FRANCE 2015 Chapter 1

Well, here we are in France! Our flight over was long and tiring as they always are, and then we were delayed in Istanbul for almost an hour, but we arrived finally, and were delighted to see the smiling face of our host who had come to collect us.

I have a few notes in my diary about our few hours wait in Istanbul, such as ……….I inadvertently  locked my phone and had to send frantic messages home to get a special code sent to me to unlock it again.

And …….we watched in amusement as a toddler ran the wrong way along a moving walkway, only to be returned to his starting point as soon as he stopped for breath. It kept him amused for ages.

And ……..the snow was falling over the airport as we waited; drifting down in lazy swathes but melting as it touched the ground.

We wandered through the shops but everything was far too expensive. Neels, however, decide to buy an ice-cream in a cup from a young man all dressed in traditional Turkish costume and was later sorry to have done so. The ice-cream was a strange sticky mixture and very sweet, but quite nice but the price left a somewhat sour taste in his mouth – it cost almost R80!

It wasn’t long before we were back at our host’s house near Peyrusse Vieille, where our little car was standing waiting for our return. Although we were delighted to see our hostess again, we couldn’t wait to fall into bed, and had a wonderful sleep in the cosiest of beds.

The following day we had shaken off our travel weariness and were ready to be sociable. Our first engagement was to have lunch with my cousin who lives not far away. She is a wonderful cook and treated us to a delicious meal, interspersed with much chat about family and friends. It was a most pleasant day.

The next day, Thursday, was an important one. This was the day that we had set aside to go to Auch to apply for renewal of our residence permits. Last year we had been told that if we came again this year, they would in all likelihood renew our permits for five years, so we were eager to find out what would happen. Everything went very smoothly as, by now, we know the procedure and had all the documents, copies of documents and copies of copies that they require. When she had been through it all and seemed satisfied, Neels asked her rather tentatively if there was a chance of a longer renewal than just the one year. ‘Oh yes,” she replied, “Would you like ten years?”. Wow! Ten years! We could hardly believe it and then common sense kicked in and we asked what the different permits would cost. It turned out that to renew for ten years would cost just about double the cost for one year, so it is really a no brainer, But, of course there is a snag. There is always a snag when things sound too good to be true. Our address in France is the one of the house we usually stay in, but this year we are not there, so strictly speaking, it isn’t our address. But to be accepted as an applicant for a ten-year residency permit we need to be validated by the Mayor of the local Commune (Municipality). Ooops!! So we spent the rest of the day driving all over the countryside trying to find the Mayor’s secretary, who works in more than one village each week. We know her quite well and as she speaks excellent English, she is the best person to advise us on how to get around this glitch. So we have had no option but to stay on in Peyrusse Vieille until after Monday afternoon when she is in office again. Awkward for our hosts and ourselves, but our hosts are being extremely kind and generous about the whole affair.

We are also required to provide a letter, in French, requesting that our permits be extended for ten years, so it was off to my cousin again yesterday to ask her to write an appropriate letter as she is fluent in French. We ended up staying for a light lunch with her and lots more chat.

All this running around and expending nervous energy decreed that we have a day of rest, so on Saturday while our hosts went off to town to do numerous chores,  we stayed home close to the fire. The weather, up to this point had been flawless with brilliant blue skies and no wind, but we had had good views of the Pyrenees in all their snow-clad splendour, so we knew some ‘weather’ was on the way. The locals always say that if you can see the mountains clearly, it will rain within the next five days, and they are often correct.

Sunday was once again brilliantly sunny and windless but hardly warm! We had invited our hosts to lunch at a restaurant of their choice, and the one they chose was one built to resemble a boat, on the edge of the lake at Marciac. Thank goodness we had booked, as it was choc-a-block when we arrived at 12.30. All the tables are ‘window tables’ and waiting for service was a pleasure, as we could look out of the huge windows, across the lake and to the view beyond. Although, I have to just add that we hardly had to wait at all in spite of the crowd. The set menu consisted of a soup, starter, main course and dessert, with choices in each case except for the soup. It was all delicious and beautifully cooked. We rolled off the boat completely stuffed!

Although we love our hosts dearly and enjoy being with them, I shall be pleased to move on to our next stop as the house we are currently in, is a bit isolated and down in a hollow, so does not have Internet or cell phone coverage. If we lived here, in this house, it wouldn’t worry me too much, and we would eventually ‘make a plan’, but right now, in our situation, I would really like to know if all our bits of technology had made the transition from South Africa to France successfully. If you finally receive this, you will know that the answer is ‘Yes’.