Life as an Imminent Emigrant

Living France

Hello again, mes amies!

Well we’ve been here for a month or so now (I don’t know exactly how long it’s been because I’ve gone all vague and non-Anglo Saxon with regard to timekeeping since a) settling south of La Manche, and b) not working in an office five days a week (ok, ok,  sitting in an office five days a week)

However, that’s not to say I’ve been dozing in a hammock all day every day.  When I last left you, dear reader, we’d just got back from a highly successful househunting trip in the lovely Ariege department in the middle of the Pyrenees.  Since then, we’ve been getting used to the more everyday issues of life in a new country.

A few weeks ago, the compromis de vente arrived for our signatures.  Armed with our doorstop dictionary, we went through the document and annexes line by line until we were more or less reassured that by signing everything as instructed we weren’t about to become yet another burnt-fingered couple in a Channel 4 documentary.  Before finally putting pen to paper, I phoned Kevin, our smashing estate agent, with just a few queries - I questioned, for instance, why the ‘virtually safe from earthquakes’ box on the form was ticked rather than the considerably more reassuring ‘utterly safe from earthquakes’ one, but apparently that’s normal.  The other questions were satisfactorily answered, and so we signed.  It was all surprisingly and pleasingly straightforward, including the French legalese which populated the compromis.

The next task was to open a bank account.  We poked around in the barn for a form of transport to get into town, emerging with an odd pair of velos: a rusty orange one with white tyres suitable for pre-teenage girls, and a rusty ladies mountain bike.  After a brief overhaul, they were deemed roadworthy and off we went, The Squidge striking an elegant pose on the pre-teen machine, and me looking macho on the ladies mountain bike.

Thus, seemingly several hours later, we arrived on our bikes at the front door of Credit Agricole, looking rather sophisticated and wealthy(!), an image presumably somehow lost in visual translation, as, within seconds of our arrival, the YTS boy was nominated to look after our financial affairs.  It transpired that we were to be Emmanuel’s first ever clients, and after all parties recovered from their initial apprehensions (him clearly mentally questioning our fiscal standing as he looked over our shoulders and out of the window at our trusty steeds locked up outside, and us wondering whether he knew what he was doing), everything, as usual, turned out fine. 

After a brief and awkward silence as Emmanuel worked out whether I really meant our projected income for next year would be that low, or whether I’d got the French numbers wrong and had amusingly come up with something insanely unsustainable (I hadn’t), we shook hands and left with a lovely plastic ring binder for our subsequent bank statements, and a stylish chequebook holder (blissfully free of those dangerous cheques).  Talking of which, how civilised to be asked at one point ‘How would you like your chequebook to open, from the left or upwards?’.  After my projected income admission earlier, I wouldn’t be surprised if it arrives next week padlocked shut, actually.

We did talk at one point about going for the Britline English language account, but then forgot and went for the standard Credit Agricole account, which I think is actually a good thing as it will force us to speak French rather than English each time we need to do some banking - very good project management tool, forgetfulness. 

So, with another two months to go until we move south, we’ll need to ensure that we’ve got all our paperwork ready for health, tax, utilities etc etc etc, and ‘upload’ the B&B website, which we’re finishing off this week.  I say ‘upload’ - I have no idea if that’s the right term or not - Squidge takes care of these new-fangled modern things. 

We’ve also got those couple of months to continue grappling with the language, before we thrust ourselves headlong into trying to make a living.  We’ve given up on Creepy Michel recently in favour of France-Culture on the radio.  They have three hour debates each afternoon about homosexuals and Cezanne (separately….I think), and some of it is starting to make sense.

A bientot, Mark