Azure butterflies and bluebell woodwork

Tuesday 7 April 2015

Sunny, warm and very warm later

22 degrees

Paint my nails with Chanel Azure, an iridescent bright butterfly blue/green mix and put on some leopard print.  I am a great believer in dressing for the client as it helps to bond with them and enables them to feel confident in working with me.  OH puts on something oatmeal coloured and subsequently far too thick for the wonderful hot Spring day which is to follow.  We are as odd looking a couple as you could hope to see on a Spring morning in a small town in the Pyrenees.

We meet the clients at their flat and have a brief run through of their thoughts about yesterday’s properties.  After a very low start, things developed beautifully and they are very interested in the property on the hill top they saw yesterday.  They are still concerned, however, that it is isolated.  During the day, they did pop up the hill and go and look at it.  Fortunately the owners were out.  Keen owners have put paid to more sales than you would ever have imagined possible.  They feel constrained to point out every last detail.  They become either transparently over-honest and reveal things which only serve to worry but are actually unimportant, or they wildly over-elaborate and the buyers, like scared virgins, run a mile.  There is an art to showing property.

We kick off at just the outskirts of town, in the mix of rural/urban which, it is becoming apparent, is their thing.  The house we see is a tall early 20^th century stone built town house, imposing with its stone framed windows painted a soft dove grey, fine mesh Juliette balconies and steep pitched slate roof.  The interior is modern and stylish with pebble floored shower rooms and huge bathtub.  Ikea paper lampshades explode from the ceilings like great dandelions.  The kitchen is sleek and shining with soft close cupboards and long work surfaces, ideal for preparing and delivering large and delicious dinners, dog legging down into the dining area with its Philip Starck effect ghost chairs.  The large terrace and lower garden are very well received.  OH breathes down my neck, cuts across me and keeps getting in the way, so I leave him to do the visit and hack and splutter behind them all.

We then go and see a renovation project and seem to be there a very long time, after which we are all very thirsty and go and sit in the shade outside of a bar and have coffee.  I talk through the buying process and they go back to their flat and we go for lunch.

OH stays at home to wait for the SFR repair man to come and reconnect us and I go back down town, meet the clients again and take them to a house in a nearby town, last visited when I was feeling ghastly just a couple of days ago.  They love this house even more.  I arrange to meet them again on Thursday and go back into town and see a house with a partner agent.  The house is not up to the specifications these clients are looking for but it is very interesting.  Belonging to Finnish and a holiday home, there is a large sunny sauna and shower room which takes up most of the lower ground floor, and leads onto two bedrooms.  The tall wood lined living room with its wrap around balcony is on the first floor.  Light floods in through the tall French windows.  The kitchen has white wooden units beautifully painted with bluebells and ivy and the wallpaper is a fine pink and white pinstripe design.  Two more bedrooms on the first floor.  Garden disappointingly small otherwise it is an absolutely lovely house and one I could see myself living in.

Back home and oh joy, we are reconnected so I catch up on all the updating of the emails and ring back the eleven people who have left messages on my landline.  I also catch up with the would be buyers of the house in town.  Over Easter, they had come to an agreement to pay a certain amount of damages which may be awarded to the other side if the sellers agree to sell to them.  The sellers advocate had then come back and said they would need to increase their exposure by at least three times so now they are very unhappy and much stressed.  We have supper and by the time we have finished eating, the internet and the phone have disappeared again.  Oh bugger, bugger.

Something happened in Casualty

2 April 2015

Sun!  20 degrees

I started sneezing at midday yesterday and by the time I went to bed, was wheezing and nose was pouring.  I must have woken on the hour every hour, first thirsty,then unable to breathe, then needing the toilet.  Dawn broke and I felt 100 years old so I spent virtually the whole day in bed, until 6 came around and I went to the doctors to pick up some new germs.

Bronchitis, was the doctors diagnosis, so I am antibiotics and the magical Prednisolone, a strong cortisone which kicks germs into touch in no uncertain manner and is much preferable to the intravenous injections of Ventolin which I used to be given in the UK and which made me shake like someone with  delirium tremens.  I normally take an inhaler of low dose cortisone which controls my asthma very well, but because my pulmonary airways are inflamed, I cant inhale it properly.  

A full blown asthma attack is terrifying and can be accurately described as drowning out of water.  I had a particularly bad attack back when I was a student, and staying in someone's dusty flat.  In the morning, I was about to pass out and went with my friend to Leeds Infirmary, where they put me on inhaled Ventolin and I sat and steamed and shook and felt life return to my lungs.  There was a little old lady sitting in Casualty (there is nothing like asthma for jumping the queue) and she was covered in bandages and sticking plaster and had some very nasty bruising.  A nurse came over to her and said, in piercing tones, 'the man who ran you over, wants to take you home'.  'oh thankyou' said the lady, and went out, hanging onto the man's arm.  Apparently she had stepped out in front of his car.

