After four weeks in France
We have learned a few new things:
1. When you ask a builder for a
quote, they come around and have a good look at the job, and if they are not
interested in it, they simply refuse to correspond, to quote, or to engage with
you in any way. Even English builders who are busy. Even the electrician who
lives across a narrow alley from us. I had not anticipated that. I just find it
rude.
2.
When an English builder says he
might be able to fit you in a shortly, what he means is that rain is forecast
all week, and since your job is all inside, he can put off a job outside to
avoid working in the rain.
3.
When you sign up for an
internet service, and there is no fibre in your area, you have to wait for the France
telekom engineer to come and make your phone line active first, and this takes
two weeks at least. When the internet service say (by email) they have tried to
contact you and been unable to, this means they could not find the staff time
to make the call to your mobile.
4.
When you reply to their e-mail
you find it is not read by anyone.
5.
When you are a bit cold in the Autumn
evening, and want to put on an electric heater, make sure there is no other
appliance drawing a kilowatt of energy, otherwise your main fuse will melt.
Your home is on standard electric supply, which is 4-5 kilowatt. And the
previous cowboy electrician has not installed a circuit breaker. Our main fuse
melted.
6.
EDF will not attend to repair
the main fuse until given the all clear by the fire brigade. You should not say
the fuse melted because of a small fire inside the box, since you know the
French word for fire but not for melt.
7.
You will become the talk of the
street when the fire brigade attends to discover there is no fire. This is
exciting news in a small town.
8.
When you see the expert report
on your home, in French, the estate agents will tell you that all old homes
have electric faults and not to worry over it. They are wrong; it is simply
dangerous to have sockets 20cm from your kitchen, and another socket in the
shower at floor level, where it can get wet. Your opportunity to get the
previous owners to fix things ends when you sign the document at the meeting
where these reports are read out to you in a long rambling sequence. You won’t
be told your home has a limited electricity supply of 4-5 kilowatts and you may
need to apply for a larger capacity supply.
9.
When you have these electrical
survey reports reviewed by a qualified electrician, he will tell you that most
of these things listed in the report must be fixed for your house to be safe.
He will also tell you to upgrade your electricity supply.
10. If you don’t fix these things and have a fire in your home, the
insurer may claim they have no responsibility to reimburse your losses.
11. You can’t upgrade your electricity supply because you don’t know the
French phrases and grammar for this telephone conversation with EDF.
12. A log burner in the lounge is a real asset in the colder autumn
evenings, and certainly in winter. Don’t buy an old house without one, or
number 3 will apply and EDF will probably charge you for replacing melted main
fuses.
13. A town house, or maison de ville, right in the centre, need not be
noisy. We don’t hear traffic, the town church bells, the nearby nightclub, or
people. We don’t even hear the market setting up and getting going, despite it
being 100 yards away. What we do hear is the rain on the skylights above us,
and especially the rush of water past us in the narrow street, coming off the
mountains and rushing down the water gullys.
14. A house opposite a good bakery has the potential to make you gain
weight. The smell of fresh bread and croissants rising to your kitchen window
is simply impossible to resist.
15. The French really do make the best croissants and baguettes
anywhere.
16. The bakery opposite is closed on Thursday only.
17. You need not worry about number 11; there is an equally good
boulangerie about 100 yards in another direction.
18. Netto, the local supermarket closes at 7.15pm at night, in time to
get the milk you have just run out of after supper. It only takes 3 minutes to
walk there.
19. The local newsagent on Boulevard Marechal Joffré supplies the
Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the Times, and one other English language paper, one
day later than published, for €4 each, if you simply must read an English paper
in France.
20. I don’t need to read an English paper after all. I was only reading
it in England because at the library it was free.
21. French TV is broadcast with subtitles which can be turned on or off,
so aiding the acquisition of the French language, and improving your
comprehension.
22. It is possible to wash your car for just €1 with a pressure washer
and a brush and soap dispensed at the Intermarché car wash.
23. This is practical when you only have €2 in coins and need the other
one for the supermarket trolley, and there is no queue.
24. The car wash essentially provides you with all the facilities of the
Eastern European car wash centres in England, but without the Eastern
Europeans.
25. The facilities include a covered area with drains, a pressure washer
that can dispense soapy water, and also clean water, and a brush on a long
handle, that can also dispense soap. There is a machine which takes 50c and €1
coins and this amount gives you just two minutes per €1 and you can change
whatever you like during the programme. However, the brush thingy stand in a
bucket of residual clean soapy water so you have all the time in the world to
brush your car down first, and get the grime off without paying extra.
26. I am a pensioner and I seem to have developed a certain mentality
appropriate to getting a pension. Get whatever you can for free.
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