French planning permission problems (and a few others too!!!!)

French planning permission problems (and a few others too!!!!)

We have just had an e-mail about the planning permission, it’s all in French and I am struggling to translate it, but it looks like it says something about 2 months?????

I go to the planning office to see if they can confirm what it says but the planning officer is not in until Tuesday and I leave for the UK tomorrow!

There is no point in making an appointment for John as the planning officer does not speak any English, I e-mail it over to Theresa instead, she has completed many planning applications and her French is better than mine.

I was right, it is saying it will take 2 months instead of the normal 1 month; this is because our planning officer has to send it to another department because we are in a national park. It’s going to be another cold winter. Theresa calls the new office for us and asks whether we need to go in or take any more evidence, we don’t its simply letting us know in writing that we might not hear for 2 months, I think this is very efficient until Theresa explains that normally if you do not here back within 1 month it means you can assume that planning has been granted and you can just go ahead, we have heard, so we can’t!

I am off to the UK tomorrow and am so organised, I pack today, I even do all of the clothes washing and drying, for the first time ever I am not taking clothes that need washing or wet clothes with me, I have a fully packed suitcase! I will print my tickets off later.

As John will be laying the floor whilst I am gone he sets about fixing the fire place. Currently the wood burner is sat on some old stones but these are in line with where the wall used to lie, as we have added the new mantel piece we want the hearth to be in line with this. I really wanted old stone to be added but we were not able to find anything to suit and John explained that if we use concrete it can be made to look like old stone.

First he has to make a mould to keep it in place, this is done by using a piece of wood held in place by stones, then the mix is made on the floor, there is a good point to having this old floor down!

Once mixed it is shovelled into place and we just have to wait for it to go off.

 

I go to do some food shopping; we need to make sure that John has enough food for the week, as he is going to be too busy to go out shopping! Its nice how many friends have offered to cook for him to make sure he eats well, but as I point out, look at him can you imagine him not eating well!!!

It’s 10 pm, the fridge is stocked, the hearth has set, my bags are packed so time to print off the tickets before an early night for my journey tomorrow.

Ha ha ha did you really think that everything would go so smoothly? Of course it doesn’t, the printer runs out of ink!!!!!! I have my ferry tickets printed, but the bus ticket will not print (no matter how much we shake the cartridges!!!!!) I call Sheila down the road and her computer system is not working, she calls her friend at the B&B, her printer is not working! BUGGER!!!!!!!!! I have no option but to call Theresa, it’s after 10.30 now, it’s far too late to be calling people but we leave at 7 am and that’s far too early to be calling people.

Luckily they are still up, so I e-mail the tickets, but take my laptop for just in case, we arrive there and it’s a total technological breakdown, the ticket won’t show on Theresa’s e-mail, so we set up my laptop, find the code for the wifi and then realise it is not set up for the printer, can this get any worse!!!!

I am thinking why on earth does a company have e-tickets if you have to print them off, why can’t I just show it on my phone and save a tree or two???

This is something you do have to be very careful about, one of the cheap airline companies we use regularly used to charge over £40 if you did not print your ticket off, I won’t name the company, but we used them from Dinard to East Midlands and recently I ranted about them stopping their flights, but for reasons of anonymity I won’t name and shame Ryannair, oops too late!

Apparently National Express also charge for non printed tickets, I don’t know how much but as I am going with no English currency I don’t want to get stuck at Plymouth.

We check once more and realise all we have to do is press the print on Theresa’s e-mail (this may sound obvious but it wasn’t, no images were showing so the print option was in very small letters not where you would expect it).

So it’s all printed and we’re ready to go! Thank you Theresa  (you can find Theresa here) Inkerman in Brittany