Kaye went to the mairie at the beginning of the week, needing a letter for her pension stating that she's actually alive. This turns out to be a form letter sort of thing. The maire (may0r) himself needed to sign this and while he was there, we talked about the possibilities for "regularizing" our house, in view of our neighbor's claims. He doesn't think we need to do anything about this, so I guess we won't.
Unpacking is still happening, getting down the the stuff that's difficult to put away. Kaye opened a box of rocks (yes, rocks) that included Houston newspapers from 1982, never unpacked for all that time. It's nice to see pictures and such things going up throughout the house, making it feel more like home.
Last Friday we had someone come to inspect the fosse septique (septic tank). Except that we couldn't find it! There's been an iron plate in the yard, that we thought covered the access. Instead there was nothing underneath. A little digging turned up a kind of concrete trough, apparently for draining water downhill from the old outdoor shower. We tried to phone the previous owner to find out more information about the fosse, but there was no answer. Meanwhile Ed's been digging up the garden looking for the access, which he finally found under the stump and the pot of sage in the bed around the umbrella tree. Tomorrow we'll call for a new inspection appointment. Since we plan on graveling over most of the part nearest the house, we expect we'll leave the strange trough in place, rather than trying to remove it. But we will get rid of that useless eyesore of an iron plate.
On Sunday we went to an afternoon concert at the church in Lésignac-Durand. It opened with short pieces by two students, voice and piano. Then there was a group of pieces sung by a soprano and a quite good mezzo, both from the conservatory in Limoges. Then there was a section of pieces played the Duo Bensimhon (1 piano, 4 hands), quite well played and fun except for Milhaud's Boeuf sur le Toit, which was good, but went on too long for the occasion. Last we had Fréderic Langlais (we saw him in June at the tango concert), playing both the accordion and the amoriental, a new instrument related to the accordion.
Our new kitty hasn't arrived yet. We'll go get her either at the end of this week or at the start of next.
Qu'est-ce que c'est "regularizing" your house?
ReplyDeleteHaving it declared, officially, a house. The living/dining area and mezzanine were once an old stable. It seems there was never an official request to make it into a habitation. (Thus our neighbor thinks she has no responsibility for keeping water from her barn out of our house.) At the mairie we found an application to put windows into an "existing barn," not into an existing house.
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