Lots of things have been going on in our lives at present, I`ll tell you of some, not necessarily in the right order, as they are all mixed up in my head! We have continued our cycling craze, we`re both really enjoying it, and are sure it`s doing us good. On Saturday, we decided to try out the cycle-paths on the Ile de Ré. Being of a mean nature and allergic to unnecessary expense, we arranged to leave the car on the Mainland in the free carpark at Belvedere just this side of the ENORMOUS Ile de Ré bridge featured above. This cannily avoided the 16Eur car fee (bikes go free ha ha) However, we found we earned our passage by the fact that the bridge is two and a half kilometers long, the first half naturally going up!
However, the Ile is indeed a cyclist`s paradise, with loads of cycle paths, you need scarcely share a road with motor traffic, just with foot passagers sometimes. I`ll tell more of our 23.5 k later perhaps.
Another other major event is the process of changing our car. We had asked Laurent, our friendly local Garagiste, to look out for a van-derived car, a Berlingo, Partner or Kangoo, and he rang a few days ago to say he had a Citroen Berlingo we could have. We went to see it and as it seemed ideal and at a price we could afford we said we`d have it. We can`t take delivery yet as it`s holiday time in France, the car is awaiting révision and Controle Technique so will be a fortnight or so. However the 106 is still running well so that`s no problem. The ennuis started when we decided to get a car loan from AXA, our French Bank to finance the deal. What a load of French rules and regulations!! First, the car was a year too old to qualify for a car loan at their special rate. No problem, we could have a personal loan (no doubt at a higher rate.... Could we please provide photocopies of my passport, French and English tax returns, full details and a pro-forma invoice for the car (why if it`s a personal loan?) etc and return for another meeting. The dossier would then be sent to head office but could be delayed due to holidays season, of course. If approved, a further delay of a week would follow to allow us to change our minds.... Well it didn`t need that long for us to decide to do this, and we decided to draw on our reserves in the UK. AXA didn`t seem too disappointed. Our currency firm changed the sum to Euros and it was with us in two days, much more like it! There was more of the same to change the car ownership, photos of passport, taxe d`habitation, driving licence, much easier in Britain, unless it`s changed since I last did it which is more than likely!
A third event was that Jimmy Renoux, our wood provider, said he had a window of opportunity to deliver our winter wood yesterday before getting back to the harvest. As we had arranged to visit the Doctor for our three-monthly check-up, we asked him to leave it in the cour, as usual. We had decided to do the trip to the doc`s by bike, and it was not until we were coming back that I suddenly remembered that we had left the car in the open barn and risked having to shift five stères of wood before we could use it! I sprinted on ahead and found Jimmy in the course of dumping the wood from his trailer but of course, he had thought to leave enough room for us to get the car out, Phew!!
Hero seems to have the idea that the wood is there to provide a convenient perch
Well, I want to get this blog on line, as it is showing worrying signs of disappearing, so i shall say `bye for now, more later!
PS What do you think of Kim`s new hair do--- chic, isn`t it!
