A week with no posting! We’ve been quite busy, but with nothing really to report. We’ve continued to look at houses, and we’ve re-visited three on the short list. And of course, we’ve moved ‘home’. But the dominant memory of the last three days will be the ongoing battle with Santander to get OUR money out of THEIR bank! An asthma attack and  2 days without without breakfast are just a bit of it …..

Anyway, I referred somewhere (in an e-mail, I think, not in the journal) to Harry’s ‘not very photogenic corner’ of the pitch at Alet. Well, on packing-up day, I had a go: 

On Thursday we moved to Puivert  – you can Google that and get lots of pictures of the Castle and some of the lake – the campsite is beside the lake and we have much more space, but we are surrounded by families and noisy children; at Alet we felt quite young! So, you pays your money and takes your choice – less money here, anyway.

Before coming up the hill on Thursday we took Harry to the house with the pool, down by the riverside, having developed a concern that the significant uphill into the drive could cause grounding with his overhang and the towbar. We were reassured to find that with care, he can get in (and out!) without any remodelling of the driveway. Not that we’ve decided on that house, yet. Two others in Quillan have scored more highly on our ‘refined’ scorechart.

But before all that, we heard from various sources that Wednesday might be a good time to trade Sterling for Euros. Not my usual scene, but I managed to play a couple of currency brokers against each other and got a much better rate than we had anticipated a month ago. (1.615). In one or two weeks’ time we’ll either be saying “didn’t we do well!” or kicking ourselves for trading too soon. But then began the nightmare of trying to get the money OUT of Satan-DER  and IN to the account at the broker’s. I don’t want to go on too long with a blow-by-blow, and I don’t know what it’s cost in phone calls yet, but the sticking point seems to be that although I checked before completing the sale of GV that all I had to do when the time came was make a call to arrange a CHAPS payment, it couldn’t be done because my MOBILE phone wasn’t registered with the bank! So I registered it – No! It has to be in the system for 60 days! So what do we do? Send a fax with lots of proof of ID. Easy on a campsite in the Pyrenees, eh? Still, a nice (but incompetent, as it turned out) lady at the Mairie in Alet agreed to do it for us, however, for whatever reason, it failed, but we didn’t know that because the lady said it had been successful. Maybe we’d been given the wrong number – one of Satan-DER’s ‘advisers said it was wrong and gave us a different one. Eventually the fax was sent by our least favourite estate agent in Quillan. However, we still don’t know whether the transfer has been made, or will be made on Monday morning. We do know we missed the deadline to fulfil our contract with the currency broker, and they are entitled to charge for that, but they’ve said they won’t. So a recommendation for Halo Financial, and, not for the first time, a big BOO-HISS for Satan-DER.

 Meanwhile, a feel-good story. Regular followers might recall (or re-visit ‘Postcards from Harry,’ entry 11) a visit to Spain last October to buy a replacement camera. The faulty one was taken to the photo-shop in Penrith, who sent it to Germany to be looked at, but on the understanding that I wouldn’t be paying for a repair as I had done so once already. Germany kept it from November to May! As leaving day drew nearer and nearer I began to make regular visits to the shop saying ‘any chance of getting my camera back?’ We left without it. They had contact details, but it was still a bit of a surprise to get a call from Richard, of the Photo Shop in Penrith, soon after we’d left UK saying ‘I’ve got your camera, where are you?’ South of France, no problem – he was about do come down here to track sections of the Tour de France. He’d be in Carcassonne around July 12^th and would contact us then. And he did. And although he was running very late, having had a car impounded and taken time to get it back, he drove from Carcassonne to Limoux to to hand it over with no charge. (We gave him a bottle of local bubbles.) HE understands PR, just like Halo Financial. Satan-DER should take lessons.

 So we come to July 14^th and the Tour de France on the 15^th. The big  Fête Nationale passed us by unnoticed – we could have gone to fireworks in Quillan or Carcassonne – many did – but Puivert is having its own ‘do’ later and we were happier setting up home and having a nice meal at the little café on site. But to ignore the Tour de France – especially with a Brit winning – would have been a bit remiss ( it passed within walking distance). So we did our best with some Union Jack napkins:

And for the first time ever, someone actually did shout ‘Rosbif’ at me across the street (that’s the supposed  equivalent  of ‘Frog’, but I’ve never heard it before), and we went out along beside the lake 

And through the village

 to the main road. We found some young English folk wrapped in St. George flags, so we felt quite safe, someone took our photo (press or not, we don’t know), a group of locals (probably) were doing Mexican waves everytime a vehicle went by: 

 Then the big event! Blink and you’ll miss it! I shouted ‘Go, Wiggo!’, but I’ve no idea at whom, and my attempt to video the main group of riders failed miserably as I must have pressed a wrong button! Or not pressed the right one. Carol did rather better and caught this shot:

Now it’s raining (but that’s impossible – it doesn’t rain here from May to October. Ha!) And tomorrow it’s back to the house hunt, and can’t wait to find out if that money transfer has gone through, or is going to ….