With the cold weather we have had a pretty quiet time for last few days. The oil-fired central heating is working well (although the level in the tank is falling too rapidly for my pocket’s liking!) but this is an old and rather draughty house. Ah well, on goes the jumper. I have done some insulation between the cellar roof / house floors, but we do need more insulation in the attics. We had a company come out to give us a quote – they pump a type of cotton fibre in to a depth of 200mm. €9,000 ! Even allowing that we can reclaim 40% of that against tax next year, that’s quite a lot. I’m looking at other possibilities, as I really don’t want to use fibreglass. Sheep’s wool would be perfect, but I haven’t found a supplier yet. There are a number of websites with classified ads and chat forums so I have asked if anyone knows of a supplier – so I live in hope.

We hope we have finished the Christmas shopping – just a couple of perishables to get. We had a bit of snow last night, and the road outside our house turned into a bit of an ice rink – a couple of cars were abandoned for the night at the bottom of the hill. This morning the tractors are out clearing the roads, but I don’t think we’ll be going anywhere today.

Took our tetanus jabs out of the fridge last night (before the snow) and nipped up to the doctors with them. A quick jab, and we have to have another one in a month. He also wants us to have blood tests – so we have to the laboratory in Objat and get them done. A bit of paperwork to sort out to get some of the money we have spent reimbursed, and we don’t have our Cartes Vitale (health cards) yet, but we are getting there.

Returning to UK on Tuesday – so hope that all the roads have been cleared here and there before then.

A happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year!

Joyeux Noël et une nouvelle année prospère

Quite a busy couple of days – for us at least. Tuesday we were in Objat, with two main purposes in mind. We have received a social security number, but not yet got the actual “Cartes Vitales”, which are the ones you present to doctors, chemists, hospitals etc. Judy discovered that for getting a prescription the social security number was enough – although we should get the Carte soon. Although this pays for most of your treatment, it is recommended that you get top-up insurance which pays the rest and will cost about €1,000 a year for both of us. One rather surprising element was that our new doctor had asked if we had had tetanus jabs recently. We haven’t, so the prescription included two doses for tetanus, diptheria and polio, which we were sternly told to take home and keep in a plastic bag in the veg drawer of the fridge, until we took them to the doctor to give to us.


The second thing we had to do was to change my mobile from pay a you go to a contract. PAYG is fine, but here the cards are time limited – even one for €25 may only be valid for a couple of months. The nice lady in the phone shop told me that if I did take out a basic low-cost contract, I would have to have a new mobile number. To keep my old one would involve a discussion with Orange customers services. After a bit of thought I decided that 1. Only a couple of people have my mobile number so telling them a new one wouldn’t be a problem, and 2. I hate talking to customer services in any language. So a new number it is.

We then went to look in the local wine merchants in the town. What a great place. A huge choice of wines, from the really expensive to, and I kid you not, the draught white at €1.20 per litre (or red or rosé) which comes via a baby petrol pump straight into your plastic bottle or other container. What a lot of experimenting we have to do….

Today we had a drive around looking for a couple of last Christmas presents. (By the way Christmas cards are on their way as soon as the lady in Voutezac post office gets a new supply of the relevant stamps). We first went to Donzenac, a really pretty mediaeval village about 20km away.

 Sadly, and not surprisingly, nearly all the interesting shops have shut over the winter, so we’ll have to keep on looking. On the way back we called in at the vet in Pompadour to check that they can give Bertie the jab for his pet passport the day before we hit the Chunnel for an English Christmas – all OK.

When we went into Brive on Friday we had a really good lunch at a very nice restaurant which specialises in Correzian dishes. So you will probably be a bit surprised to learn that on Sunday we decided to go for a drive into the Dordogne and had lunch in an Irish pub. It was nice, filling, food, and it was enjoyable chatting to the owner, but (aside from the fact we were the only customers), it isn’t difficult to understand why Irish and British food doesn’t have quite the same reputation as the French variety. Mind you we may go back again for the quiz night…..

A pretty quiet week – we’ve written all the Christmas cards, got most of the presents, and gloried in the fact that we are returning to UK for the actual celebration, so someone else can do all the hard work!

I am hoping to set up a small business here, doing property floorplans and photography. To help me with the setting up the local Franco-British Chamber of Commerce arranged for me to meet a very nice and helpful French lady from the Brive Chamber of Commerce, whose job it is to help small businesses start. She seemed reasonably impressed by my plans, and was able to explain the steps I have to take – although the system I want to be under is comparatively simple, there are still a few bureaucratic hurdles to overcome.

I’ll keep you posted.

For those of you who are not quite sure whereabouts in France we are (and it is a very big place):

I'ts been a very quiet week, but I suppose that's why we came here..

Set up a Skype account - we are now able to make free calls over the internet all over the world. I think that's a great idea.

The prices here are no longer cheaper than in UK - in fact some things are a fair bit dearer. However part of this is obviously the exchange rate, and as we came here when the rate was virtually parity, we hope that if it climbs we will be better off. The people to feel sorry for are those who came to France or Spain when the rate was 1.60, or have their money invested in funds paying hardly any interest. Fuel, especially diesel, is cheaper even now, and costs such as local taxes are lower too. We still keep an eye on the shopping bill, and there is even a Lidl nearby for when we are feeling particularly mean.

The weather has been pretty good for the last few days - mostly sunny and temperatures around 15c - rather better than UK we hear. We have had a few exploratory drives while going shopping, and the countryside and views around here are really wonderful - come and see!

I have discovered that there is a branch of the Franco-British Chamber of commerce in Brive, and they are happy, in fact very keen, to help me through the bureaucratic hurdles of setting up a small business. We have a meeting tomorrow week, and I am really looking forward to it.

A very quiet week - though after a weekend with Rachel, most weeks would seem fairly peaceful....

We are still getting builders around to give us quotes for the building work we want - I know that a good builder should be a  busy builder, but it can be quite hard work actually getting the quotes - so no change from England there.

On Wednesday we drove up to the North of Limousin to visit David Brown, who runs a business doing floorplans over here. We have met once before, and he was keen to see my elevated camera gear at work. He'll put in his ads that he can provide this service, and I can also help out if he has any floorplan work down our way. I need to formally set up a small business - not as easy as in UK, so I am seeking advice.

On Sunday we tried another Church for Judy - this time in the village of Limeuil in the Dordogne. Rather a distance away (over an hour and a half drive), but they hold Protestant services every Sunday. Jude enjoyed the service (which had far more worshippers than the church in Filkins ever seemed to have), while Bertie and I wandered around the village, along the banks of the river (it's in a spectacular location where the Dordogne and Vezere rivers join) and I had a coffee. After the service there was a "bring it yourself" lunch with wine and bread provided - very enjoyable. We'll go again but perhaps not every week. While there is a well-established Anglican church set up in the Dordogne, there seems to be nothing formal yet anywhere near us. We have found out about a group that meets in someone's home on Wednesdays in Pompadour near us, so Judy will be contacting them.