Perry's personal notes - July 2004

Our house hunting tactics have led us from the estate agents to the more 'grass roots' contacts. We met Addie, a dutch lady, one day whilst out walking. Her husband, Max, a French man, called up his friend Pierre. Who in turn, called us. He is a mason, farmer, restorer of old vehicles and knows everyone in the area worth knowing. A few of them are thinking of selling their house.

Read on.

The house in question, is still in question. We both really like it, the buildings, the grounds and the scale of it all. It is owned and lived in by two brothers, unmarried and both in their seventies. One of the brothers told Pierre that he wanted to sell. The other was not available for comment. We have since called Pierre twice to keep the kettle boiling, but as yet we have no definite answer.

The last month we have been concentrating more on the immigration process than in house hunting. Getting the cars onto French number plates involves a lot of paperwork, even with all Caroline's preparation.
At the same time, I am building up my stock of paintings and drawings for the Artisans' market in Marciac in the beginning of July. It's hard work producing paintings to order. Then I have to scan them in, print them out, and frame them. Thankfully, Caroline's Mother, Marianne, brought a passpartout cutter from Amsterdam, so at least the frames will look OK!

France Telecom fitted ADSL broadband in Nieke's house last Tuesday. On Thursday, I was up a ladder, stretching a tension cable the thirty meters, via a huge oak tree, to our pavilion and wrapping the ADSL line around it all the way to our computer. I had to fit the heads on to the internet cable (made up of eight dfferent coloured wires) and was very relieved (and a little proud) when our screen lit up with the homepage of our website. We can now listen to internet radio, read the news on-line, listen to Wimbledon, print out a route planner and finally be in contact by email without any hassles. Bliss. Just as important is the fact that I can now be available to work on-line for people outside of the Gers. That's a hint, by the way.

The fastest village idiot in the South West. Wanna see it again?

I want to be as low tech as possible, but contact with the outside world is the injection we need.

Adios partners,

Perry.