Hamburg!
Wow what a great place!I have never travelled to Germany and I am not sure what I expected, indeed we joked before we flew whether anyone else would be on the flight!But what a lovely City, on the water, very wealthy, very British, bustling with activity. Well worth a visit, as is Luneburg near to where our friends Roy, Andrea & Sebastion live. Another lovely town with some wonderful buildings.


Picture of Luneburg by the River


Picture Of Square in Luneburg


Hamburg



Hamburg


We had a lucky escape on the journey home as the Ryanair plane had a fualt and could not return to Marseille. We initially faced the prospect of a 48 hour delay, as Ryanair only fly in every two days, until Ryanair bumped off all the passengers destined for Stansted, giving us their aircraft and flying them home later that night.

This week has been extremely busy with appointments at the Notaire regarding the sale of our house in Rue Pasteur, the bank complaining about their charges which we managed after almost an hour and a half to get reimbursed and reduced, a fleeting visit to Marseille and Avignon for building materials and finally an appointment with our Notaire for Saturday 14th April for the final signing of the land.

Richard arrives tomorrow, we sign the 'Comprimise' on Rue Pasteur Saturday and then head off ski ing Sunday.

We are leaving today for a weekend in Hamburg, Germany to stay with fellow defectors who left England last year.Having spent so much energy learning French we suddenly realised that we know barely any German other than hello and thank you - that seems strange and at least makes us appreciate how our French has come on although at times we do wonder.

Like in the UK the weather has been much cooler this week although still sunny. We had reason to celebrate - our first house sale - although it happens to be our own village house. I spent last Thursday showing a really nice English couple 9 houses and they fell in love with ours. So we sign next weekend and hopefully complete in June. On Friday we went to see this house for our client who is seeking land for hunting. We hope she will now come and visit as there are possibilities to buy a further 25 hectares.

We have at long last had cofirmation that the cut off date for neighbours to object to our planing is the 14th April, so far there have been none although the infamous Irish lady who has obstructed our original access has not been here this year (she is coming at Easter) so we hope she will not cause any problems. All being well we can then sign on the dotted line !18 months after we first saw the land. Our builder has his teams on stand bye so construction should commence in May and take 12 to 14 months.
The saga with EDF goes on as do the bank charges - I gave up calling them asking to see the manager and instead waited 40 minutes in a queue to to get a rendevous next week - that will be interesting.

The last week has been occupied visiting houses for prospective clients and reporting back our findings. We currently have a few irons in the fire from a client seeking a Ski Chalet in the Alps where we think we might have unearthed a little gem that is not on the market to another client seeking a house with 25 Hectare of Hunting land where we might have peiced together enough land with a stunning house which we are seeing Friday - at 2.6 Million its worth getting excited for!
Last Friday and Saturday we experienced the strongest Mistral wind so far, it really would have blown the tails of donkeys! and it was very cold but has thank fully blewn away as fast as it arrived.


On Sunday we joined two French, two Americans and 7 Brits for a superb Sunday lunch in a Wine Domain afterwhich we watched England beat France in the Rugby - needless to say one or two drinks were consumed.
We have now completed the internal refurbishment of this villa, re have rewired, fitted a new kitchen, 2 new bathrooms, installed heating, re plastered the lounge and redecorated.And finally we re tiled all the floors. The outside is next with the garden to sort, and the re rendering due to be started in April plus a new terrace around the pool ( picture shows the wood arriving)


We are experiencing one or two final teething problems on the land with access and drainage but hopefully will sort soon. The Electric bill is still under dispute!
This week has started busy with french lessons, a meeting with the Marie about the planning, more builders merchants and I am out with a client Thursday visiting 9 houses. I am also in the process of taking the roof apart to clean and replace tiles etc whilst Karen is hard at work in the garden.

We left our Olivier hatched man on the case this morning as we had a rendevous elsewhere - we returned to find the trees had quite a haircut - here is the before and after!