Attempted to watch the leader's debate, with seven party leaders, including the Greens, the Plaid Cymru (Welsh), the Scottish Nationals and the other usual suspects.  Alas, the effort was too much for me and I slept fitfully.  The only person who seemed plausible was the Scottish leader and the whole thing was rather disappointing.

Infamy, infamy! And we are running out of wood.

31 March 2015

Periods of heavy drizzle
13 degrees

We are nearly out of wood and the holidays are two weeks away.  The idea was that we would get back from holiday and not need any more wood because it will be May, and in the way of May, would be lovely and warm.  OH has taken to looking at the old beams in the barn and we may have a reprise of Angela's Ashes over the next few days.  Wet weather continues.  Last May was cold and wet.  The weather has definitely gone downhill over the 11 years we have been out in Europe but has still a way to go to be as bad as it was where we lived in the UK.

I go and see the doctor and show him my itchy elbow and neck and alas, he says it is psoriasis and is often caused by stress.  I have been stressed by sitting in his waiting room for over an hour whilst the previous patient waffled on about nothing in particular and left, looking in the best of health.  He suggests I take up a calming activity such as yoga or meditation.  I say I don't feel that stressed and he says my body is feeling it and showing it. I also show him the strange mole type thing on my chest and he says I will have to go and see a dermatologist and, no, he doesn't think it is a skin cancer.  My mammogram form arrives in the post.  Infamy, infamy; they've all got it in for me....  I google psoriasis and there are some truly revolting pictures.

On the work front, I go back and take on market the beautiful domaine and holiday home property south towards the mountains.  A return of investment of 10% is possible but the buyer will need to have deep pockets to purchase it.  I take the dog with me and we have a stagger around a muddy field.  The options for running off are limited because there is a whopping, pounding river at the end of the field, and barbed wire all around.  Alas, the coffee shop in the next village is closed so I go back home, have quick lunch and then down to the rental units with OH.

OH has been working in the rental unit now since the beginning of the year and it is still a long way from being finished.  I arrive and do some cleaning and then look at what is meant to be going where in the kitchen area.  Basically, there is not enough room to fit in a washing machine and it is going to have to go in the newly created cupboard (now complete with new, narrow door).  We do some measuring and the only other alternative is to move the sink, which is currently fixed to the wall, and with huge holes in the back where OH has made access to the pipes for the washing machine.  I ask why the washing machine pipes are behind the sink and am told I know nothing, and I have never plumbed in a washing machine.  I should have kept a closer eye on this project.  It will never be finished before we go away.  I wanted to put it on market for Easter.  When, and if, we go back to the UK, I am paying registered artisans to do the work in the house, even if I have to work full time to fund it.

The seller of the town house which is the subject of much wrangling by the two buyers rings me with some news.   Her advocate says she must sign with the other agency or she will be in trouble.  My would be buyers send me a letter they have received from their advocate, saying because my buyers are cash and the other ones aren't, then the sellers have a legitimate reason to withdraw from their engagement with the other buyers. Her advocate has asked to see the copy of the reservation contract signed by the other buyers, with the other agency.

A sale that is still lingering from last year has suddenly acquired some life.  The new owner has applied for change of use and the notice has to be posted in the window of the house for 2 months, during which time the Mayor or a bailiff must pass and see that it is correctly posted and then locals have the right to object.  A problem is that the owner's father, who is an alcoholic and either in the bars or asleep, is alone at the house and I cannot rely on him to put up the notice.  The owner's mother is with her adult children in Oz and the owner lives in China.  Great.  I will have to enlist the aide of a local lady who is friends with the family.

Why my dog and husband have a lot in common...

Friday 27 March 2015

Cool and showery with sun later
14 degrees

I wake at 6.15 thinking of everything I have to do and am down in the kitchen, printing off mandate forms when OH appears.  I don't think I have seen him at this time in the morning for at least a year.  He wanders around, getting in the way and tripping over the ironing board. The dog has his paw over his eyes and is trying to pretend this just isn't happening so early in the morning.

By 8.05 we are out of the house and at the top of the road where mobile signal kicks in.  My 9.00 appointment in the far away mountains has cancelled.  Why do people always cancel by text.  Why the hell can't they email or, even better, ring up?  I say to OH we need to go in any event to see the property we intended taking on in a mountain village.  Manage to close my eyes and ignore the swerving motions.  OH needs the loo so we look for a bar and can't find one until we get to the town which has a fiendish one-way system and it is market day so extra impossible to find a parking spot.

