Cold Remedies

For some reason, my Sky Digibox isn't working at the moment. I can get the menu but a message tells me there is no satellite connection. So I missed last night's episode of FlashForward. A bit of a bugger but I can catch up later if I get a connection...

Instead I watched Capital on French tele's M6. It's one of the few programmes I like watching because it gives some good information on a variety of topics. Yesterday they were talking about improving the insulation on houses which has become big business due to the increase in fuel prices. Many companies have jumped on the bandwaggon and offer a complete service ranging from replacing windows, insulating the roof and walls, and installing the right heating system.

It's incredibly expensive though. One retired couple with a fairly large old house (210m²) were presented with an estimate of 210,000Eur to completely renovate the house. Horrific!

One of the selling points that sales reps ram down the throats of prospective customers is the magic 'credit impot' which is a tax rebate on some of the money spent. What people don't know, however, is how it works, and much fury has been engendered by people discovering too late that they didn't get as much as they were promised by the slimy rep.

To start with, you'll only get money back if you use a professional to install the equipment. BUT you only get a rebate on the cost of the equipment, not the installation. Also, the Fisc (French tax office) will only give a rebate up to a maximum of 8000Eur, or 16000Eur for a couple. The couple paying out 210K would not get any more than one paying out 20K. The level of rebate is not the same for all types of equipment, so while a pompe à chaleur (heat pump?) gets 50%, insulation material is rebated at 25%.

There are all sorts of other conditions too, so if you live and pay your taxes in France and want to insulate your house, check up on the French government tax site (then Les crédits d'impôt pour dépenses d'équipements dans la résidence principale) to find out exactly what you're entitled to.

I'm not sure how people are going to be able to pay such astronomic prices though, unless the government implements some sort of equity release programme like the UK. My parents benefited from that and their house is now as snug as a bug. Of course, the sum paid will be taken off when the house is sold, but if they have to go into a care home, that'll eat up anything that's over anyway.

I think children these days should renounce on the prospect of inheriting their parent's home. By the time the care home has fleeced them dry, there'll be either nothing left, or no more tuppence ha'penny of which the government will take most in death duties.

Admit it guys, we're on our own, and if you need your parent's money to get somewhere aged 50+, let's face it, you're a loser.

Shame about the House

I don't know what happened to house-building in the 1980s in the village where I live, but it was taken over by some total lunatic who obviously dwelt in a parallel universe.

When you visit houses built during this time, it appears that the lunatic had an obsession with providing a granny flat/rental property integrated into the lower part of the house, or in an adjoining bit. An opportunity, sans doute, for when the owners fell on hard times and could earn a few bob renting to a someone unknown.

Quite who I don't know because there isn't a bus route to speak of and we are nowhere near the centre of town. It's too isolated for students and too quiet for young professionals. I suppose grown-up kids would be able to make use of the space until they left home, but that's hardly lucrative as French parents consider it child abuse to make their adult offspring pay rent.

That leaves granny who might well enjoy such proximity to her daughter/son, but I haven't actually seen much evidence of the generation game being played out.

Frankly would you really want to rent out half your house, when you'd have more enjoyment out of it without a third party popping up and joining you round the pool just when you thought you'd have an al fresco shag...?

There was this house that looked fabulous except that it was, in fact, three separate lodgings, all of them pokey and small. How nul is that?

Villa traditionnelle 3 étages sur 1200m²de Pinède au calme et sans vis à vis. Cette maison est décomposée en 3 appartements: Sous-sol: T2 indépendant de 50m² avec séjour, cuisine, chambre, salle de bains, WC. Rez-de-chaussée: T4 de 100m² Hab avec 3 chambres, grand séjour de 40m², cuisine, 2SDB, WC et Terrasse couverte avec garage de 50m². 1er étage: T3 indépendant avec accès privatif de 62m² avec séjour, 2 chambres, cuisine, salle de bains et WC + grenier.

I saw one place recently where the family lived in half a house, like an apartment, during the winter, and during the summer, opened up the lower half and used that as well. The bedrooms were consequently tiny where they could have been spacious, because the house certainly didn't lack metres²! To reach this part, they had to go out via the front door and walk round as there was no connecting staircase.

