11/1 Saturday

We set our alarms for 6 AM so that Sharon could make her train. You can’t beat train service that gets you from the UK to within a few kilometers of our house quickly and cheaply with only one change after the Chunnel. We’ll be taking the train often to visit our UK friends once we move across the Pond permanently. As always, a sad farewell though all of us knew that Sharon had needed time to sort things out and a week away from the everyday at home was perfect. We’re not good at long farewells. I simply dropped her off at the station and drove back home.

Nap.

Pack.

I tried calling Julia to arrange to drop off the scarf she’d left last night but couldn’t get through. She managed to get a call through to us, however. So Simon and Julia stopped by mid-afternoon and, much to Cathey’s delight, we finally managed to get pictures of them, seated on the fountain in the village square.

Pack.

I finish off some last minute tasks. I’ve completed a cheat sheet for guests to explain the operation of the satellite television system, but I also have to revise the House Book. Three years ago, our first property manager Rob Woodford and I put together a book of about ten pages that outline the rules of the house for our guests and give some guidance in terms of the neighborhood, good restaurants, wineries, beaches and such. Robert has since broken ties with his partner in property management, divorced – or at least cut loose from – his Caribbean lady and her kids, tried and failed at exporting wine to England, and in the end returned to London to cabbie four days a week, sixteen hours a day. Ina and Dom are his replacements and, truth be told, proving to be more reliable.

Anyway, I put together an errata sheet for the Book. The recycling goes out on Monday night now instead of Tuesday and is co-mingled. There are different satellite stations available than the ones listed, or rather, their channel numbers are different. And, of course, Rob is no longer the friendly local contact.

I’m also in charge of cellaring the wine that we’ve purchased. The bottles of rose to be left out for arriving guests is placed in one corner of our locked room, our ‘Owner’s Reserve’ in another. Cases are marked. Some of the wines will be ready to drink on our return next year. Some of the reds in particular need to be left alone for an additional year or two. In the case of the Mas de Daumas Gassac reds, five years is the minimum wait.

It’s all busy work, easily and quickly accomplished, but it keeps my mind off the fact that we’ll be leaving soon, much sooner than we’d prefer.

For the first couple of years after we first purchased our little house in Cazouls, we visited twice a year, spring and fall, for one week at a time. We were, and still are, constrained by the amount of vacation time I’m allotted at work. More recently, we’ve decided that one trip, in the fall, of two weeks’ duration, makes more sense. There’s time to get over the jet lag, time to get things done at the house, and time left over to rest and relax.

The flight home was uneventful, comfortable as possible in coach thanks to pre-booked cross-aisle seating. US Sharon picked us up and drove us to our car. We park on the street in Brooklyn instead of at the airport. Saves us a couple of hundred dollars in parking fees as long as either Liz or Sharon are willing to drive us to JFK and pick us up.

So there you are. One week in France.

A couple of quick final notes.

I haven’t always included the price of our meals or other purchases. The euro has fluctuated by 20% over the last couple of months. The euros that paid for the charges on our Credit Lyonnaise Visa card, automatically deducted from our checking account, were bought at $1.25. The euros that we purchased at ATMs during our stay cost us closer to $1.50. Today euros are back down to $1.33. How much did our replacement chairs cost? Either $16.50 or $13.75. Our morning baguette and pain au chocolat together ran somewhere between $2.70 and $2.25. As a consequence, I don’t spend a great deal of time worrying about what our purchases cost either in euros or converted to dollars. We’re on vacation. Things cost what they cost.

It is also the case that this journal concentrates almost exclusively on the day-to-day activities of French living…shopping, dining in and dining out, DIY home repair and such. On this trip, we didn’t go to the CPAM office in Beziers to determine if and when we will qualify for the French healthcare system. I didn’t visit the computer club in Cazouls to discuss with the local geeks the best internet service provider. How do we choose doctors and dentists? Get our prescription medications? Transfer our drivers’ licenses? That’s all to come.

Stay tuned.