Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Society’ Category

The other week, it was the septic tank causing us problems, now it’s the turn of the well….

We own two water sources: a spring which was used up to two owners ago and a well which the last guy switched over to. It saves us having to pay the equivalent of the water rates but it’s not “free” as we need to maintain the pumping equipment etc. Normally, it’s fine apart from very busy days in the summer and also in september when the winery are using lots and lots of water; at those times, all that needs doing is to make sure the storage tank is full in the morning which we do by flicking the pump off and on (don’t know why, but it switches off after a while and before the tank is full).

Anyway, things were going fine ’til 2 or 3 days ago when every night we ran completely out of water (the first time ever!) and had to do the flicking thing. That time actually co-incided with the arrival of the grand-daughter of the guy who owned the place two owners ago (she’s the last person living who supposedly knows how the system works!). We thought that perhaps we’d turned a tap that she pointed out as we were walking round but we think we’ve undid all that we did then and still no water: it looks like we’ve emptied the well!

We’re in the process of getting ourselves onto our first American site: www.ownerdirect.com . Hopefully, it’s not typical of the American sites as they wanted so much information entered that it took hours to type it all in and we’ve still a couple of detailed things to do like measuring up the rooms. It’s another one of those guaranteed reservation places too so we’ll have to add it to our list of places for the January update (at the moment, we’ve listed more rooms in total than we actually have which is OK for the winter but, all being well, wouldn’t be OK for the summer so the plan is to sit down in January and make sure that the total is no more than our actual number of rooms).

While we were looking round for our 1-800 number, we found out that you can call American 800 numbers from abroad if you replace the 800 by 880 eg you can call us from outside the US by dialling 00 1 880 571 6392.

As we’re in “winter mode” at the moment, we’ve been plugging away with the backlog of administration that built up over the summer (we gotta be a bit more organised about it next year!). All being well, we will be up to date with the accounts by next week which is just as well as we got a tax return yesterday that needs completed by January 1st.

On other fronts, we’re getting moving on the fosse septique on a more laid back but still brisk pace. The mairie reckon (as we did) that it would be best to have the initial survey done in conjunction with our neighbours which will mean a) it’s cheaper and b) will be done quicker as they’re already in the system. We’ll talk to them about it tomorrow (I think it’s started to sink in with them that they don’t have enough land for it to be workable).

Separately, we have contacted the local fosse guy and buildersabroad who should be coming up with a quote in due course (we need the survey done first). But it’s looking like a completion date of the new fosse around March which is awfully close to the start of the tourist season.

The Hilton has one, the Waldorf has one and now Mas Camps has one. Yes, folks we have joined the bigtime with our very own toll free number, 1-800-571-6392 . Well, as of sometime tomorrow anyway.

More anon.

We’ve been having problems with our septic tank for the last month or two which have been getting progressively worse. So much so, that the guy next door has had to pump it out every week for nearly a month now. This in turn has prompted his brother-in-law (the soon to be new owner of the house attached to the winery) to order a new septic tank. That in turn has forced us to order a new one…

Neither of them are proper “country folk” and therefore they didn’t know a whole lot about what’s supposed to happen. OK, I’m not dyed-in-the-wool country folk either but I spent every summer at our country cottage for over twenty years and even watched my Dad install our own septic tank. Anyway, I figured that it filling up every week had nothing to do with it being knackerd (which was their thinking). Things eventually got so bad that they ended up calling in the grand-daughter of the owner before the guy I bought it off and she got to the root of the problem right away… seems that the bit of land across the road which I own is owned by me because that is where the runoff from the septic tank comes out. Now, bearing in mind that the previous owner knew nothing about the system it’s been quite some time since said outlet pipe was known about and in the intervening years (at least 5 we think) it’s become completely overgrown, hence complete blockage and we’ve now sorted the problem in the ten minutes it took to dig out all the stuff that’s grown over it in the meantime.

Aide from giving me a chance to practise a lot of French that you don’t use everyday, they’ve told me that we’re going to have to get a septic tank anyway as new regulations coming into force (they think) next year will require it.

Separately, we’ve also found out that what we thought was the newest part of the house is in fact the oldest, having been built around 1776 (it was completely renovated in her grandfather’s time). We’ll have to invite her round for dinner sometime to see if we can find out some more of the history.

We’re starting to make a bit of progress with the backlog of administration and it’s looking like in another week or so we’ll be up to date.

Yesterday was “toilet day”. We have a growing collection of toilets that aren’t operational for a variety of reasons so we thought that we’d blitz them. Net effect is that the two at the back of the dining room are ready to go though we need to put a new seat on one of them, the room 10 cistern is filling up normally, and the two outside toilets just need a bit of cleaning to get them going. The only serious one now is the one in the lobby which is still blocked up after the latest stupid guest flushed something down it and clogged it up (no, not that!).

We reckon that we need a new car for next year as the RAV4 isn’t really up to carrying the people and stuff. Sooo, we’ve started thinking about what we need and have come up with the following little list of essentials:
– 4wd, because we hope to do tours into the ski areas in due course;
– 6 or 7 seater, because we’re starting to do a lot more airport shuttle runs than expected and also because we want to do little tours;
– diesel, because it’s costing us a fortune in petrol.

We’d like automatic too ‘cos Wendy can’t drive manuals and ‘cos I’m to lazy to drive them.

I was thinking that a long wheelbase Landrover would do the biz but I gather that they’re awful to drive so that’s put me off them. In the frame for consideration at the moment are the Mitsubishi Shogun (called Montero here) and the Nissan Patrol.

Does anybody have any thoughts on those (or indeed other cars we should be looking at)?

Dunno what happened, but we’re up to over 120 readers a day of Mas Camps News!!

There’s a couple of the banks here that have offers of FREE MONEY when you open accounts for your kids. Red rag to a bull, of course…. Sadly, Societe Generale operates on a nationwide basis here so there’s only EUR 16 going on their EuroKid account.

However, Banque Populaire are one of the regional banks here with something like a dozen separate banks over France and the local bank is offering EUR 15 per child. Soooo,… nah, ’twas too good to be true: only the local bank seems to have that offer at the moment.

Just about everyone that moves here either has or opens very quickly an account with Credit Agricole. It’s certainly the simplest choice as they’re in every village of any size in France and they also have an English speaking branch in Normandy (you can use their accounts in the other Credit Agricoles without any real bother). It’s also an expensive choice: since they “improved” their computer system a few months back they now charge over EUR 5 per month just for the priviledge of having an account with them. Oh, plus the EUR 40 or so for their debit card. Anyway, you’re looking at EUR 100 a year just to have a very basic account.

Once people are here for a while, they tend to say “WHAT?” to the bank charges and change banks. I’m told that “the” one to go for is currently Banque Populaire where you can actually get a fully operational account for all of 20‚€ per year.

Anyway, we’re doing a little more checking to confirm things then closing all of our personal accounts with Credit Agricole and moving to Banque Populaire (who, in these parts, seem to have branches just about everywhere that CA do).