Quiet days in Milly

Today was quite a quiet day, I tried to get organised so could  make the most the day. Well I reckon herding cats would be a doddle after this. Hilary and Josie are equally as air heady as each other and  when they get together the dick around, get distracted gene seems to be magnified at least 10 fold.Then there is the matter of Jackie who has a similar genetic makeup obviously but also has the added problem of having two smallish children to look after. I was making soup,getting more and more frustrated as firstly Jackie and Elena headed off to bed for a rest, Hilary skyping a music lesson  and then,

Hilary's online music lesson. Maree in Sydney, Hilary here in Milly. Great eh?

when they were up again trying to get Hilary and Josie to finish breakfast, put on shoes and socks,comb hair and brush teeth. Should have taken five minutes, or 10 if I'm being really generous. We didn't leave untill about 12 and then I was scared everyone would want lunch. I knew we needed to be backin time to feed people and be out by 3 at the carsales yard where we were going tohave another look at the campervan. I cannot describe how frustrated I was getting,  I had made plans and communicated them to people at 9, so they could be ready. It took me three hours to get them in the car headed out of Milly, for the forest. Seriously it is bad.
So my first drive in France.  We took the Volvo  which is a right hand drive so it didn't feel too bad until I came to an intersection when it was difficult to know who had right of wy,or a roundabout where the instinct is to go left of course. not a good idea trying to go clockwise around a roundabout in France.     We got to the forest without any mishaps, and walked into the parc du trois pigeons    to the mer de sal I think it is. The sea of sand. On the walk in we encountered many beautiful reptiles, lizards which change colour rapidly, green, brown or grey depending on their environment.

Three different of lizards (I know there are 4 but the first 2 are the same beast)

 When we got to the sand it wasn't as big an expanse as I had envisaged, but still impressive considering the location. Apparently the sand is so white as it is washed with the limestone from sea shells from millions of years ago when there was sea here. Look on a map to find Milly-la-foret (it's west of Fotainbleau a couple of cms.... depending on the magnification of your google map of course) to see just how inland it is.

La mer de sel

 

Hilary under "the dog's head"

While there the kids played in the sun, watched by Diana, while I went looking for photo opportunities. I found many more lizards and interesting rocks and forms.

A couple of gendarme riding through the sand

Me and Elena walking through the forest to the sel. Photo courtesy of Hilary

The kids playing at the "beach"

Hilary,  Barbara (the dog) and Josie

We could only stay for an hour or so because we had taken so long getting ready and we had other appointments to keep, so we packed up and headed back to the Volvo.
Jackie had warned me, and I had seen Nick struggle to get the Volvo into reverse. Well we spent 5-10 minutesstruggling and attempting to reverse the car outof its parking spot,  ever inching further and further forward, off the parking area, over a small lip of rocks, into the blackberry and trees as reverse refused to be found. Di and I tried pushing it out but it is built like a tank, so fortunately I noticed a monsieur and madame at their car about 15 cars away so went and asked him for help. With his limited English, my
limited French and Josie's assistance with interpretting we managed to understand each other.  He and his wife came over,tried valiantly to put it into reverse only to creep further into the leaves. Eventually we all managed with gut ripping and arm straining effort to push the collossus back up over the stone lip into a position where we could drive forward from.
We negotiated our way safely back had quick lunch before heading out to look at the campervan. We dropped the girls off at Mark's house (the bloke who helped us check out the campervan,) and picked him up) for a test drive. 
We decided to buy the motorhome, not cheap, but if things work out should be the most economical way of doing things by far. However, I'm not holding my breath about "things going to plan" it seems a very foreign concept.
You can't insure a vehicle in France unless you are a resident. (Thankfully Jackie is willing to put the motorhome in her name and use her insurance broker, and I trust her enough that we will get the money back when it is sold), but it is compulsory to be insured.  You can't insure the campervan if  you are going to take it out of France for more than a month (how would they know? there is no border control)????
When you change ownership you have to re-register it (the paperwork takes 5 days!!! after the money for purchase has cleared in the sellers bank account) and though the number on the number plate stays the same you have to buy new plates because the identity number for the area you live has to match the paperwork.
That's only part of it. The car sales yard don't accept plastic as a means of payment,they want a French cheque. I don't have a French bank account. I boldly say, no worries, I'll e-bank the money into your account. Well you can't transfer internationally (I presume so there is a record of where money is going to stop naughtiness). Oh well I'll get Kiwibank to do a direct debit on line. They only do that to the US, Aus, England and somewhere else I can't remember, but certainly not France. Oh well, I'll "wire it" with "Western" - try to do that online, "oh sorry, we can't transfer that much to France" says the computer screen. Great....
all the time aware that it will take 3-5 days to clear in the bank account and then 5 days to "do the paperwork",  we are already 8 days behind schedule, and really outstaying our welcome here because we are so dependent. So I'm feeling really stymied and desperate, when I think I'll play my "joker" - my biggest brother back in NZ,I send out a plaintive  (well desperate and begging email really) in the middle of the French night, outlining our plight, and not much later get a wonderful email back saying, yes, is searched out the solution, just send these numbers, codes, addresses..... and I can do it, if not today (Sunday) certainly first thing Monday (I had all that information at hand). If I believed in a God he would have been God-sent.
I feel incredibly grateful, relieved and a little less trapped,sonow I can concentrate on the next issue. What can we do for a few days, to get out of Nick and Jackie's hair so they can have some space, especially as they have friends coming to stay for the weekend.  I tried various options on line but we are quite isolated out here and so getting anywhere is really difficult. I've decided, God (that guy again) willing that we will go to Paris for a few days (what a hardship you are all thinking, I know!!!) and maybe go up to Giverney to Monet's garden while we are there. It means we are reliant on Jackie dropping us at the train station again, (which she will probably do happily, it's the picking up again at the end that may be more of a challenge for her!). So if the Hotel Tiquetonne is free that's our plan.