We called into the bank on route home to request if it is possible to be allowed to extract more than the weekly limit of 450€ (Three hundred pounds)on our cash card. After recieving a strict warning permission was granted - how grateful we are to have access to our own money. We also checked that the 'direct debit to EDF would not be paid for the latest bill -signed a form - and blow me before I have even got home they have charged 11.63 for the pleasure - I know where we are going tomorrow!

The elusive EDF letter still did not arive at the weekend! We went to the market in Apt Saturday, it was showing signs of awakening up to Spring with more stall holders returning from there winter travels, we met friends for a lunchtime glass of vino afterwhich returned for a little light housework! In the evening we went to one of our favourite restaurants in the village 'Estrade' which had just reopened after thier winter break. Unlike in the UK, a restaurant can shut for 10 weeks and the patrons soon return on opening.



Sunday was a true spring day, warm almost hot sunshine, we walked 10 kilometres early in the morning and worked through the afternoon in the garden.






This morning ( Monday) we were greeted early by the Olivier specialist - he has been cutting Olive trees over 40 years! Just 3 trees produced an incredible amount of wood to burn . Like much of our home they had not be looked after properly for years and looked alot happier for a severe cut.

Well no surprise - we arrive at the offices of EDF to find it closed!It is quite incredible - a huge Public company - a big town - there are people arriving every few minutes and there is nobody there! It is so French! So I call them up again to be told a letter is on its way ( not before about 4 people sign & stamp it!) Whilst I'm in the moaning mood - Banking - I've mentioned it before - I just went to take out 700€ to pay the guy who is working on the house - my first account - Sorry no - your maximun weekly limit is 390€ - (I had this increased to a thousand but obviously they changed it back) so I go to my second acount -( another bank) the allowance is Zero as I took the limit out last Friday!!! So I have to wait until tomorrow for cash - Well I guess this is the price you paying for living in paradise!!

well the bill arrived - and as expected its gone up even further - now 9482€. So today we once again head to the offices of EDF.

Last Friday evening we started our weekend with new french friends who we recently met.They are also building a house nearby to us.It was nice to feel we could get through a couple of hours spoken mostly in French, something we certainly could not do when we came here.
We spent Saturday with our client showing him 5 houses. We await the out come. On arrival home we had a letter from EDF, the Electricity people stating that as our bill was unpaid,unless they recieved payment by Tuesday they would terminate our supply! I spent 40 minutes on the phone trying to explain what the problem was but with no success.
Thankfully we could put this worry to one side Sunday as we joined 3 other couples for lunch. It really was the perfect way to pass a Sunday, a wet one too, sitting at the table for over 4 hours - most enjoyable.
We contacted EDF Monday to be told there computers were down - nothing they could do! We decided to go to their local offices - 28 kilomtres away in Cavaillon. Can you believe it was closed 'exceptional'. We were becoming a little fraught - so we called on a friend who is fluent in French for help. Her phone cal revealed that EDF have now issued a revised invoice which we await with trepidation!

Where did the last week go! Saturday was taken up viewing houses on behalf of the client who comes out this Saturday, a brief lunch with friends ( infact we arrived for desert!), and then a rendevous with the builder Thijs. Sunday was a day of house work despite 'not working' it was the first opportunity of the week.
Richard arrived Monday for a flying visit, it was nice to see him and here the news of his latest job.

We went to Fontaine de Vaucluse , where normally a natural under ground water source creates a torrent of water leading to the River Sorgue. This picture shows the source - rather dry- quite worrying really.




After getting Richard back to the airport just in the nick of time for his flight we had a lovely day in builders Merchants & DIY stores buying exotic items such as high pressure water cleaners! Today, has been a repeat as we are about to order the decking for our terrace and 'Enduit' to re render our villa. There are 3 key players in the building merchants market and of course we have to get the best price which means lengthy discussions with each. A french man does not know the meaning of a quick conversation!

