I received a letter from the lady at CPAM, in Agen, who is dealing with my application for an Attestation des Droits. The letter stated that  they did not have my E106. I have now phoned some 6 times to get this. In fact I sent the E106 to CPAM by registered mail and I have the CPAM stamp on the receipt which is dated 15th february 2007. Along with all this bother, to call CPAM you must use a premium rate phone line. I despair of this lot I really do.

Cathy kept saying to me in her best Scouser accent “Calm down - calm down”. The lady I spoke to promised to phone back this afternoon to let me know what is happening. I won’t hold my breath.

Every Wednesday and Friday we take Georgia to the EMPR in Monflanquin. This is a special agency that helps with child educational problems. Georgia has help from an orthophoniste (roughly speaking a type of speech therapist) and a psycho-immotrician (which is a type of educational psychologist I think). Both the practitioners are excellent dedicated people and Georgia really enjoys seeing them - just as well.

It is quite expensive, but paid 100% by through the French Healthcare system. I am passported into the system through having an E106 from the UK which then gets me an Attestation des Droits from CPAM in Agen, Lot et Garonne. This is the fifth and final year that I can do this.  Each of the last five years I got an E106 and then sent it to Agen.  Each time I have trouble. CPAM is slow, and the staff are inefficient and when you call it is a premiumr rate phone call (rip-off!).

Today I was challenged as to why I had no Attestation, by the EMPR secretary. I explained to her that CPAM received it over a month ago (I have proof as well).  She will check again and we will see.

Why does it always take so long and why always the hassle. France!

Yesterday (Monday 5th March) was such a nice day. it was 22C on our thermometer which is well in the shade. In the sun it was much hotter. I was tempted to put shorts on but as I was going to be using the debrousilleuse (brush cutter) for most of the day I kept the ‘longs’ on.

One of my first purchases here in 2003 was a Honda 4 stroke debrousilleuse. It cost about 380€ as it is fairly powerful. I was sold on the idea of the 4 stroke engine as there was less vibration and less noise - no 2 stroke oil/fuel mix etc. having used my father-in-law’s 2 stroke Stihl I think I made a mistake. The Stihl is much lighter and it revs so much higher that it cuts better. It may be a little more noisy and it may just have a little more vibration but all said and done it is much easier and quicker to use.

So I spent about 4 hours cutting back the bramble and nettles in the fosse. That did about half of it I suppose. I need to get some more pipes of some desciption so I can fill in the fosse but keep the water flowing through.  This will make it mowable and prevent the bramble from repoulating. I only need about 30 tons of stuff to fill it. Any offers? perhaps i will ut up a Remblai Accepte board which is an offer to anyone to dump their hardcore etc for free.

The other job was mowing. Not before time. We have about 5 aces of grass to mow. Of this about half starts more slowly and din’t need cutting yet. So I did a first cut of the season on about 3 acres which was about another 3 hours worth.

After that - nice shower, dinner, a few beers and an early night to sleep the sleep of an angel!

With the way the weather has been lately the grass has really started to grow and needs cutting.  I got my John Deere back yesterday, from Delpuech in Castillonnes, after its service and running repairs. Three new cutting blades, bearings, main belt plus service came to 317€.  Its running like a dream now. 

But it has rained on and off all day and the wind has been fierce at times so the first cut of the year is postponed. Lets hope Chelsea win the Carling Cup against Arsenal.

Last night (Friday 23rd February) I watched the Money Programme “Dream Commuters cross borders”. It was interesting on a number of levels. It highlighted the large and growing numbers of people working in the UK and living abroad. It featured France and Spain. 

On a 6pm ish flight, from Gatwick to Toulouse, about a quarter of the passengers on this busy flight put their hands up when asked if they were commuting from Toulouse to the UK to work.

The reporter also visited Bergerac airport. She had two prominent ’sets’ in front of the large Anglo Info advertising board which sandwiched the look at Eymet.  Another bit of product placement happened (am I too cynical?) when the camera focused on an Eymet Immobilier advert.  She claimed that Eymet was a very large expat community with 40% of the population being British. Is is really that much?  Yo can have a look at the article about the programme on the BBC website here http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6385851.stm?ls

It had a particular interest to me because I did just this for my first year in France. I was working as a barrister doing criminal defence work based at Farringdon chambers in London. It was OK as far as it went but in my line of work it was not ideal. Work came my way at short notice or with no notice.  If a solicitor gave me a brief and wanted a conference with the client in 2 days time I had to do it. If a trial lasted longer than predicted there was nothing I could do. It was not conducive to easy journey planning and it meant that it was difficult to take advantage of cheap Ryanair or Flybe flights.

Some  of you may have noticed that some of the links on Aquitaine Diary were not working. The problem has finally been resolved (I think) so that all links work properly. That is until I break them by adding more functions I suppose!

I took Cathy, Georgia, Aine and Finn to Bergerac airport this morning. they were catching a Ryanair flight to Liverpool. They are visiting friends who live near Shrewsbury. Oh well, peace and quiet for a week. Ryanair really came up trumps with this flight because it only cost 120€ for all 4 including taxes and the cost of 2 cases each way. that really is a bargain. The car park at Bergerac airport is now functioning properly with the barrier in operation. You get 30minutes free an then it costs 1€ for an hour and so on. I think that its a great improvement from the muddy field before.

Due to a change of direction in our project we have 73 square metres of 36cm x 36 cm floor tiles for sale.
There are 40 boxes each holding 1.84 square metres.
We paid about 7.50€ per sq m so we are selling them for less than half the price we paid.
For the lot 295€
There is a photo below to give you an idea of how they look.
Call Bill or cathy on 0553 718024 or email: in.aquitaineatgmail.com (NB the @ has been substituted by ‘at’ to prevent robot spammers so use the @ if you want to email)
We are in Cahuzac near Castillonnes.

Finn was very poorly last night. His breathing was stertuous and shallow. He kept waking up and was distressed with his discomfort. Cathy and I had a poor nights sleep. I ended up downstairs trying to sleep on the sofa next to Finn where he was propped up. This morning Cathy got a 9.30 appointment with Dr Biamou in Eymet. It transpires that he has bronchitis and as a result was prescribed antibiotics, steroids etc.  Aine is already off school with a viral throat infection and she has a range of medications to take. Georgia is going to school because she has the constitution of an ox despite having an infection in her stomache or thereabouts. Our place looks like a pharmacy.

Got the quittus fiscale in Villeneuve sur Lot, got the van registered in Agen, got the new number plates in Castillonnes. My Mercedes van is now french registered. Hooray for French bureaucracy.