Day 5, Monday 3rd April 2017 Started with the worrying discovery of an email from the purchaser of Sunejo, asking for a delay till June as he was ‘having trouble with the bank’. Actually, I can’t remember how and when I found that as either from the start or very soon there was no telephone or internet in the house. So phone calls had to be made to Orange by mobile phone asking them to sort it out. Eventually, the best they could undertake was to have it restored by Thursday evening! Not a lot of help!

When we arrived the night before, everything looked very depressing; the grass was overgrown, and the moles were back in force – worse than before as the molehills were right next to the terrace and very unsightly. And the pool! the water wasn’t circulating and I couldn’t get it going, and the bottom was a mass of dead wildlife ….

Obviously, phone calls had to be made! By mobile, only option. And we had to go shopping. Marthe (from the village) called, and gave some helpful advice, and we got stuck into the first major job, sorting the jumble in the carport into ‘keep’ ‘tip’ and ‘burn’ piles. Shannon did her bit of helping.

Day 6, Tuesday 4th April : With no phone (landline) or internet, we decided to head for Limoux and attend to some admin as well as getting online somewhere …. Well, the first and obvious choice was McDonald’s, and it turned out to be a happy one because while I did online jobs Shannon played happily in and around McD’s child-eating monster:

That’s her, at the window, top left.

Eventually it spits them out at the bottom – but they insist on going round again …

Now armed with details of places we needed to go, we went to Leclerc to buy some sandwiches etc. for lunch – you didn’t think we were going to eat at McD’s, did you? Visited the tax office and the prefecture, having already called at the insurance office, Groupama. The only real difficulty was manoeuvring Harry round Limoux’s narrow, one-way streets, but everyone in the offices was helpful and smiling, contrary to the impression we often have of French bureaucracy.

Back in Sonnac, and thanks to Marthe’s advice and information, we went to see the Mayor, who has a surgery on Tuesday evenings. This was very useful; not only was he able to give us his son’s mobile phone number (Pierre had done some garden maintenance for us before), but also tell us there would be a collection of ‘encombrants’ the next morning – and he made phone calls to see that they would call on us. I asked what time; he said ‘they start at eight – you’ve time to brush your teeth’.

So we went back to Sunejo and started moving the ‘tip’ pile from yesterday to the roadside outside the gate. Shannon really did help with this:

As well as helping to drag that big bag out, she was happily bringing smaller items to add to the growing accumulation at the gate:

(Yes, that one’s out of focus, but it gives the idea of what was involved.)

I was a bit worried about this because my understanding of ‘encombrants’ was meaning cumbersome items too big to put in the ‘everyday’ skip or even in the boot of the average car. But the Mayor had said ‘put everything out – they’ll pick it up’.

Day 7. Weds. 5th And so they did – about 8.20 am, two nice men were at the gate with a truck, picking everything up, including a gas bottle which had been left by the previous owners! I asked if it was all right, and they said ‘put it in’. We’d been wondering about hiring a skip, but that is much less done in France – this is why! So we were lucky to have called at the Mayor’s office when we did, thanks to Marthe, and pleased to get rid of so much stuff so soon, though two or three days later might have been even better! During the day – or it may have been the next day – Pierre arrived and got stuck into ‘doing’ the garden, and the Molemen called too and set traps all around. Sorry, but it’s the only way.

Rachel was determined that a day should not pass without we got one of the major areas sorted – and I needed that sort of ‘encouragement’, so we attacked the loft, putting a lot of stuff across into the attic room, but some in bags to take to the tip ourselves, or to burn. There was no culinary exhibitionism this week; food was mainly toast, pate, cheese or a ready meal from Super U, with fruit and bought desserts as needed.

Also Rachel decided some of the items in the ‘keep’ pile needed hosing off and drying in the sun – the weather was much warmer now. Shannon decided the hose was great to play with:

Oh – and a man arrived from Orange to fix the problem with the TV and internet – it was an external issue, and he replaced a whole length of the cable outside. We never did get the TV working, either french or English, but we did get phone and internet, which was a relief, and were able to see some UK TV online.

Day 8. Thursday 6th. We’d invited Trevor and Pam to join us for lunch, and perhaps to help with one of the major jobs. I put together a ‘cheats’ paella, but it went down well, and after that our visitors’ help was invaluable! While Trevor weighed in to clearing the shed – some of which hadn’t been touched since the last removal men put stuff in it four and a half years’ ago – Pam did an amazing stint of keeping Shannon happily playing in the spare bedroom, which we’d designated as a playroom.

Day 9. Friday 7th. I’ve no clear memory of this day! None of us was very well – a cough brought from England was being irritated by the constant dust, apart from anything else. I think we went shopping again, then began to attack the garage. Later we had a bonfire:

It was a bit of a wrench to burn the companion seat from Garth View, but we had never ‘installed’ it at Sunejo, and it had deteriorated in the carport such that we thought it best to cremate it. …

Meanwhile Shannon thought the gates needed washing:

Then there was time for a swing:

Well … it’s what Grandad’s are for!

Day 10. Sat 8th April 2017: Rachel had offered to take me out to a birthday lunch on the way to the airport, but I really didn’t feel like it – celebrate my return to Yorkshire, I said. But they had bought cards for me, and one had arrive from Christine, Carol and Judi, which was nice, and Chris and the children sent a video message. The morning was spent mainly packing up ready for R & SV to leave, and everything ran to time and smoothly, apart from a minor irritation at Carcassonne airport, when the computer at baggage drop-off wasn’t working! That sorted, eventually, we had a drink at the café, and I left once they went through security ….. Now it’s just me ….