Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Family’ Category

Once upon a time…

Twenty-two centuries ago, the Romans completed the conquest of Narbonne. They constructed the Roman road of Aquitaine, which led to Montl¿rrand and to the doorstep of Naurouze. Along the Mediterranean coast, they built the Domitrienne Road towards the Pyr¿n¿es Orientales and which led to the first conquest of Roussillon. Everywhere that there were strategic grounds, they established military camps, for example Ruscino between Perpignan and Canet Plage, at the same time camp and town (there are numerous relics); another example mid-way between Estagel and Maury, on the border of the RN117: Mas Camps, military camp, commanding a vast plain in the Agly Valley (relics, Roman mosaic).

From the 12th century, the Templars arrived in Roussillon, taking the side of the King of Majorca. The Roussillon Templars depended on the Province of Aragon, but they were also autonomous. At the end of the 13th century, they had in Roussillon, two large commands: Perpignan and Mas Deu, near to Vinca. They also had in Roussillon more than 120 chateaux and domains. In the Roussillon, you must also include Fenouill¿des, which as vassals depended both on the Kingdom of Majorca and the Kingdom of France. The Templars had therefore the goods in all the cantons of the Pyr¿n¿es-Orientale. Notably mentioning the castle of Prugnagnes and associated domains, the castle of Sournia and associated domains and then the ancient roman camp which was on the large plain and valley of Agly and where they had chosen to stay in a very large manor house (“maison forte”), Mas Camps.

The two large commands of Perpignan and Mas Deu, had as chiefs at the end of the 13th century and start of the 14th Guilaume d’Ollers (for Perpignan) which was also chancellor and prime minister of the King of Majorca, and Raymond of Guardia (or Saguardia) for Mas Deu, supervising one part of the Templar province.

Or in short, this place has been around for a while. We’ve also some info of the last of the Camps family who lived here (we have his WW1 medals and some other stuff).

There’s more, but as it’s getting late my translation skills got too ropey towards the end, so more anon.

I’m finally a legit businessman in that the KBIS finally turned up last week. We were in the accountant’s office at around the time the postwoman was sticking it through our letterbox. Anyway, by the time we got back home and found it, we’d just enough time to race to the bank and apply for the credit card machine (which, in theory, should be here in “15 days” ie a fortnight, but somehow I just can’t see it arriving that quickly).

Actually on the post front, we’re amazed at how awful the administration of some places is when you tell them you’ve moved… at the moment the competition for last place is neck and neck between the Woolwich (told at least twice that we’re here) and… the Civil Service. Sadly, pay section have realised that I’m not there anymore but personnel still seem to think I’m in Holywood.

The KBIS also lets you open an account at the local cash & carry (Makro would you believe?) so we headed off there the next day and did a bit of restocking (we were running really low on the shampoo for a start).

Managed to get “our” toilet operational at last! There’s loads of toilets in this place but the handiest one for our own use turned out not to work. Anyway, several weeks back one of the english immigrants (of which there are loads) said “why don’t you see about getting a new one”. So we raced off to the local DIY place (as always, these ideas come to you about 30 minutes before closing on a bank holiday weekend so it was quite a race). Naturally, we were short a few items in the “toilet kit” so a week or two passed by ’til we got the little hose extension and another while before we got the sealant and a bit more before we got the gun to put it in. But, that’s all in the past now and our toilet works!

Now that we’re on a roll, we’ve decided to have a go at erecting a wall in front to act as a sign. There’s been a fair number of folk who’ve been directed our way but never made it so we’ve moved the sign up the priority list somewhat. Short term, we’re thinking of getting some really, really big bits of plywood to put the sign on but we’re also running up a proper breezeblock wall over the next month or so. We’ve also got several non-operational toilets which we must sort out too…

At the moment there don’t seem to be any “proper” tourists arriving at Perpignan airport: any time we’ve been up just about everyone seems to be being picked up by some other english friends. Net effect is that our leaflet supply is lasting forever up at the airport.

Bonjour mes amis:

We are gradually becoming legitimate French residents….

Last week we thought we’d make an assault on the mairie. They seem to be responsible for just about everything in these parts so it seemed like a good place to start on our efforts to become “legit” French residents.

We failed in the school registration as James is just too young. Everywhere else in France he could start now ‘cos he’s two but in Maury it’s three. That’s probably a good thing as his English will be well established by then though I guess that it’ll make his first month or two a lot harder for him.

A big success was acheived in the bin department though. Not only have we a much bigger bin on the way but on the 26th they’re coming to collect the massive heap of junk that was left by the previous owner. Actually, we have a much smaller pile now as the neighbours asked if we didn’t mind them taking some of it. Wendy reckons we could have sold it in one of the flea markets.