The other feature of houses here is that nothing is where you expect it to be, and nothing is where any sane person would put it. Bedrooms are down in dark basements while living quarters are upstairs, and sometimes you even have to go up a set of steps to get to the front door which is on the first floor!

One of houses had been converted, but it looked like the living room was a former utility room/workshop because it was long and narrow, and the back kitchen dining room was previously the garage. Most odd. The pool had been built out of grey stone - granite probably - but was tiled in a similar grey blue and resembled more a chilly Scottish loch than a warm inviting corner of paradise on a hot southern France day.

The lunatic has a lot to answer for because in this day and age when you compare these hellholes to modern construction, the difference is extreme, much more extreme than comparing age old stone houses with today's buildings. Then, they liked to keep it simple, had no delusions of rental potential, and preferred to use the entire house as a cosy home.

It's not as though you can pick up a bargain here either. Prices reflect the location rather than the quality or degree of design. You pay to live here, but it's a high price considering the crap you're obliged to buy for the privilege. You get these dreadful brown floor tiles which are so depressing you reach for the valium as soon as you step through the door. Then there is the fireplace which is heavy and ugly and usually dominates the room. The outside is plastered in super thick crepy and is often dirty from lack of maintenance, while the windows and shutters are painted dark brown making the whole place look dingy and old.

They have not aged well and really, it would be saner just to pull the whole lot down and start again.

Hole in my Door

This is my back door after last night's attempted break-in. There were people in the house, too - upstairs - as it occurred between 10 and 12pm. The door is double-glazed so luckily only the outside glass is broken and I don't have a howling gale blowing into the house.

I had to go the the gendarmes this morning to declare what had happened, and got a right jolly chap who told me he was Spanish, and why did their wretched computer have my nationality down as 'Royaume Uni' rather than Britannique... and if the big heads in Paris just spent a bit more time on the terrain they might have more idea about how to label nationalities... I think he thought I might think they were a bunch of ploucs for having such idiotic mislabelling, and that I would assume it was down to the local gendarmerie who knew no better.

So now I know that it is the ploucs in Paris who are the idiots and put Français for the French, but Royaume Uni for the Brits.

Anyway, having sufficiently railed against the Powers that Be, he took my deposition which I signed and, as I went out, said that he hoped we'd meet again but under different circumstances. I replied cheerily because it's best not to offend those who are responsible for one's safety.

I'm not sure why the hole is down at the bottom of the door. These days, the official norm for door glass is to make it very tough, so kicking it would have been impossible unless you had on a steel-capped boot I suppose. The gendarme asked if there was a stone lying about. There are stones all over the garden including big ones because I live on a hill that was formally either a vineyard or a pine wood, so poor soil and very rocky.

There are also garden tools about and the general mess that you get when you have two boys doing their utmost to render any attempt at graciousness inside or out pointless by leaving stuff everywhere.

Then I thought it might be Ulysse who was trying to make a cat-flap. I questioned him closely with lots of snuggles to lure him into a false sense of security, but all he did was ask for more food and nag to go out. Still, my bet is on him...

Build Ye Not

I've come to the conclusion that I have only one piece of advice to give any prospective married house-builder - don't. The strain on the marriage is such that 30% of couples divorce within a short period after completion. This is why you see 'Notaire 2%' in house sale adverts. It means that notary fees on the house are only 2% instead of 7-8% because the house is less than 2 years old.

My neighbours are building a house in the next village. Today I was peacefully having my lunch when all hell broke loose next door. It's not that I was listening, but they were less than 10m away and shouting, so unless I drew attention to myself and embarrass them totally, I would just have to sit there.

It was all to do with the house and money. This is a common theme because when you decide to build a house, it's rare that you actually manage to calculate the exact cost. It's not just about builders, bricks and mortar. There are all those unforeseen costs like earth shifting, fittings and a tax on new constructions. You also have to build a wall, a driveway and do the garden.

