this is who it represents.  I would love to know when it was produced/sold in France.

My website appears to have stopped altogether now so you will be unable to contact me on Avonmagpies.com, but you can find me through AngloInfo if you look hard enough.  I also hoped to  have someone tell me how to add my contact details to my blog - that hasn't happened either, so please be patient, I will figure it out eventually I hope.

That's about it for today, feeling a bit sorry for myself so hopefully the next post should be a bit more interesting.