Health-wise we’ve hit a brick wall at the moment. It seems that to register for the equivalent of a national health number you first need to register for work. That’s in the works but so far I’ve not received my “KBIS” (dunno what that stands for but apparently every French business has one). Wendy had her “20 week scan” this afternoon so that’s another ‚€60 on the bill (I suspect that we’ll need to claim all the bills to date via the E111). The scan was a much, much more thorough one than James had at the Ulster Hospital. They check everything that can be checked and since junior wouldn’t play ball and turn over, we’ve to go back in a few weeks time so that the doctor can check the rest.

Bit of success too on the bank account front. Apparently the chequebook and card for the business account are in the branch waiting for me to pick them up.

Next challenge is to get Wendy a bank account for which we’ve an appointment at the bank tomorrow morning.

And after that, it’s off to the Prefecture (county council equivalent, sort of) who think that Wendy needs a visa. Remember all the work that went into getting her a European Resident Permit from the Home Office? Well, we’re about to embark on the same task over here. If anything it should be a whole lot easier as French law equates “living together” as being equivalent to being married in a number of respects, notably for immigration laws. Anyway, I will be looking up the relevant laws to quote to them so it should be an interesting meeting.

Also for this week is an IKEA trip. We have given up on trying to get “proper” pillows in Spain (they do cutdown French ones) and locally so we’re off to Toulouse where we’re also hoping to get some garden furniture for the lunches that Wendy’s intending to start soon.

Bonsoir!

It’s been pouring all day. Yes, folks, it really does rain in the south of France.

Anyway, seeing as the weather wasn’t great, we thought we’d have a bit of lie-in so it was a bit of a rush just after 9am when the doorbell rang. That was our first potential employee. By the time I managed to get downstairs, the French was operational enough to tell her that we might be looking for people around the end of June.

We had another bin-trip over lunch to clear out another trailer load of junk left by the previous owner. At the current rate, it’ll be the end of the month before we’ve gotten rid of it all.

Since it’s the start of the month, it was time to drop off the first pile of invoices with the accountant so that’s where we ended up this afternoon. Unfortunately, it’s mainly bills that I need to pay rather than bills that people have paid me but all being well that split will change by the summer. Time too to see what’s involved in employing someone. It seems simple. The minimum salary (SMIC) is ‚€7.19 an hour but that’s gross, of course, so they end up with about 80% of that and employers taxes mean that it costs about ‚€10 an hour for me to employ someone. There’s also the complication of the 35 hour week here with a maximum of 48 hours. In practice, the hours we would need someone would be a bit bizarre: probably about 2/3 hours in the late morning/early afternoon to make the beds etc. and the same again in the evening to look after the restaurant. I suspect we’ll need at least two people to do that.

That’s the gorge around the corner that we were at yesterday.

A bientot,

Bonjour!

Yesterday (Friday) was total chaos.

We started getting up around 8.30 as usual and planned our day out: French in the morning for me, then off to the Mairie to see about getting ourselves registered and finishing with a trip to the accountant.

The door bell rang about 5 mins after we decided to do all that.

Five Belgians had arrived for our gite, a day early. It’s really a gite for at most three so we started organising extra beds in a big hurry. Wendy managed to persuade them to go off and take a drive to collect supplies while we got organised.

We got one extra bed in and realised that no way could we fit five in so I called Alistair (the adventure tours guy) to see how his gite was fixed up. His is for nine and fortunately was free so we offered them that when they got back. Had to drive them up to his place as it’s a bit hard to find and impossible to describe how to find in English, never mind French. We set off for his place just after noon (yup, three hours to sort out the gite!).

On the way back we spotted a big bin by the roadside so I dropped Wendy off at Champion to get supplies for the next couple of days (`tis May Day on Saturday and everywhere is shut) whilst I headed off to pick up the trailer and fill it with rubbish. As we’ve not got to the Mairie we’re still running with domestic size bins a) have more waste due to the hotel b) have heaps of junk from the move and c) have heaps of junk left over from the previous owner to get rid of. One trailer is about two big (ie 2 wheelie bin size bins) bins full. Fortunately we spotted a couple more big bins on the way back to collect Wendy.

Thought we’d pick up some outdoor furniture for the gite too but they’d went and sold the table we were looking for.

By them Alistair had arrived. I stayed with him while Wendy went off to get some more shopping done.

I mentioned that our main toilet wasn’t working which ended up in a race to the DIY store to collect a new one plus more tools to finish off fitting the lock on the front door.

We didn’t know how to turn off the water so had to wait `til our neighbour arrived at 9pm before completing the fitting of the toilet which by 11.30pm was operational.

In the meantime we have also sorted out the Sky satellite which is now in a position which should let it work in the gite. Which means another trip to Castorama on Monday to get another satellite tuner for the gite (assuming it works with our box).

We are all totally knackered!!

Oh, and it was James’ birthday on Thursday so in the midst of the above he was pedalling round the courtyard in his little car and pushing his bike around and generally wanting to be involved in all the action. He’d his eye on the bag of toys that the little Belgian boy had brought along and was getting set to mug him for them.

And early on my French mobile arrived. I’m on 00 33 6 981 420 65.