Prequel to the Magic of life

 

The first day we moved into our new converted barn in France was a hive of activity, in part because we had just barely returned from California. After a 3 months stint out west, and following a couple days to get our bearings in the UK, we headed south to our new home in France. We were still jetlagged.

Don't believe anyone who tells you they don't feel jetlag after a couple of days back! The rule of thumb is one day per hour's difference before you are properly back to the right time zone. Whether or not you open your eyes at the right time, your body may be there, the mind tends to be elsewhere for a few more days!

To say there is a marked difference between California and France is seemingly obvious, yet I will point out some of the perhaps less obvious practical changes that one can't take for granted when first setting up home in another country. One key difference, that may seem trite, is that there is free wifi EVERYWHERE in California. In France it is somewhat of a "who you know" type of deal...unless you have a French mobile phone provider who let's you have access to their hotspots... and getting a French mobile on a contract is fun in itself. Read below for more on that!

Our move was planned for May 1st. For readers not familiar with France, I think we may have the most bank holidays on the planet, certainly in the month of May. May 1st being the first one of them in the month. That was the day we were officially moving in. We'd signed rental papers at the notaire's the day before. Amazingly they were open, which is not a given! Depending on which the day of the week the 1st of May falls, us French folk love nothing more than to stretch a bank holiday into a long weekend. May 1st of 2012 being a Tuesday, there was every likelihood, the notaire's staff might have taken the Monday off too! The owner (our new landlord) had kindly agreed to leave the old school French ritual of "let's all meet and sit around the table signing papers" until the last possible moment. This was due to our having to extend our trip in California unexpectedly and our landlord likely negotiated for the notaire to be available on a Monday. It wasn't her notaire; it was his colleague who met us for the sign-fest.

The house we are renting is right next to a piece of property we had bought at the end of 2011. So we are renting what was our neighbor's summer house. Our property is a large scale renovation project of another barn of similar size to the one we are renting. We thought it best we test living out in rural France before getting into a massive "grand design" type project.

When we first visited our neighbor's house it was winter and the fire was lit and it seemed warm and cozy. Fast forward to the spring/summer and it's a different story. The sun beaming through to show every cobweb, every speck of dust, every smear. Verging on the point of OCD, my husband and I enthusiastically tackled each of the 300 square metre property, armed with cleaning products and vacuum cleaners. With every window in the house open and music blaring out (we have no other neighbors to bother which is rather awesome) we went about our business to get the house ready to move into.

This went on for 2 weeks straight and in the meantime we were looking into reconnecting to the outside world with a phone and internet connection at the house and also getting some French mobile phones.

All of which was naturally impossible until we had a French bank account!

Getting a French bank account became my next goal. To say that we love bureaucracy in France is an understatement. Luckily, I had come prepared. So all it took was showing as many documents as possible, to prove my identity, proof of residence and of course source of income to book an appointment with a lovely bank manager to "apply" for an account. I say, "apply" deliberately, as despite being uber ready with all my paperwork, there was no guarantee the bank would open an account for me. In fact it actually took several more weeks before they opened the account. And a while longer, before I was allowed to have a debit card to get any of my money out of it. I've still not been granted cheque book privileges almost a year on! The moral of the story was that phones would have to wait until the next trip. We still had no access to wifi or the ability to do anything remotely linked to the 21st century!

We were totally cut off which was fine until we had some unexpected visitors which I will tell you about in the next post.