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.

Tea, fig rolls and it is snowing again in Boston....

Friday 21 March 2015

First day of Spring
Rain is back again

I get a message on Skype which is the modern day equivalent of a long distance wail.  'it is snowing again!'.  Poor LL, when she signed the initial contract to buy her house here, back in October, June must have seemed a long way off.  She is on a tiny outcrop of the States, on the Eastern seaboard, and has suffered snow for months.  And not inconsiderable amounts of the white stuff either.  She knows, as well as I do, that if she doesn't turn up to sign the Title contract at the end of June, she is liable to pay 10% percent penalties to the seller, who has actually changed his mind and doesn't really want to sell, but is tied in.  He would be thrilled to get 10% penalties and to not sell the house.  She is under the cosh.  On the positive side, the euro has really dropped against the US dollar, so she can afford to drop her price somewhat to generate a quick sale.  Providing the buyers can get over their doorsteps, and hers.

First thing today is to go and revisit the house I went to see last week, and get the sales contract.  I arrive and the septic tank lady is tramping around the garden and the owners, who don't speak her language, are hiding in the house.  I introduce them to one another and interpret.  I am then invited in and the lady of the house goes to make tea.  A good thing about UK clients is that you get tea at the start, which lubricates the bronchials and is agreeable.  You also often get biscuits (fig rolls in this instance, yum!).  The French and Spanish wait until business is finished before offering you refreshments (unless you are puce in the face with heat and look as if you are about to expire onto their freshly cleaned parquet) and then if you accept, you are there an hour longer.  They then take the opportunity to talk about many things of which the worst to extricate oneself from, is politics and when the UK will join the Euro.  Not in a month of Sundays because we don't want to be in the same crap that you are, is the actual answer.  I have to dress it up a little.  They are also often under the impression that the Queen owns all property in the UK.  OH used to tell people this was true.

We also discuss Jeremy Clarkson, of Top Gear, who has been suspended by the BBC following a fracas with his producer.  A million people have now signed the petition, asking for him to be reinstated.  People either love him or hate him.  The man of the house and myself are definite fans.  I particularly love the fact he is not at all PC.  PC is an infringement of civil liberty, imo.  I will be writing a blog about that.  When I have done a million other things on the list first.  I will also be writing one called In Praise of Monotasking but I don't know when because I am still stuck in the black hell of Multitasking.

I get out the sale contract and everything suddenly grinds to a halt.  Their daughters are not happy with them selling the house so feathers need to be smoothed and they will sign the contract later.  Why didn't they tell me that before letting me drive 25 kms to see them?

Back home and spend two hours going through all emails and getting my diary up to date. I have more people coming over in the next month than I have in ages.

The complicated situation with the house in town continues and both buyer and seller keep ringing me up but I don't know why because there is nothing that will happen until the seller sees her advocate next Friday.

My lovely labradorite has been working overtime so, when I get to bed, I recharge it by placing it between my hands and running reiki through it.  I wake up in the middle of the night suddenly and am conscious of an image of the stone in my mind's eye, and all of the facets are sparkling.  A strange experience.

Crapola maximum and Barry Bucknell revisited

Monday 27 January 2015

I promised myself to write something every day and to be positive.  Today was so unutterably crap that I am writing nothing about it.  End of story.

Will entertain you with events from back in 2011

Monday evening I am on duty in the office and a couple from Paris roll in.  They have noticed a bungalow advertised in the window at 129500 €.  I explain it is sold 'off plan'.  They look confused.  I explain it is not yet constructed.  They ask how are they supposed to live in a house which isn't yet built...  I sit them down and show them the plans.  Actually, they say, we would like something old.  Preferably a bungalow.  No busy roads.  No near neighbours.  And they have 130 000 €.  I haven't had a property like that in the past ten years.  Bungalows tend to be well over 200 000 € and on estates.  I fish through our partner agent files in the hope of finding something and, bingo, find a single level building with workshop and, bonus, a lake and 6500 m2 of land.  Just 135 500 €.  Secretly wondering what is wrong with it, I make an appointment to see it with them the following day at 9.00.  When the couple have gone, I ring back the other agent.  They laugh and say 'you will see'.

9 am dawns and the clients are on time. We roll 15 minutes north through the early morning sunshine and following the sat nav - a Godsend for a woman with no sense of direction.  The property is at the end of a long lane.  There is indeed a lake, and a canal, and a ruined building and the bungalow.  The couple are amazed and I release them into the garden to have a wander around whilst I open up the house.  Most of the land is the other side of the canal.  ‘Attention’ shouts the husband as his rather substantial wife approaches the delicately rusting metal bridge.  Too late, she drops onto it, with a terrifying ‘clunk’.  It holds.  I go into the house and have to climb over many boxes to switch on the electricity.

There is a very large workshop.  The lady thinks this will keep her husband busy.  I agree this is always a good thing where husbands are concerned.  We go into the house and I switch on the lights.  There is a lot of wood on the walls and the ceilings and the furniture.  It is very gloomy.   It looks like the paper has been taken off the walls by someone in a high state of excitement.  The couple love it.  They think it would be a good idea to enlarge the windows to let in more light.  Interestingly, all the windows at the rear have opaque, public loo-like, glass cubes instead of glass.  I go around the side to investigate and discover the neighbour’s land abuts exactly the rear of the house.  The windows are opaque to guarantee the privacy of the neighbour and so can neither carry clear glass or be enlarged.  The couple are hugely disappointed and I have nothing else to show them so we trot back into town and promise to keep in touch.

Wednesday morning and it is getting towards lunchtime.  Again I am on duty and a couple from Suffolk come in.  What a surprise!  We Easterners are very thin on the ground in this part of the world.  They have a similar budget to my Parisians but are happy to have neighbours and want to do some renovation work.  This makes life a lot easier and we select two properties to see.  They pop out to get a sandwich and we arrange to meet in half an hour.  ‘Well?’ asks our secretary.  ‘They are really funny’ I reply.  ‘I don't give a monkey’s arse if they are funny, are they going to buy something?’  Well if I knew that, I could have saved myself a lot of time and diesel over the years...

I join the couple for a coffee and we then set off for a property which is in, a neighbouring Department.  The village has a bar and grocery and a very attractive church.  The owners are just leaving as we get there but say to go and visit and then just close the door when we leave.  ‘Not like Ipswich’ note my couple.  The property consists of part of a former Inn which has been beautifully renovated by the current owners.  On the ground floor is a large living room with stairs off.  Further back is the kitchen, shower room and loo.  Next to the living room is the door into the barn.  My couple are interested in the barn as well so we draw back the curtain, open the new door, open the old door and have a good look at the barn as well.  It has been re-roofed recently and there is a walled garden.  The lady thinks this will keep her husband busy.... 

We then come back to our town and visit a semi-detached property in a residential area.  The lady prefers this house.  There are many large dogs.  A heavily pregnant girl is holding back a particularly large one who would love to jump all over us.  ‘He is young and friendly’ she assures us.  We run in house quickly.. 

The owner is very proud of his plywood cupboards in the bedrooms.  My clients ask me if I remember Barry Bucknall.   The owners of the house have a lot of stuff and not much of it is in the cupboards.  We leave and the couple promise to recontact me late tomorrow after their visits.

Well, they vanished into the ether..