Back in France and collecting our cat!

Bonjour a tous,
Well, we’re  finally here.  We arrived via Heathrow and then coach to Stansted which allowed us to catch a Ryanair flight into Carcassonne, which is only 45 mins from our house  We have hired a Renault Clio for a month (FYI best deals can be found at Le Clerc supermarket!) in which time we plan to find a cheap second hand car to buy.

We had a couple of days to get over jet lag but on the Sunday (we arrived on the Wednesday) had a rendezvous in Barcelona to pick up our cat, Kitty.  At the time of booking we thought Barcelona would be fine but had no idea of the demonstrations and road closures that would cause such chaos to the region.

Our preferred route alone the A9 motorway was blocked by protestors so we had to take the path over the Pyrenees.  Don't do it unless the mountains are your intended destination or you fancy something in Andorra. It's a pain in the backside,  particulary with a manual car as its constant gear changing and very winding.  Plus the tolls are exorbitant!!!

Anyway the cat was arriving on EK185 from Dubai at around 1:20 pm so we arrived good and early to get all the paperwork sorted.  Once we had found the WFS cargo building near Terminal 2, we had her pet papers processed, paid the duty (around 90 euros for a cat) and was told we had to go to the customs area in terminal 2 to get the papers stamped. We could then return and pick up the cat.

skeleton staff on the weekend!


So we traipsed over to Terminal 2 and found the Customs Office.  After 10 mins a lady came to see us. She told us that before the cat could be released a vet had to sign off.  So to retrieve your  pet you need three different people from three different departments to give three different stamps who reside in three different buildings!   This is where the problem started as no vet was on site at the airport on a Sunday!   They knew our cat was arriving but no-one seemed to take responsibility for making sure the vet would be there.   A vet had to be called. She  didn’t turn up until 5pm.  Eventually at 6:15pm the poor car was released to us.  Oh, and then the vet came back saying she couldn't be released as we didn't have the original health certificate.  I turned out to be glued in a sleeve on top of her cage, but had it not it really would have been the final straw!!    It's a common old rescue cat for f@#s sake  (excuse my French) not a bloody endangered Bengal tiger!

It was now dark so it meant we would have to drive the four hours back to France in the dark. On the plus side the motorway was now open, but on the negative side is quite badly lit for a 130kph route, especially with a complaining back seat passenger. Poor Kitty had been trapped in her cage now for probably 12 plus hours and was complaining loudly in no uncertain terms about her treatment the entire trip back stopping her meowing every now and then to break wind with a stench that could strip wallpaper! Fair enough, I would probably have done similar or worse under the same circumstances.

Ok, now it gets real!

As those who have been reading our infrequent posts we bought a little house in the Ariège, and for the past few years have been staying there during the summer and gradually bringing it back to life.

Each time we went back to Perth if felt like we were leaving a part of us behind.  We locked the place up, put the shutters up and went back to our drone like existence in Perth.  Well, I suppose there is a time when you simply need to take the plunge. We have therefore made the decision to pack up and move to France and see where the pieces fall!  As a brief aside I suppose we have a bit of form for this, having done exactly the same in 2010 when we moved to Australia.  Well its been nearly 10 years living and working in Perth so I'm not sure we can be called 'flighty' just yet. We will finally have our French xmas and get the log fire going as the appropriate time of the year!

So its goodbye to loading planes!

Michelle’s French is excellent whilst mine is more rabbit in headlights panic as soon as someone speaks to me.  I've been flitting around like a verbal bee between various French apps attempting to improve.  I think though that the only way I'm going to get any real progress is to throw myself wholeheartedly into the mix.  For this reason I have told Michelle I will do the hard yards and spend a minimum of 4 hours each day in a selection of local bars listening and engaging with the locals.  Now this may involve me having the odd glass of beer or wine but I'm prepared to put the hours in for the greater good.

All is basically now packed up. The hardest decision we had to make was what to do with our cat. It would have cost $2500 to bring her back with us.  The sensible approach would be to give her to a friend and we had a kind lady all lined up  (thanks Rachel) but because we are both pathetic we relented and now have her arriving a few days after us in Barcelona.