Year End Tax Returns

The French financial year runs from 1st January until 31st December.

Over the last couple of weeks I have frantically getting all of our accounts ready for the accountant. Spreadsheet after spreadsheet has been compiled, the quarterly TVA (VAT) returns have been checked and double checked and finally a box of 6 lever arch files waits at the front door.

The day has arrived for my meeting with the accountant.

I drive for 45 minutes and arrive at their offices, a chateau (!!) with a sweeping gravel drive and immaculate lawns. I am ten minutes early. I try to look dignified as I struggle with the big bulky box whilst trying to open the incredibly wide front door.

As I wait, perched on a faded yellow velvet upholstered dining chair just inside the front door I start to panic about my French, will I cope with the technical terms.. The photocopiers whirls under the majestic staircase. At last I hear a clattering of heels on the black and white chequered tiled floor.

‘Bonjour’ says an immaculately dressed woman as she smiles at my box of files.

Thankfully she spoke very good English, and I was able to pull out all relevant depreciation, turnover and outgoings schedules.

I left two hours later feeling much more light hearted !

Loose wine

A neighbour has just had a delivery of loose wine. The lorry arrives about this time every year to deliver a box of the chosen wine. This year Arnauld has chosen a red Bordeaux wine. The box contains 40 bottles and Arnauld has spent all day cleaning the bottles, bottling the wine, corking it and then labelling it.. He was too embarrassed to allow me to take a photo of him at work, but I did manage to get a photo of the box !!..

Most houses still have a ‘cave’ (cellar) and Arnauld said rather sagely, as he stood back and admired his replenished cave, that a Frenchman is only worth his salt if he has at least 100 bottles of wine in his cave.

Suppositories

This is one subject that the French are quite relaxed about and the English conversely get very hot under the collar whenever suppositories are mentioned.

After a trip to the pharmacy I am convinced that there is a suppository for every ailment. Initially, I wanted some paracetamol and naturally I was given it in the suppository form. I asked if there was a tablet version.
‘But why’, the pharmacist asked,’ the suppositories work a lot quicker’.
This, I do not doubt, but could I please have paracetamol in a tablet form.

There is a farmer who lives on the outskirts of the village, whom I am told has never been ill and the reason for this is his daily garlic clove suppository !!

A baby is born

A baby has just been born. Quite an event in a village that records more deaths than births every year.

Today we received the announcement card. Wow, not a WHSmith pack of ten cards upon which you scribble the name and weight of the newborn for the French !.
This exquisite card slowly unfolds to reveal all the important details of this precious new life.

The cards are all hand made and are so well thought out, even the stamp is a photo of the tiny baby.

Crepes v Pancakes

I have often been asked to make some crepes for various village events. In the past I have always sidestepped this request and arrived with a cake or apple pie. The pressure to attempt to make one of the regional dishes has always been too great.

However, the time has come to master the crepe !.. I can make pancakes with ease, are they that different ?.

I buy a special crepe pan and then consult an elderly woman in the village who has the reputation of making the best crepes for miles !!. She kindly gives me the recipe and I am away, we have been eating crepes all week !!

Crepe Recipe

4 eggs
250g flour
¾ litre milk
75g sugar
sachet of vanilla sugar
2 soup spoons of oil.

Understanding Priorities

Yesterday evening, 19.45. We had just finished eating and everything plunged into darkness. I was not unduly alarmed as power cuts are not uncommon, but the weather hadn’t been at all windy. I stumbled outside to see if our neighbours were also in darkness, but no, their windows all shone brightly. We couldn’t even blame the dishwasher, as this is still being repaired !!..

Whilst I fumbled under the stairs desperately trying to find some candles, Mark examined the fuse box. The fuse box was fine, but there was no power entering the box. An EDF problem.

At 2 minutes to 8, we called the EDF breakdown number, not expecting anyone to answer. But someone did answer, he took all the details and within 15 minutes a blue EDF van was parked outside our house. How did they do that..we live 20 minutes from the nearest town.. incredible !!

The electrician soon detected the problem and in the pitch darkness was climbing up the telegraph pole to replace the defective cable. At 9.00pm power was restored.

This country never ceases to amaze me. Yesterday evening the speed and efficiency in which our power was restored was amazing, and I have noticed this before, in emergency situations the French move very rapidly and resolve problems with minimal fuss. However, the lesser important things in life (my dishwasher !!) take months to repair.

Maybe, they have got it right. We assume that everything should be treated as urgent and important, but that simply is not the case.

Worthless Guarantees

Our dishwasher has been complaining for several months now, refusing to work, shorting the whole electricity supply to the house and being generally temperamental. A month ago it just refused to wash another dish and took all of the electricity down with it.