After painting the wardrobe doors in our bedroom this morning we adjourned to work in the garden, particularly as it was such a beautiful day. On our terrace, whilst we sat having lunch the temperature in the sun hit 26 degrees, crazy for mid February! Still we are not complaining.




Having given up a regular income we have to take any opportunities to save money! - we need a large supply of stones to cover our borders, which thankfully are closeby, we continue up our road, until it becomes a track where there is a plentiful, free supply.How times have changed!

I finally thrashed out a deal with our Dutch builder last night. We had planned an 'AF' , alcohol free! but it seemed a good reason to celebrate! Needless to say we were both laying awake to the small hours, Karen planing bathrooms, me swimming pools! French class this morning which once I survived the first hour on 'Pronouns', what ever they are, was good. Lovely afternoon walking in the sun, planning all there is ahead of us.

I have not blogged for the last 10 days - simply a lack of time - I don't know how I ever fitted in going to work! Despite not 'going out to work' the way we used to we still look forward to weekends, which we normally reserve for more leisurely and social activities. Last weekend was no exception with a visit to the Saturday market in Apt in the morning, after which we always stop for our customary beer, whilst in the afternoon I was on car washing duties (something I rarely do these days)and Karen watched the Rugby. In the evening we went to friends, who live in part of the Gite complex we originally thought we would buy, for dinner. They are establishing a business exporting Provencal building materials to the USA.
On Sunday we went to Lunch with some other friends who have a beautiful, restored house with several acres of Olive Trees. It really was what Sundays are all about - sitting outside in warm early spring sunshine, eating great provencal food with good wine & company.

One down side of living abroad is not seeing as much of close friends & Family although many have already visited. This brings me to the subject of children. Most people reading this know Richard well, but perhaps less about my daughter Sarah.
Richard has been working as the assistant editor on a forthcoming film 'Rise of the footsoldier' which will be released later in the year and previewed in London. The trailer which he also edited is being shown at the Berlin Film Festival. I know he has been working flat out since Christmas working almost every night, all through the night. This picture is of Richard with Billy Murray who is in the film.



In between this he has also been creating websites for a number of celebrities and seems to have carved out quite a succesful career and both Karen & I are very proud of him! That's my boy!! He hates me saying that! He is coming out here next week for a couple of days and skiing with us in April.

Unfortunately I have not seen Sarah for almost 10 years now - which is incredible, and hard to believe. Richard took this picture which I really like. I do occasionally speak with her on the phone and I hope that one day curiosity will get the better of her and we will see each other again. She is currently working in a restaurant having completed her A levels.




This past week has flown by. Much of it has been taken up with me negotiating with our chosen builder who we have yet to formally appoint.It has not been for the lack of trying. We had 4 quotes, two from large constructors and two from private builders. We would like to use 'Thijs' a Dutch guy who has been in this area a long time and has built a house for friends nearby. His quote is though substantially higher than the others. My efforts to lower these have so far failed as each time he comes round he finds differences in the build specs and so insists that he will build us a better house! I think he is right but I can't help but want to negotiate and have so far only managed to persude him to include about 15000€ worth of extras. We parted company Friday evening with me trying to persuade him to upgrade our shutters, which he resisted - seems like I have almost met my match! Anyway we are going into battle again Monday afternoon. He is quite a loud chap but I think he will do a good job, we can communicate (he is bi-lingual)which is really important as we will be project managing the construction programme.


We had quite a shock on Tuesday - our Electricity bill arrived -




this is over Six Thousand pounds for two months! God I hope it's a mistake. I think and hope that the readings when we first moved in have been transposed. EDF are coming out in two weeks - well this is Provence. Can you believe we went to the bank to cancel the standing order and they have already debited our account with over 23 € for doing this! A letter to the manager will be forthcoming.

We took our Mercedes in for it's first service, at 29,000 Kilometres, and were pleasantly surprised at a bill of 180 pounds. Whilst the car was in the garage we went shopping catching the tail end of the sales. This was the first time we had been to Avignon for several months and the first time we had bought any clothes for ages! being a little more circumspect these days we were rather chuffed with our purchases - Karen buying a pair of trousers and a blouse for 45€ and me two shirts , trousers and slippers for 40€ - real bargains!

