one of the first official things we had to do was sort out health care. We had paperwork from England that said they would pay France for our care for two years but after that we would have to accepted by France. We went to the local government office where we struggled with French but amazingly came out with the correct papers and the promise our carte vitale would arrive in the post soon. By this time we had heard lots of horror stories about not being accepted. About a week later the cards arrived and they had included K on mine. Phew, we could shelve that for a while.
We had a large pot of money and set about getting our house sorted. I bought a duck and hen house. We bought our first chickens with a cockerel soon after. I started with Buff Orpingtons as research told me they were a good breed for beginners. They settled down quickly and started laying. That summer they hatched five chicks. I was hooked! I had never been anywhere near a live chicken before this but found it easy to handle and care for them.
Shortly after arriving we had a micro station installed. Our original toilet emptied into a concrete tank but everything else went into a field behind us. France had planned to inspect every private system to get all to conform by 2012. No chance! Many rural places still tip into fields and have local farmers emptying the tanks. Our micro station is very modern and processes everything to empty water into the river at the back of our house. We had a big 11 person one put in to future proof it. Whilst all the digging was being done we asked if a duck pond could be dug. One scoop and it was done. A month later the pond was done and ducks installed. I bought Rouen ducks, three girls and one boy. They are big Mallards.
We were beginning to get things into shape.
Our next big thing was to have solar tubes installed and a big heat exchanger to provide hot water. With hind sight I would not have done this and if it ever fails we will take it out. There are times in the depths of winter when I have a two inch bath of lukewarm water! There is an immersion you can set to kick in but it takes too much power. We have tried to put things in place to reduce our monthly costs. Certainly our electricity was drastically reduced.
Having built the shells of the rooms upstairs we removed the bedroom walls downstairs. This created a large room with the stairs going up one side. On the opposite wall was a very big fireplace with an equally big chimney. This was to be my kitchen. In the fireplace we installed my wood burning Esse oven. Royal blue with chrome plates to cover the hot plates. I still love it now. In winter it heats that side of the house.
Just before we removed the downstairs bedrooms K announced she was getting married. Our baby was finally going. She married a French postman! She now lives nearby and has a three year old boy whom I love to bits.
We were now coming up to two years here so started looking at health care again. England wrote to say they would no longer pay for us so we turned to France. They said no! The European law said they should accept us but locally they would not. This was major but we were determined to stay. It took lots of work to find a solution but we found one just before our cover ran out. We decided to convert a barn into Gites. We were able to sign up to a system that gave us immediate cover and we had two years to make some money and pay some tax!
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