Not to worry, I had the foresight to buy, something which I have never done before, an extended five year warranty. So whilst I set about, trying to find this warranty, Mark muttered that it probably wouldn’t be worth anything anyway.

Over the years we have bought lots of goods with guarantees from kettles and hairdryers to televisions and power tools to ride on mowers. Each time such a purchase was made we were proudly presented with the guarantee just in case anything should go wrong.

There have been several instances where things have gone wrong, so we have taken the item, the receipt and the guarantee back to the shop and in every case we have been told. ‘Yes, we will repair this, but you will have to pay for its carriage to some unknown town in Southern France, and it will take several weeks to repair’.

As you can imagine the carriage for a sit on mower was almost as much as the mower itself..so we just paid for the repair, and surprisingly the repair was complete after a couple of days !!.. Hence, Marks’ scepticism about my extended warranty.

The shop confirmed that my dishwasher was covered by the warranty and as I had paid extra for the extended warranty there were no carriage costs to pay BUT the repair would take several months as there is a backlog of repairs !!!..

New House

The paint is barely dry in La Maison Verte and we have, this evening signed the Compromise de Vente (Agreement to Buy document) for a new house.

This house has the usual problems no electrics, no heating, no drainage and minimal plumbing, but at least there is a floor !!. The main problem for me is that the house faces the wrong way, but Mark argues that this gives the house character, maybe he is right.

We arrived at the estate agents’ office at 6.30pm. A young woman, in her late 20’s started this agency a year or so ago and we have been very impressed with her enthusiasm and tenacious approach.

Her office is in a tiny village, so she benefits from very little passing traffic but with her positive and dynamic approach she seems to be doing well in spite of the sluggish market and I really hope that all her hard work pays off .

We sit on black leather chairs and I count 7 cats. Marks’ nose begins to twitch, he is terribly allergic to cats.

We painstakingly go through the 18 page document, ‘ Et voila’, she says triumphantly as we reach the last page.

‘We have a couple of clause suspensives’, I say

These are not often mentioned in the ‘Buying a House in France’ books, but over the years we have learnt that you can put reasonable clauses in the contract and if these aren’t complied with the purchaser can walk away from the sale with his 10% deposit. A very valuable weapon.

We are concerned about the soil quality, will it support a standard septic tank ?, and we want to ensure that there are no land registry problems. We have encountered both of these issues before !!

The Clause suspensives are inserted, we sign, we hand over the 10 % deposit.

We are then asked about our mortgage, ‘who do you bank with ?’

‘Credit Agricole’. I reply.

‘Ah’, the estate agent says as she writes, ‘I will call M. Dubois tomorrow to get the details, and the house insurance when the sale goes through, who will you use ?

‘MMA’, I reply

Not looking up, she continues ‘I’ll advise your broker, M.Pellac of the purchase’.

I smile, the Data Protection Act hasn’t reached us yet, and it is strangely comforting.

Mardi Gras

The day of the Carnival. All dressed up young and old, we met at the Marie at 4.00pm.
It rained and showed no sign of stopping so undeterred we began our tour of the village. The Marie led, with a cassette player held above his head playing some jolly music and we followed, carefully sidestepping the puddles. Thankfully our village is a small one and soon we arrived at the village hall, all very wet. The make up that had been carefully applied a couple of hours earlier was now running uncontrollably and the knight’s cardboard horse now very sodden was propped wearily against the wall.

Soon the rain was forgotten as we devoured the mountains of crepes that the were waiting for us.

Sunday Lunch.

We have, over the last four years made some very good French friends. This has taken a lot of hard work, but thankfully we are not reaching for the dictionary quite as much as we did in the early days !!.

Sunday lunch is a popular time for the French to meet with friends and family, so yesterday we meet one family for lunch. This always sends me into a blind panic as so much emphasis is placed on good food, what shall we eat, which Bordeaux year is OK and what cheese do you serve.

Lunch thankfully was a success with bread being used to wipe the plates..then the bombshell, 'Nicole, will you be godmother to our new baby ?'

Unexpected demolition

We have been advised that we can now connect to the mains drainage at La Maison Verte. Fantastic.. just the news we had been waiting for. Mark arranged for the man with the JCB to come and dig the various trenches to connect us to the commune’s drains. The day came and by 11.30..still no JCB. We were not unduly concerned as artisans often turn up one or two weeks later than when they agree too. However, we gave him a call.. ‘ I am at chez vous (your place)’, he replied, a little indignantly.

We looked around the garden..we couldn’t see a JCB.. ‘I’ve just knocked down the garage’ he continued.

He had rather efficiently demolished a new garage at our house in the next village…