Any
resemblance to any living person is purely coincidental. That said, the events
and principal characters are real.
About
the author
John Bottrill Ph.D. is
a former professor - author of learned papers in Psychology and several books.
Apart from writing and
genealogical research, he enjoys renovating houses, furniture and
paintings. He currently lives in Spain
with his partner and a naughty cat, called Porage.
And a list of his books can be found at http://ebook0.blogspot.com.es and https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/contactenglish
Information about
living in Spain can be found at www.contactenglish.eu
Historical information
about the Boterel family (the original spelling!) can be found at www.bottrillfamilyhistory.com and http://bottrillfamilyhistory.blogspot.com.es/
All rights reserved. No
part of this book may be reproduced or distributed without permission, except
by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.
© 2013 Copyright John Bottrill
FOREWORD
We
finally bought a place in France. It
wasn't too difficult; in fact it was good fun.
Houses are still relatively cheap, but they're going up slowly as more
and more Brits move over the Channel.
Property isn't suffering like it is in Britain, and it's a good
bet. Our place is worth about €60,000:
in Sussex it would be €260,000.
We
started off as green as anyone else, liking the idea of living in France and
wondering what to do next. Like
everyone else, we learned as we went along that the three questions you must
answer before you make a pig's ear of everything are:
what
do you want the property for - retirement, a holiday home, an income producer?
what
area do you want it in - near Britain for easy access, in the South for sun
etc?
what's
the most you can afford?
You can't really separate them completely: they're all reflections of the bigger
question -
why
France anyway?
This
isn't a practical, how-to-do-it book.
It's a glimpse of how we did it, the mistakes we made, and some
no-holds-barred comments on life in la belle France. There are things you should know ..........
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. A TRIP TO
CALAIS. A coach trip - Arthur's stories
- job advert. – DOT, the headmaster - Rouen traffic – a car with an interior
exhaust - a place to rent – Madame and the donkey.
2. PROPERTY
HUNTING. How to find property - various
finds - notaries and estate agents - fees - purchase and pitfalls - do's and
don't's - Code Napoléon – B+B in winter - French attitude to property.
3. THE
IMPOSSIBLE DOT. Training course -
Madame again - our farm - a party with
dream interpretation - Arthur and DOT - trouble on the métro - more Arthur
stories - teaching at home.
4. YOUNG
MEN. Need for young men - adverts. - interviews
- more Madame - moving stuff over - Customs - winter and its problems.
5. CATS. Abandoned kittens - a litter in the hayloft
- Madame meets her match - finding homes.
6. DRIVING IN
FRANCE. Car dealers - a trade-in and a
crooked dealer - free ferry crossing - it must be a diesel - Citroën - dealers
again - car insurance - 5-star for €15 - mechanics, dealers, and scrapyards.
7.
REBUILDING. Water - electricity
–skidding down the lane - building permits - the rates - estimates - mud - the
quality of dung - heating systems - septic tanks - baths and taps - circuits –
rhw terrace - a pond.
8.
DOUDOU. Farm auction - le chien
enchainé‚ – an auction – a pervert cat - R.S.P.C.A. and kennels - Doudou
disgraces himself - dog training - a pregnancy.
9. LIVING IN
FRANCE. Advantages and disadvantages -
food - wine - beer - telephone - T.V. - satellite programmes - residence
permits - medical card - banks - tax - employed/self-employed/unemployed - job
centres - tourist offices - chemists, doctors and dentists – arsenic
10.
M.O.T's. Disposing of the pickup
- no need for car tax or M.O.T. - British plates - a fruitless M.O.T. - a rough
crossing - another fruitless M.O.T. - car dealers again - free replacement
parts from Citroën - more on car insurance - a write-off.
11. BRITONS ABROAD.
The way to do it - local v. expatriate labour - health cover - social
security - French bureaucracy - finding a job - your qualifications - you must
speak French - getting paid for taking language courses - setting one up -
jobs.
12. A TRIP
DOWN SOUTH. How to learn French – the
labour exchange – how to sell your house – a look round the South.
13. THE LAST
DAYS. No income, so we sell -
bureaucracy - entertaining purchasers - culinary disaster - exploring France -
job applications. - learning French - job abroad for Mike - farewell party -
the real Madame – goodbye to our pets - banking the proceeds - moving again.
Chapter1.