The day before yesterday we just had hanging around here. Jackie had intended inviting Mark and his wife over to dinner to say thank you for helping with things (like looking at the camper, and various other things over the past few weeks), well they gratefully accepted, but mentioned they had a few people staying with them and could they come too! Oh yes said Jackie.  Mark's wife was going to stay over with a friend who was about to have a baby (Karen, I think I mentioned her earlier,with the broken wrist?) that evening, and Jackie said, "oh bring her too". Then Jackie asked Nick who was having a drink with "the Icelandic" to pick up some chickens for cock au vin,and Nick said, "I didn't bring any money", so he had to borrow the money from Sven and thought he should invite him and his family too. Well the upshot was that we had 21 people invited to dinner, Jackie and Nick never having hosted a dinner party before, and Jackie having good ideas and honourable intentions but not so good on the organisation or action fronts being the host/ess. Yep, you guessed it. Thursday night we started preparing the dish, Saturday morning Di and I continued preparing the dish, Saturday afternoon we started preparing the aperitiffs and dessert.

The coq au vin preparation begins

Baby onions,brown onions, carrots, celery, bay and thyme for the second phase

Bubbling coq au vin with 1litre of merlot and 4 tablespoons of cognac.

Mushrooms and baby onions sauteeing for phase three

I took a short break from the kitchen to take Hilary for a bike ride into the forest. We heard cuckoos (what do the do? they don't crow/cheep/peep/twitter/chirp/they just plain cuckoo don't they?)

Me and Hilary biking in the forest. (Clever camera work,and a couple of tries).

Unfortunately we went further than we thought and so got a bit disorientated when we emerged fromthe forest and ended up going to the next village (off the map we had) so I needed

to hail a madame (no not one of those sort) and ask."excuse em mois, madame, ou est Milly-la-foret?"

To which she pointed the way we had come! I asked how far, with hand gestures and  ??? cinque kilometre??? to which she replied, "oui,cinq kilometre". It wasn't,probably more like two or three, but we biked home like startled rabbits knowing the guests would be arriving soon. I quickly helped finish of the biscotti we had started earlier, basil pesto and fresh tomato, and then the guests hailed their arrival by knocking on the kitchen window from the footpath.

Basil and tomato bicotti, went down a treat.We made dozens and still they wanted more!!



Some of the guests (children at another table)



People seemed to enjoy themselves. I was exhausted and consequently though the food was delicious (even if I say so myself) I get to enjoy it twice (if you get my drift).

It's another day now, (Sunday) only 9am but I've already experienced about 7 hours of it, what with checking out the internet, worrying about you name it (no Annie I'm not medicated, probably that would help, but so would not feeling so responsible for evreyone and everything else, and everyone else sorting themselves out and..  and....).

So I'm going to go and get ready for the day and try to get some fun stuff achieved today.