We squeeze in next to a mini chateau and go to the bar opposite.  OH goes into the loos and I order coffee.  Ten seconds later, OH bursts out of the loos, declaring they are all point and shoot, and charges out of the door.  The bar owner is making coffee.  I run out after him and he is already 50 metres up the road.  It is like being out with the dog.  I shout and he ignores me.  Finally catch him up and do a lot of shouting.  He goes and gets the car and I find a parking space outside a bar and guard it against would be parkers for what seems like a very long time before OH finally turns up.  

We have what turns out to be an exceptionally good cup of coffee and a framboise tarte and admire the art deco writing on the post office building.  A mentally retarded girl hassles us for our mobile phone to make a call and the bar owner comes out and takes her inside.

Refreshed and calmed down, we go to the meeting place and the owner comes to meet us. He had said that his house was just five minutes from town and is was because he drove like a maniac.  OH was happy to take up the challenge.  The coffee and cake started churning in me and I felt like throwing up by the time we got there.

The house and gite and apartment are absolutely lovely.  The living room has exposed stone walls with a huge log fire and is wonderfully warm and welcoming and the double glazed windows almost block out the noise of the passing traffic.  Almost but not quite.  For a country road, it carries a surprising amount of traffic.  The land contains a lot of chickens and they have taken off the grass and made a lot of mud.  It is on a bend in the road.  Still, the price is good and so is the coffee and we leave with a mandate so the morning has not been wasted.

Drive off west and find another town with a stunning river pounding through the centre. There is only one bar/restaurant open and we have the menu.  Tuna tarte with salad and good dressing followed by hake in tomato sauce with pasta and finishing up with chocolate mousse.  The restaurant was full of workmen, eating the menu and drinking wine or beer.  It is absolutely beyond me how people consume this much food, wash it down with alcohol, and then go back out and do another five hours work.  We got home and had to have a sleep.

All too soon, 2.45 came around and it was back to the dentist to find out why a bit had dropped off my new tooth.  It transpired that the morsel of hard stuff was just glue and that the hole was a slight imperfection in the ceramic crown.  He took the opportunity to take out the stitches.  

It was then back to the car park in my town to meet yesterday's clients.  They had been to see a house in the back of beyond, no relation to what they had said they were looking for, and only 150k.  They showed it to me on the Internet and it was fabulous.  I did some very quick thinking, remembered a house I had seen on a private ad yesterday, and took them to see the outside.  A very confused Swedish man opened the door and he was a renter who was leaving tomorrow.  I made an appointment with the owner for 4 pm tomorrow and then left them to wander around in the fine rain.

Back home and caught up with emails and updated the software.

Spoke to the seller of the town house where there are two buyers and it transpires that there may be a legal loophole because the offer document used by the other agent doesn't have a date beyond which the offer is no longer valid.  She will know next week.

Had toast for tea.  Still raining.

You show me yours and I will show you mine....

Tuesday 24 March 2015

Cold and raining 8 degrees

I work in 'partenariat' with another local agent so this morning I showed her one of mine and she showed me one of hers.  This involved an early start as she is juggling the demands of a very young child and an artisan husband who expects two cooked meals on the table every day.  Apparently the 21st century hasn't quite arrived in this part of the world.  

I get there at 9 am and she is just upstairs, cleaning her teeth and 'putting on her face'.  I sit myself down in the kitchen and listen to the heavy chunking click of the wall clock and the periodic drip of the tap in the sink.  There are some fabulous oil paintings of cockerels on the back wall and underneath, a large country style dresser piled up with paraphernalia of daily life; books, bills, wax crayon drawings, greetings cards, keys.  P arrives in a rush and we climb into my car and head out into the morning drizzle.

The first house is just 20 minutes away and the owner lets us in.  He is wearing a waist belt and had a trapped nerve in his back.  His face is pale and he has lost a lot of his habitual bonhomie.  The house is 18th century with interior exposed stone walls and high ceilings with beams blackened by age and many fires.  The kitchen is bright and has lovely railway white oblong tiles running over the thick wooden slab worktops.  A fire burns in the hearth and the immense TV is showing news of the Airbus crash over the French Alps.  Everyone lost.  We finish the visit in a mood of shock.