A TRIP TO CALAIS
It
all started with a trip to Calais - Mike, myself, and Arthur, one of our more
outrageous friends. It was one of those
day coach-trips over and back to go shopping.
The coach from Leicester was full and we wouldn't be back till 11pm. It promised to be a long day, and possibly a
bit of a drag. As it was, the only drag
was Arthur's - a sort of infinite red thing wound round the neck, knitted he
thought from some left-over socks after the war. Outrageous as usual, he soon had the coach
in stitches. We heard the pipe story.
"Before
the war, I had a woman admirer."
We looked disbelieving.
"Don't be nasty - it's happened to all of us, I expect." He ogled a young man, who retired in
confusion. "Anyway, she bought me
a pipe - to make a man of me, I imagine, ho - ho," nudge, dig. When I was going off to war, she insisted on
a photo being taken. So I played my
part - pipe to the side, arms crossed, legs splayed butch as you like, ha - ha
- ha. But the photographer had other ideas
- he insisted on the pipe being to the front.
It was ridiculous. I mean when
she got the print, all you could see was this enormous pipe bowl, and two
little eyes peering over it. Ha - ha -
ha, how absurd."
The
coach was late at Dover and we missed the boat. So there wasn't as much time in France as
we'd expected. The hypermarket was the
essential for most people of course, but that left little time over for the
meal we'd been hoping for. We wandered
down the main street of Calais, Arthur looking with interest at all the menus,
and finally settled for a toasted sandwich and chips. A disconsolate Arthur sat on the boat waving
a baguette at other startled people, drinking his wine, and holding forth.
"Not
what I'd expected. Not at all. I remember Calais before the war. We often used to go. I thought I might have revisited a few of my
old haunts. I remember once" (the
coach group gathered round to listen) "we were on a bus passing through
Calais. The bus stopped and mother
noticed a stall selling hot crabs. 'Get
off and buy some crabs, Arthur,' she said.
'We can have them later.' So I
got off, and ended up with a paper bag dripping crab juice. The crabs were quite hot, I remember, and I
had to keep juggling them. Ho - ho -
ho.
Mother was making
frantic gestures at me through the window.
So were other passengers - I thought they were amused, so I put it on a
bit. What she was trying to tell me was
that the bus was going, and it did. So
I chased it, clutching my bag. Ha - ha
- ha. But the bag must have got soaked
through. It burst and the crabs dropped
to the ground. I didn't know whether to
chase the bus or pick up the crabs.
Mother saved the day by shouting in her best French, ‘Stop the bus - my
son's dropped his crabs.' The bus
stopped and everyone got out to see what this strange English boy was
doing. There I was clutching these
crabs and the remains of the bag to my pullover. It was most embarrassing. Mother was cross, and my clothes smelled of
crab for the rest of the day," he chuckled.
Back
at Dover we all struggled through the customs hall with our customs haul. "Will they want to search the
bags?" Arthur wondered.
"Possibly. They may even go for a strip search."
"A
strip search?" his eyes grew round.
"Well they won't find much, ha - ha - ha," nudge, dig. The customs men stared at us
disbelievingly. Arthur tossed his
infinite red thing at them, and scurried through the green exit.
The
coach got back to Leicester at 11.30 and the driver unloaded the beer etc.
everyone had bought. But he'd stopped
outside a night club. Various youths
came out and couldn't believe their eyes.
It was their lucky day - mound of beer being pawed over
chaotically. They joined in. You can imagine the rest. We took Arthur home by car. He was tired but full of memories. "I used to like France. I was there for a while after the war, you
know - in Rouen. You'd like it - it's a
lovely city, or was. Have you ever
been? Oh you should. I'll come."
*
* *
So,
when I saw an ad. in "The Guardian" wanting teachers of English for
Rouen, I actually read it. And I
thought, "why not France?"
Because I hate teaching English is why not. Still, we could live in France for a while
and look round, and get paid for it.
And we'd just finished rebuilding our riverside cottage in the Midlands,
and were wondering what to do next.
Britain was going down the tubes at the time so I rang, got an
interview, and found myself turning up in Rouen for a three day training course
at their expense.
Rouen's
a very picturesque town on the Seine.
It's like Chester or Ludlow, only more so, and so centralised it's a
paradise for tourists on foot, as I was.