When my ex-h and I were building, the money had already been signed into a building agreement when we decided to divorce so we had to go through with it knowing we would never really live in it. The strain was just as bad but at least it couldn't lead to anything worse than rupture.

I remember one of our nicer builders telling me that he was also having a house built and HE was on the point of divorce. Obviously the flakiness of builders is not confined to punters because they have no respect for the brotherhood either. They turn up or don't turn up on a whim, you can be left waiting for weeks for someone to be free from elsewhere to do some vital piece of work without which no one else can carry on, so they all bugger off to other sites. Then when that piece of work has been done, you can't get the others back because they're all busy on other sites. And so it goes on.

We were actually locked out of our nearly finished house for a couple of months. It took a mild car accident on my part and a fortuitous meeting with an official building expert who'd been my victim to sort it out. When he realised that I was a damsel in distress, exhausted from work, children and building a house that had got blocked, he offered his help for free. Had it not been for him, we might still be going through tedious costly legal procedures.

I hope my neighbours make it unscathed. All is quiet tonight, so hopefully they've found the wherewithal to pay for the latest unforeseen extra cost. They'd better brace themselves though, it's unlikely to be the last!

Tele On

The tele works, but has to be kept on stand-by, or switched off at the mains. The repair guy huffed and grunted his way around the Christmas tree, presents, wires and other sundry objects preventing him from perfect access to the box. In the end, he found he didn't have the right bit, or not enough bits, gave us a bag of bits he'd removed telling us not to lose it under any circumstances (which I fear we've done as I have not seen it in 24hrs) and is coming back next week to finish the job.

At least we are able to watch 'House' again. It's my favourite programme at the moment. Hugh Laurie behaves so badly in it, reminding me a little of the sarcasm and ridicule Baldrick suffered at the hands of Blackadder. It's a very clever series, uses big words (oooer) and, especially for an American series, is totally gripping. Actually, that's not really fair, is it? There are many good American series around at the moment, such as 'CSI', 'Numb3rs', 'Special Victims' Unit', 'Medium' and so on. Still, 'House' is the best, with Hugh Laurie's amazing American accent, and excellent straight acting. It's not a comedy, but he manages to make the odd brutally witty remark even so.

Talking of entertainment, this evening we tried to get to the opera to see the Mercredis d'Opera Junior. I was sure it was at 20H, today, the 20th. I had a desire to get back to being the little culture vulture that I had been before I encountered the world's least culturally interested man and entered a period of cultural life akin to a desert. My parents had taken me to various concerts, ballet and theatre shows when I was younger, and it seems natural to me to expose my little darlings to such events.

They were less enthusiastic. My eldest told me the only music he likes to listen to is rock and could he take his Gameboy? Answer: no. I had to drag them out, a bit on the late side, and make a mad dash into the centre of Montpellier. We parked and then literally ran to the Opera Berlioz.

It was looking remarkably empty and unwelcoming. How odd. Maybe the concert was in the Salle Berlioz of the concert hall on the Esplanade. Another mad dash, madder, in fact because we were really getting to the limit of the hour of 7, and arrived, puffed out, to find it shrouded in gloom with a definite air of shut-ness. Even odder.

There seemed nothing for it but to go home. Hanging around the Place de la Comedie with a sagging credit card and no cash was not inviting. However, the prospect of mulled wine and a good dose of 'House' on the tele at home was, so we made our more leisurely way back to the car, and arrived home. The whole shebang took us 40minutes.

Had we been members of 'Spooks' we could have called up HQ and put in a request to find out what had happened by whatever means they had at their disposal. As it was, I had to wait until we arrived home, then drum my fingers while the Firefox update did its thing, after which I could access the Opera site to find out where we had gone wrong.

The wretched concert had finished. It had started at 19H, not 20H. Oops. It had cost, prepaid, 21€ too. Plus 2€ parking. Oh bugger!

I'll have to get more organised if the boys are to experience a little culture other than admiring flashing glimpses of the city centre at night and standing before the closed doors of the Montpellier Opera House.

Ah me, I should have checked. Obviously 20/12 became 20H 20/12. Doh.