We are back on the house search front for a new client. With 1 to 1.3 Million € to spend he is coming out Saturday week to view. So we are off viewing on his behalf this week.

Yesterday, we had a real treat! Truffle Hunting & Lunch. 11 of us headed up towards Mont Ventoux. Unfortunately the weather was more like the North Moors than Provence!
Truffles are selling for 700€ a Kilo, abt 500 Pounds.


The farmer took us with his Dogs, one of whom is a champion, to his land and with in minutes the dogs were finding the truffles. They are just a few inches under the soil, and grow on the roots of truffle Oaks.


After this we returned to the Farm house for an apperitif of Kir with a wild Mushroom hors d'oeuvre . We were then served a fantastic meal comprising of Lambs Lettuce salad leaves with Truffle shavings. Next we had Scrambled Eggs with Truffles!, then mashed Potato topped with, yes Truffles and then seperately Roast Lamb (reared on their farm). After this we had Brie filled with Truffle and finally Ice Cream with No Truffle! This was all washed down by Copius amounts of Vin rouge, with coffee and a Digestif, all for 40€ a head.




What was an eye opener was that the farmer collected over 500 pounds of Truffles in the hour we were out with him, they entertained us on produce all produced on the farm (except the wine) and everything was paid for in Cash - No cards , no wonder he was always smiling!
Sunday today - managed to walk 10 Kilometres this morning, now time to relax , we are watching the first series of 24 - It has been doing the rounds here with the Ex Pats! before a busy week ahead, French lessons, house hunting etc......

Today is a day that I thought we may never see! We got our planning notices which we put up on the site giving any neighbours the opportunity to object to our planning.(They get 2 months).



Over the last 2 days we have met with our architect,constructors, plumbers & electricians trying to decide on who to use.
We have also been busy Home hunting - showing a prospective client a peice of land that we had found and await their decision - deal or no deal! Based on the quotes we are getting to build we could certainly do with it!It is cerainly not cheap in France but it is beautiful! and we would not swop it for anything.

Could not help but add this one - have you seen the size of my wife's Pineapples! Just a Euro each!

Feeling like a stalker I once again laid in wait for the post lady at Rue Pasteur hoping she would deliver our long awaited planning permission (it was being delivered there as that was our address when we submitted the planning) but as yesterday, nothing arrived. So after lunch (the Maire's office only opens in the afternoon),I turn up asking to speak with Pascal the planning officer. I am shown thru (walking past the great man, the Maire, at his desk!) to Pascal who assures me he posted the approved planning consent on Monday. So where is it I ask? He directs me to the Post Office to see if they have it. On entering (I was hoping it would be empty) I wish everyone 'bonjour', which is normal here and when I get my turn ask if they have a letter for me from the Maire. I am not sure whether I should be pleased or not but they already now who I am and my name - thats another story!
Anyway the answer is no but the very helpful lady offers to call Pascal at the Maire's office. It goes with out saying that two of her colleagues also became involved leaving other customers queueing curiously! Despite Pascal's assurance of posting it, it gradually became apparent that it had not been posted and then to his surprise he found it under his desk - there it was - no wonder the post woman never brought it!! So we have it, planning to build a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom & 3 reception room house where we will live with 2 attached 1 bedroom ' gites', which will share our pool.




This house will be on the land pictured and slightly lower down we will build a second 3 bedroom detached house with it's own pool - reservations for 2008 now being taken!