The hotel they put us up in was old - perhaps fifteenth century - and
typically French. All the walls,
ceilings, beams and interesting features were covered in a lively fabric
wallpaper. The spiral stairs were of
highly polished wood, but they'd sunk and all pitched outward. Even during the day you had to be
careful. The nightlights were on a
pushbutton system, and invariably went off before you reached the next
level. I had a room next to the stairs
and could usually tell if it was a new guest on the stairs. And I couldn't study in the evening because
the room lighting was too dim.
The
school was on the heights overlooking the city, and the climb was
unbelievable. Even the young teachers
had to stop halfway. And since the
school stopped for the usual French lunch period (12 – 2pm) and there was no
eatery nearby, it meant you had to go down into Rouen and then allow half an
hour to climb back again. That first
morning we were all late - we underestimated the hill. A beaming D.O.T. (Dennis O'Toole), the
director, greeted us as only he could.
"Glad you could make it.
Did you walk? Do you good. Get you into condition. Look at me," he slapped his
middle. "Fit as a fiddle. You'll soon get used to it." We never did, and he never did it himself.
What
a man he was! He took the first hour of
the orientation course, speaking tautly through clenched teeth. We sat through it, hoping to learn something
about the job. "Good morning. My name's Dennis O'Toole. I'm the school director - one of the
directors of the company too. You'll
hear about me from the other teachers - they call me 'DOT.' I expect you'd like me to tell you something
about myself - my background - how I came to be where I am. I was a headmaster for twelve years, and a
rather successful one I might add."
His gimlet glasses bored into each of us in turn. The young ones wilted visibly. I sat up interestedly - it might be fun
after all.
He
resumed. "I heard about this
company - it needed to expand - needed an administrator. So I put some money in and became a
director. We mean to be not only the
biggest, but also the best." His
beady eye swept the room again. Pencils
poised to take notes remained poised.
"I'm
not married," he went on, warming to his favourite subject. "Never really had the time. But I have a family," he sought to
reassure us. "I've lived in different
parts of the world, and I generally adopt somebody." Our eyes grew round. Why was he telling us this? Did he.......?
Opinion
was in fact divided about his 'interests.'
The secretary, a shapely young Frenchwoman, was certain he fancied
her. "I can feel 'im look at my
legs. Yes, I am sure 'e looks up my
legs." Since her skirt ended
12" above her knees, it didn't surprise me. One attractive young man confided in me late
one night. "DOT was telling me
about his sons. I adopt young men,"
he told me. "I might adopt
you."
The
young man looked furtive when he told me.
"Do you think he meant
it? I don't have much experience at
that kind of thing, but I have had heterosexual experience," he added
hopefully. But I wasn't going to get
drawn in. I think he'd drawn the wrong
conclusions anyway. At that moment
there was a despairing cry as a new guest disappeared down the slippery stairs,
so that put an end to the conversation.
Almost
everyone hated DOT, except me. But then
they had to toe the line - they all needed the job; I didn't.
Besides, they were all young people;
he and I were the same age.
Having learned of my background as a psychologist, he once confided in
me, "You know, I've never got close to any of my staff. Why do
you think that is?"
Equally
confidentially I told him, "Well you know, I think they're scared of
you."
"Oh
really?" DOT brightened
visibly. "Do you think so?"
"Well,
you can be rather terrifying, you know."
"Can
I really? Yes, I suppose I can. I never thought of myself that way. Perhaps you're right. I'm very glad we had this talk." I had made his day.
*
* *
The
job turned out to involve travelling to different companies to teach selected
staff in situ. There were very few company
cars - could any of us bring our own?
That suited me - I wanted to look round France anyway. So I went back to Leicester and bought a
lemon - a Fiesta, no longer festive. I
hadn't much time, and there wasn't much choice. Still I should have known better. The vendor must have seen me coming. It didn't pull very well, but the man
explained the engine was cold. Why did
I fall for it? It was dreadful - it
never overtook anything. Worse - there
was a constant smell of sulphur dioxide from the exhaust. When it got too bad, we opened the
windows. That helped, but you got wet
if it rained.
Still,
it got me back to Rouen, and I started out early that first day of
teaching. Just as well. I'd been warned about Rouen's traffic, but
wasn't really prepared for it. For
years I'd avoided rush hour traffic and towns, and now here I was on a clogged
motorway. The car filled slowly with
sulphur dioxide, and my head started aching.