The next house is 44 kms away and we talk about statutes.  This is how the work regime is described over here.  P says that she managed to go onto auto entrepreneur status but it was very complex.  Her accountant ('a real cowboy - I met him in a bar') advised her that she needed to cancel her status as an independent commercial agent, which attracts massive social charges (see yesterday's post) and then she would be able to re register as AE (auto entrepreneur).  This she did but when she went to see the relevant government dept, she was told she couldn't re register for a whole year.  As she was still working for her former agency at the time, she was aghast.  The fonctionnaire (white collar worker) pulled out a piece of paper saying that there were exceptions to the rules and one of these was registering as a 'presenter of services', so that is what she became until setting up her own agency and becoming a limited company.

She also told me about a 'friend' who is a banker and with whom she opened her new business account.  Her website provider is in the UK and has to be paid in pounds sterling. Her banker friend was charging her 54 euros for each monthly transfer from euros into sterling in order to pay these fees.  Her calls and emailed were ignored.  She is still with him.  I would have fired him off in no uncertain terms.

My phone keeps ringing with the would be buyers of the house in my town.  I have stopped answering their calls.  Ask P for her opinion as to their case and she says they are in a very poor position and the other agent is sitting pretty.  Oh dear, that is what the notary also said.

We arrive at the second house and it is a wonderful farmhouse so far from the road that I may never find it, and ideal for my road averse clients.  The owner arrives with her son, who is autistic, and highly up on all the facts, figures and dates relating to the property.  The poor lady has had a life filled with tragedy, her husband being killed in a road accident and her eldest son nearly being killed in the same spot a year later, and still having problems with infections and relapses.  S is petite and immaculately turned out, her pale chestnut hair swept into a smooth chignon and pale skin stretched over a fine bone structure.  We trot around the house and I really need to pee.  I ask permission, test that the water is on, and bliss, am left to relieve myself.  Alas, discover that the flush doesn't work.  Come back downstairs and the autistic son says, very loudly, did I notice that the flush was broken. Feel embarrassed.

Stop off for coffee on way back.  P asks if I miss my children, far away in the UK.  Feel suddenly tearful.  Yes, is the answer, always and forever no matter how old they will be.

Back home for very quick lunch and then south to a walled bastide town hanging onto a hill above a torrential and pounding river.  The GPS takes me around many roads, none of which are right so the owner has to come and find me.  His property is surprisingly large, with room after room after room and I suddenly feel very tired.  We go into an overheated salon and he serves me luke-warm coffee and tells me that he has no life, the business is exhausting and he wants to sell and have children with his wife.  I tell him that children are also very tiring and they are impossible to sell on....  For the price he wants, his property is also impossible to sell on.

Drive to local town in search of cake and obtain a very large pain aux raisins stuffed with massive fruits and pearls of sugar for myself and a lemon tart for OH.  Back home in heavy rain and have to do lots of emails.

Spend evening with OH watching YouTube videos of men with very strange West Country accents, fishing off the rocks of the Bristol Channel and I start loading details of craft group ladies into the Mail Chimp software.   Easter is coming up fast on the rails and I have promised them a newsletter.  Three ladies have come forward with articles, fortunately, so I don't have to write the whole sodding thing myself.

Dog is looking very tired after spending last night in the outhouse.  He can smell a lady dog in the vicinity and spent the whole night barking.  At his age, he really should know better.

Rooms with a view

Saturday 21 March 2015

Little bit rainy except for when I walk dog, when big bit rainy

10 degrees

First day of Spring.  Ha, followed by lots more haaaaas.  Gone cold again.  Birds have started looking for nesting sites and all of the cranes seemed to have passed overhead.

OH wakes up early, excited about fishing.  When he sees that it is raining, he climbs back into bed and hassles me so I can't concentrate on writing.  He can be very annoying but is a regular supplier of tea at all hours of day and night.

I had put a number of containers into the back of the car and had completely forgotten about them and driven around with them for days whilst wondering why the car smelled funny. We decided to go out for the day and so OH threw them out of the car boot and into the courtyard.  I know from experience that once he throws something outside, it stays there until I move it.  We had words.  Then we had more words.  Then we went to the dump.  An hour later, and partially covered in specks of paint and oil, we finally set off for our day out. Fortunately it wasn't raining too hard so no aquaplaning was involved, as on the last two occasions.

Unfortunately, everyone else seemed to have the idea of going into town too so there was no parking anywhere.  We circled and circled and eventually squeezed into a minuscule space with a 15 minute slot.  Enough time to dive out and get a coffee and have a loo break. I then discover a Chinese Bazaar.  I love a bazaar; they are just stuffed full of stuff you never realised you needed.  OH extracts me after far too short a time, but not before I have bought more hairpins and stretchy hairbands than a cheerleader in a season.  Everything was a euro.  

