Renovation Project - Christmas cards in France

Renovation Project - Christmas cards in France

Christmas is fast approaching and we’re busy getting ready to go back to the UK to spend it with the family, I can’t wait to see my grandbaby open her presents. We have also decided to come back on a different route, John wants to visit Omaha Beach in Normandy, so we decide to have this as a Christmas present to ourselves.

But there’s more work to do before we go, I am still sanding the top floor (and yes I still hate this job!) John decides to build a cupboard in the lounge; this will be for the TV. The cupboard will go inside the space where the door used to be between the lounge and kitchen.

The cupboard will fit in the space to approx half way up the opening, this actually kills two birds with one stone, we have already pointed the stone wall (this is the royal we, of course) and found that the stones are quite different at the top to those at the bottom, the ones at the bottom of the wall were not good, so the cupboard will cover these and leave only the good stones on view.

The cupboard is once again made from materials recycled from the house, in this case one of the old doors from upstairs. It is cut to size and then stained to the same colour as the rest of the wood in the lounge.

On the Friday I have an exciting day planned, I am going to a Pop Up Party (no I had never heard of these either), they are a small antique and knick knack party for ladies wot lunch! I go with a Friend, I have never received a personal invite to one, but she has, and on more than one occasion, am I doing something wrong or do I mix in the wrong circles............

I wonder if this is the Brittany version of The Real Housewives of Orange County!

I’m quite excited and even get showered and dressed up, it is held in the most beautiful house, but to be honest there is very little there that I am interested in, though the homemade apple and mince pies are very nice! the one thing we do see is a pack of Christmas cards, they are not ones I would buy in the UK, but for some reason greetings cards are extremely expensive in our part of France and we jump on this pack, at 4 euro’s the pack is a bargain and we decide to share them (we also give each other one, somehow the surprise is dampened when not only do you know what card you are getting but you also know how much it cost and the fact that you both thought it was a bit crappy!, but hey, it’s the thought that counts).

It does give me an idea for making some money next year, I am going to get all of my family to buy lots of cards in the January sales and have a card party next year!

Theresa also takes me to the French equivalent of the council offices as we recently found out that our house is registered as three apartments and not a house. I am given a form to fill in stating when we converted it, we explain that it was never converted, we had bought it as a house, we also have to explain that this is our main residence and that we had already filled in a form to state this.

We are sent away with the forms to complete and to provide evidence of the house being a house; the estate agent explains that a copy of the house deeds will do this.

I seriously recommend that if you move to France (or any country probably) make sure that you read all of your bills, we just paid our tax d’habitation without questioning it, it was only after reading it in depth and seeing something that didn’t quite make sense that we really questioned it.

We will have to try to get it sorted before we leave, but that is fast approaching,