At a standstill, I opened all the windows and the sulphur dioxide
cleared - to be replaced by the oxides of nitrogen and carbon from other
cars. I couldn't win. Other drivers nodded sympathetically, or was
it the haze?
I
found the factory and reeled in. The
classroom was some way from the admin. block, so I walked to clear my
head. It was a chemical company and
there were more strange odours in the air but, after that dreadful journey, I
didn't care. Outside the classroom was
a large pipe carrying something caustic - I never did find out what. As I tottered past, it dripped. Bang! the chemical reacted with the earth,
and a grey cloud rose. First the car,
now this. Was there no end to it? Distinctly shaken, I lurched into the first
lesson, and it went fine. The room was
cold in the morning, but became unbearably hot in the afternoon. Still, I had to keep the windows shut, or
suffer the periodic grey cloud. Was it
worth it? In fact it wasn't a bad
factory. Some were better, some
worse. But oh! the traffic. How long could I stand it?
Not
long. And to make matters worse I
couldn't find anywhere to live. The
other young teachers found digs, but Mike and I needed a house or a flat. We were offered one in a mediaeval building
in the heart of the city. No garden,
but there were parks nearby, and it was very central. But parking? -
forget it. Rouen is a mediaeval city, and built for
mediaeval traffic. The Fiesta would
probably have qualified, but it never got the chance.
The streets where
parking was permitted seemed to be permanently occupied. There was no way I was going to fight my way
back through the rush hour traffic, only to have to drive round and round the
centre of town looking for a space like everyone else. No.
Then we were offered a gȋte south of the city, not too far from the
factories I was teaching in, and therefore not too much traffic. But it was poky and expensive and wouldn't
do. Meanwhile, we were homeless and
each night had to find a B+B and then a restaurant. The older teachers suggested the ‘Pot of
Poo.’ It turned out to be a Moroccan
restaurant actually called ‘La Poule au Pot.’
La poule au pot is the name of a dish served to Henry IV – not one of
France’s best dishes – chicken with far too many root vegetables.
So I
resigned. DOT was shocked. "My dear chap! I'd no idea. You can't go on like that. I live in a very comfortable flat in a small
town. Just the sort of thing for
you. Oh, Mike too? Hm, let me see. There's a sort of flat in the attic here. I think the servants used it in the old
days. Why don't you stay there for a
couple of weeks and look round a bit more, and of course you can go on
teaching. It's not much, of
course."
It
wasn't. That dreadful flat - why did I
agree? There were no curtains, very
little furniture, no bathroom, and it wasn't insulated. And the noise! I'd never have believed anywhere could be so
noisy. The building was on a main road
out of Rouen - a great commercial location.
But it was near the top of a long hill, and all (and I do mean all) the
traffic was growling by the time it got there and changed gear. Except for bicycles - they didn't growl,
though I never saw one go past. There
was a cemetery halfway up the hill - possibly populated by misguided cyclists
who hadn't made it.
The classrooms
downstairs weren't so bad, but all the noise rose. The flat was like a drum, and I was
inside! You try preparing lessons
inside a drum after a daily asphyxiation.
It just wasn't civilised. In
desperation I rang an estate agent who had a property about which we were
making interested noises. I regretted
we couldn't proceed unless she could possibly......... She could!
There was a house for rent, furnished, œ300 a month, but miles from
Rouen. No way was I going to travel two hours a day.
I
gave DOT the bad news. He frowned and
pierced me with his gimlet gaze. I
pierced him back. "My dear
chap," he blurted, "you mustn't leave. I need you.
I have good feedback about you.
How can I help?" I doubted
that he could. He gave the matter some
thought. "Of course, you realise
what this means? It means you can't go
on teaching where you are. As a matter
of fact, it works out quite well. We
have another contract near the house you mention. It's so far from here, nobody likes
going. So it would be very convenient
for us if you took it over. And for you
too," he added as an afterthought.
And so it turned out.
She
was vague about who would actually pay for the electricity and gas, and we
didn't like to push too hard in case we lost this wonderful place. And the inventory she'd prepared was a bit
vague too. It was often wrong. Things were put in which weren't there
("Oh yes, now I remember - I let my sister have that."), or weren't
put in when they were. We counted all
the baking tins and napkins, but the bedrooms were just waved through. No matter, we'd sign. But Madame didn't seem to realise the inventory
should be signed by both sides and in two copies. She was pleased to have gone through it, and
gave us the only copy - unsigned.