We then decide to go out of town a way and look what is on the top of the promenade. There we find a building called the Palais Miramar (sea view) which is now a school of music but was the summer home of the Spanish royal family, Marie Christine and Alphonso in the late 19th century

Palais Miramar

Queen Marie Christine

 Local information says it is built in the English Queen Anne cottage style.  There seems to be more of this style abroad than in England.  Here is an example of a US Queen Anne cottage

Los Angeles Lucky Baldwin's Queen Anne cottage

Elias Jackson (“Lucky”) Baldwin’s Queen Anne Cottage was constructed in 1885-86, probably as a honeymoon gift for his fourth wife, sixteen- year-old Lillie Bennett. “For a year after she married Baldwin (May, 1884), this little girl was queen of the ranch,” wrote the Los Angeles Times. Lillie’s father, architect Albert A. Bennett, designed the cottage, but the honeymooners apparently never enjoyed its beauty. Lillie and E.J. separated in 1885, and the fanciful house was converted by its owner into a memorial to the third Mrs. Baldwin, Jennie Dexter, who had died in 1881. A stained glass portrait of Jennie stood welcome in the front door and an almost life-size oil painting of her was hung in the Cottage parlor. Both items remain today.   

Curious about the epithet 'Lucky', I look him up on Wikipedia

Baldwin was financially tightfisted in his business dealings, but led a flamboyant lifestyle. He was especially free-spending when it came to women. One contemporary commented, "Baldwin didn't run after women; they ran after him."

Baldwin's matrimonial ventures periodically created sensations. He was married four times, the first three marriages ending in divorce. He was sued by four women for breach of promise of marriage. His stature as a celebrity was such that at age 56, when he married 20-year-old Lilly Bennett in San Francisco, the wedding drew coast-to-coast press coverage.  In the same year, he was sued by a jilted 16-year-old girl who was awarded $75,000 in damages.

Baldwin, aged 80

Lillian Ashley (later Turnbull) signed a 'wedding contract' with Lucky Baldwin.Los Angeles Herald^[10]

One of the women accusing him of breach of promise shot and wounded him in 1883 with a pistol inside his luxury Baldwin Hotel, built in 1876 on the northeast corner of Powell and Market St. He also narrowly escaped death in a San Francisco courtroom on July 2, 1896. He was sued by Lillian Ashley for seduction. While she was on the witness stand, her sister Emma Ashley,  walked up behind Baldwin and fired a pistol at him, grazing his skull.

Back home and I spend the evening looking at gorgeous resin jewellery on Pinterest.  I can feel a new obsession coming on.   Yesterday I collected some wild flowers and, not having any silica to hand, have submerged them in a sea of rice.  Hope they are not squished to bits.

Getting hip and funky...

Monday 23 February 2015

Lots of rain
9 degrees

For once, didn't have the Monday buzz.  Probably with the thought of having to go down the rental units.  Commended OH over his morning cup of tea, on his determination and persistence.  He said he wasn't going down either and was headed into the big city to go and get some sealant.  He is very hard to divert into more interesting shops and it would mean lunch in McDo so I stayed home and wrote emails to people and sent photos out of our flats to potentially interested estate agents.

It rained and rained so had to take the dog out in a less torrential shower.  Why do dogs not mind getting pxxx wet during a long walk but wont go out for a pee in a light drizzle?  Meet the woman with the 'charming and adorable' dogs and she has to haul them off as they chase me and dog, barking and growling.  I wave a big stick at them and her and they back off.  Must remember to take stick with me next time I go in that direction.

Do a mass mailing of all local gites and chambres d'hotes to try and find people who are sufficiently hacked off and want to sell.  To my surprise, one rings up almost immediately and I book them in for early March.  A current seller rings up and asks to drop 80k on her house price.  For some reason, people go slightly bonkers at the end of February and decide their houses will never sell.  I always tell them the same thing - wait til Easter.  Easter this year should be fantastic, with the Euro Pound rate being the most favourable in donkeys years at just over 1:1.35.  They inevitably don't want to wait...  Another couple have dropped their price on a small ads website down to 140000 euros - absolute madness - they will be losing a fortune on what they paid for it.  Write down on list to ring them up and insist that they raise the price.  I get another call from a lady who has finally managed to sell after eight years - the price she has accepted is about half of what she originally started out at.

Put out more ads on various websites for our rental units.  Surely somewhere, someone must want them?  

Looked for some blogging communities to participate in and found +thenectarcollective which is fun and hip.



This lady has a beautiful blog and is sassy.  Decided I need to get a hip and funky blog look...