Last week we continued to enjoy the tropical winter, so got out in the garden and did some much needed work. It is a bit like the Forth Bridge!I am sure the bit we did had been done before!As the weather changed mid week we moved inside to re-acquaint ourselves with decorating, I even managed to do some wall papering something I have not done for almost 20 years!
Our House hunting work continues with us stumbling across a gem of a house for one of our clients, half built and over 270m² it is a great project, we hope they will visit next week. Our translations have come up with some more great descriptions:

'its ceilings with the Frenchwoman, her old doors used by time.'
'No harmful effect of neighbors, road, etc.'
'Do not seek any more.! Its scarcity makes an exception of it'
'The inn receives 25 forks and spoons - Why on sale?? So that the current Master of this magic place, can during his retirement, enjoy happy and peaceful days.!!!

On Friday, Ian & Kath came to stay for the weekend.


They like us used to live in Weybridge and left the UK in August 2004 for Australia ( it was their first visit). Although they have 3 children we have a huge amount in common and miss their frienship a great deal. The weekend flew by and we enjoyed flowing conversation, food & wine. As they left us Monday we knew it will be a few years before we see each other again. After they had gone we had one of those rare moments where you realise how much you miss good friends. We have met lots of people here and made many friends & acquaintences but it takes time to get to know people really well and there is nothing better than being with people who you feel really comfortable with, to have a good debate and put the world to right!

Like the UK it has turned bitterly cold here. Only Saturday we sat outside having lunch.Today we had light snow and the high was minus 1 wth minus 10 forecast tonight.Still the fire is alight and we are warm.
We are still awaiting our planning for the main house. I went to the Maire today but the planning guy was not in so I will return Thursday. It is so frustrating as we cannot move forward and there is so much to do.Still thats life in Provence.Enjoy!

Well the postman finally called! and the man from Delmonte - he say Yes! After 14 months we have our planning permission - well actually half - to build one house but we can't build that with out the second ( our main house with gites) so we await the second planning application which we are told is on its way this week! It was all too much for me! I just had to chill !

A number of people have asked of our new family member Ginger the cat! So I thought I would introduce you to our family!

'My name is Matisse. I was named after a famous French artist so its only right I live in France.I am 8 years old. I am the eldest of my litter and am the boss of the house. When not sleeping with my Mum (Karen), I spend my time checking that every thing in the house is done properly, especially with any workman that are here.I also enjoy walking around our garden and keeping an eye on my brother Splodge and the new member Ginger who is a bit of a french tart!'




'I am Splodge. When I was a kitten I was dropped on my head.I often forget things for example I walk across the garden and when I get there wonder why I came! I love climbing trees but most of all I love chasing the new cat that has arrived called Ginger. She thinks she is smart but I catch her all the time. She speaks a funny language too.'


'Bonjour, Mon nom est Ginger. Je suis Française et mes parents maintenant habiter en Australie. Je habite à St Saturnin Les Apt maintenant avec le grand chat noir et blanc,il est anglais, il est un despote!. J'adore Matisse'

We have managed to get back into routine this week with our French class Tuesday morning and one to one lessons also resuming.After 3 weeks with English people French suddenly seems so hard again!
Yesterday we walked 9 Kilometres to Villars a neighbouring village, the walk takes in great views, vineyards and Cherry Orchards.Lovely!


We are also on the Home Hunts trail, viewing houses and meeting with agents plus of course translating and correcting some of the agents details before they appear on line. Here are one or two examples : 'OBSERVATIONS: A house, where one smells well. Ideal second home.'
To 2 km of the village, not insulated
'raised swimming pool 10 X 5 and cook of summer' ?
OBSERVATIONS: A sympathetic, ideal house - great family.

Today was the day we were supposed to get our planning consent by, the 11th Jan, We almost frightened the postman to death in our enthusisam to get our post but sadly nothing came, we are told tomorrow! guess we should have known better - watch this space.


Took this picture at sun rise this morning, the mist, caused by the heat, engulfed us until about 10am when it cleared to give yet another Sunny day. 20 degress is forecast for the weekend, its crazy! Strawberries are out as are Poppies!

A perfect Sunday! We walked today with friends for 10 Kilometres taking in stunning views after which we returned to theirs for soup, cheese, bread and of course wine! what more could one ask?