Dear
Madame! We learned later she'd always
been the same. From time to time she'd
appear for the rent or with a bill she thought we should pay. You could dispute anything not right and
she'd give way gracefully, and come back with another figure plucked out of
thin air. It was easier just to
pay. It wasn't that she was
money-minded, just French - she never missed a trick.
Once, after we'd
finally left, we went to visit her. She
produced an electricity bill which she thought covered the last part of our
stay. I'd started making out the
cheque, when Mike pointed out the bill was actually for her flat in Beauvais,
and not for the house. She was
bewildered - she would certainly check.
She did, but was never completely convinced. And even after that she'd occasionally ring
up about some bill or other. You
couldn't help liking her though - completely dotty, as all old ladies of la
grande bourgeoisie should be.
The
house had three bedrooms, a study, two bathrooms, an upstairs flat, a large
garden, and a donkey called 'Capucine.'
She was unkempt and neglected.
"She's not a very nice donkey," ventured Madame. My experience of them was limited, but I
could see her point. Capucine would
come charging over when you came home, but only because she wanted a titbit. I was a bit wary of her, though.
Two years previously
I'd had a bad experience in Wales. A
donkey had come over to the fence, so I stroked it and offered it some
grass. I don't know if it was an
anti-English protest, but it suddenly lurched forward and pulled out a chunk of
my beard. I jumped back, shocked, and
felt for a bald patch - it was there, but no blood! The donkey jumped back, shocked, with my
beard sticking out of its mouth. It was
a standoff - what to do? I comforted my
denuded chin; the animal investigated its find. But the chunk wasn't long enough to chew, so
it dropped it and went off. I rescued the
missing bit, but for what? The beard
eventually grew back to my surprise.
But now I felt I should treat this new donkey with prudence.
So it
was usually left to Mike to feed Capucine.
Madame was very practical about it.
Every Tuesday she would arrive with a bag of stale bread. Perhaps she felt a certain responsibility,
or perhaps she just wanted to get rid of her stale bread. At any rate the routine never varied. She drove up, we hid, Capucine got
excited. Then Madame would stand
sufficiently far away to avoid any Welsh trouble, and throw the bread at
Capucine. The poor beast always looked
bewildered, but munched a couple of bits, coughed, and made a bee-line for her
water trough. Then Madame would look inquiringly
at the house, and we had to decide whether we'd noticed her or not.
The
house really was a superb find - large, well-furnished, and with all
conveniences - even a donkey, though she wasn't very convenient. It had been built some twenty years before
by Madame's husband when he retired from the colonial service. We never met him, but there were photos of
them both around the house. During the
initial tour of the house, Madame pointed out his picture. "And this one here," she
hesitated, "is a portrait of a lady." We realised later that the Princess Margaret
figure was in fact a young Madame, looking very competent in a 1950's
hairstyle, insofar as that's possible.
Monsieur,
it turned out, had been killed in a car accident down the road. No one ever gave us any details of the
accident, and there were no inveighings against anyone else. We assume therefore that he'd probably been
driving too fast, like most French do.
One day in a desk drawer we found a couple of photos of him. At first we didn't recognise him - we were
so shocked. I've never seen anything
like it. They showed him after the
accident in his coffin. But worse - he
hadn't been cleaned up! The blood and
wounds on his face were clearly visible.
It was utterly gruesome, and of course thereafter we showed them to all
our visitors.
Since
the accident Madame had lost interest in living there - understandable of
course. She had a half-Chinese boy
living with her, whom she'd adopted in Gabon.
But the place was really too much for her. "I rattle around in it just like a
pea," she confided. My eyes grew
round. So she'd found a small flat in
Amiens, and proposed to live on the rent the house provided. She couldn't bear to let go completely
though.
"If
you go away for a few days, you will close all the shutters and padlock the
drive gates, won't you," she urged.
We did of course, but just to please her. With all the junk mail sticking out of the
letter box by the front gate when we came back, we might as well have put up a
notice "Empty house - burglars this way." We rarely heard of break-ins in the area,
which was just as well since some of the things in the house were antiques. There was besides a collection of lapis
lazuli in a cabinet on our first visit.
Madame thought it prudent to safeguard it, so she took it out of the
locked cabinet, and left it in an unlocked drawer. Dear Madame!
***