LA BONNE HUMEUR, CAZOULS-LES-BEZIERS - RESTAURANT REVIEW

There are restaurants with bars and bars that serve food. La Bonne Humeur in Cazouls-les-Beziers falls into the latter category. But don't be fooled. Lunch is well-prepared, substantial, and reasonably priced. We stopped by recently to pass the time while our car was being serviced and were not disappointed. The outside seating was shaded and comfortable although the road noise could be a bit much. The lunch crowd was clearly composed of friendly locals who enjoyed each others' company - including an Irish couple who sat next to us. They had retired to the village several years earlier and lunch at La Bonne Humeur more frequently than they had been since it's changed hands for the better.

Starters included a choice of charcuterie, crudities, salad, or chick peas in vinaigrette. Not fancy but the salad was well constructed and the chick peas were an unfamiliar twist. Mains included encornet (cuttle fish - a squiddy sort of thing), faux filet, and duck breast. Cathey's encornet came in a light tomato sauce, non-Italian, with peppers and lots of garlic, properly slow-cooked. My duck breast was seared on the outside and pink on the inside. Fine. Frites or rice on the side. For dessert, Cathey had the cheeses (goat, bleu, and brie) and I had the floating island. Both satisfactory. (One of our neighbors had the fruit salad and it was clearly out of a can.)

We had a glass of rose wine (with an ice cube already in it) and a beer while we waited, a demi of rose with the meal (luke warm and accompanied by a sack of ice cubes), and I finished with a cafe creme. 32 euros.

This was not gourmet eats but nothing flopped and, if the rose had been chilled and the traffic a bit calmer, I might have called La Bonne Humeur above average. As it was, it's decent cheap eats if you find yourself in Cazouls. But be aware, there are better restaurants for lunch within walking distance charging just a few euros apiece more. You decide.

Read more of my reviews HERE.

TRAVELING WITH OUR CATS TO FRANCE - DONE!

Veterinary examinations done. Paperwork done. Reservations made. All that's left is to make the trek.

Cathey and I had decided, both for our own sanity and that of the cats, to spend only one night in a hotel prior to boarding our flight for Europe. One night was the minimum given that we had to completely clean out the house before we left, mattresses and all. We'd given some thought to spending as much as a week in a hotel but decided that would be both excessively costly and excessively stressful both for us and for the cats. Camping out in a familiar place, even in a severely stripped down condition, made more sense.

The cats were a bit spooked by this time. In fact, the past few months had been quite stressful for them. They knew that something was up but they didn't know exactly what. Strange people marched in and out of the house. Furniture and furnishings disappeared at an alarming rate. And there were those frequent visits to the vet to consider. But to their credit, and perhaps to ours, our Siamese sisters didn't completely freak out. Instead of running and hiding, they clung closer and closer to us. They spent more time on my lap in those last couple of weeks than in the past couple of years.

So, on the day before our flight we watched as Dr. Clutter cleaned us out. Everything went - mattresses, box springs, sprung sofas and arm chairs, unwanted and unsaleable furniture, everything. We put the cats in their carriers, turned the key on our home of 30 years, and didn't look back. We picked up our renter - a minivan that was required due to our four full-sized suitcases, two carry on bags, and two carriers. We dropped off our cars (sold for just about their scrap value) and checked into the local Best Western, chosen because it was both close to our house and is one of the few in the Lehigh Valley that accepts pets.

On their new bed in their new
home, safe and sound

The cats checked out the room thoroughly, announced their relative displeasure, and slept tight up against us.

Our flight time was 12:50 PM, so given three hours to get to JFK (two on average but we figured a cushion) and given three hours to check in (two required but again, a cushion), we left the hotel - after a decent free breakfast - at 7:00 AM. Traffic was light so we made good time and the cats were no more upset than during the much shorter rides to the vet. We discovered, however, that if the two zipper pulls on Chloe's carrier were in just the right position, she could arch her back and pop the zipper open. No problem. Just set the zippers at the halfway point instead of all the way to one end or the other.

By the way, these are the carriers that we used. They worked well enough. Yes, we had the zipper problem. And yes, a determined cat could probably scratch through the mesh if left unattended. But all in all, we were satisfied..

At JFK, I paid a red cap way too much money to watch out for Cathey and the cats in the terminal while I returned the renter and took the tram back. After the usual long wait in line to get to the ticket counter, we discovered that the Turkish Air agent had been trained to check in cabin-riding pets but had never actually done so. She excused herself to go talk to her supervisor and, about a half-hour later, returned to tell us that we had too much luggage. Neither the website nor the reservation agents over the phone had been clear. I'd thought that we could bring both the pet carriers and our carry on bags into the cabin. Nope. We'd have to pay for the carry ons or put the pets in the hold. Pets in the hold was not an option. $320 later, we were set to go.

We made a mistake during the boarding of our flight to Istanbul. When we got to our seats, all the way in the back of the plane, window and aisle together, a mother and child were sitting in them. We showed them our tickets and they realized that they belonged in the center section. So they moved. As it turned out, one of the three seats in their section was empty. So they were able to stretch out and be comfy. We shoulda kept our mouths shut. But it worked out OK. The stewardesses and most of the passengers loved our cats. (One passenger was a grouch. "Are they good travelers," she asked dourly. "I don't know," I replied. "They never traveled before." Eyes rolled.) And the guy and his young daughter in the seats ahead of us probably made more noise than the cats. The cats themselves never got over-excited. All in all, a fairly normal overseas flight.

We deplaned last, found our way to a quiet corner of the international terminal, put on the girls' halters and leashes, and let them out under close supervision. They stuck together like glue after a quick leg stretch, had no interest in the bits of food and water that we offered, and settled down using Cathey's coat for a pillow. After a five hour wait, our flight from Istanbul to Marseilles was called. Unfortunately, no jet way. We had to take a bus and climb stairs into the cabin. Not fun with both the cats and our carry ons, but we managed.

At this point, Chloe had enough. She began rolling on her back and kicking at the carrier. Not yowling, mind you. But showing signs of panic. Shortly after takeoff we understood why. Her bladder just could not hold out any longer. So she peed...while Cathey was holding the carrier on her lap. Ugh. Not terrible UGH! But ugh just the same.

It's a short flight from Istanbul to Marseilles. We were again the last ones out. A jet way instead of a bus, thankfully. Another long line, this time at passport control. And all the while, we could smell Chloe's pee. Not UGH enough for anyone else to notice, but we could. Finally, we reached the guy in the passport control booth.

Our instructions when applying for our long-stay visa had been specific. Your passport must have two blank pages facing each other, one for the long-stay visa and one for your entry stamp. So we opened our passports to the visa page when we handed them over. The guy looked our passports over, flipped through pages, and stamped them somewhere in the back. Maybe it won't matter. (It didn't. More about the immigration form in a later post.)

We picked up a cart for our luggage, loaded up with the cats' carriers on the top, and headed for customs. Nothing to declare. Except cats. I had their paperwork out. You remember, the paperwork that cost us hundreds of dollars, a trip to Harrisburg, and several dozen gray hairs to obtain? The customs agents on duty just waved us through. I pointed to the cats. They smiled and waved us through. The folks who told us that they never had to show the paperwork were right. Would I fly without the proper paperwork? Never. But it is galling.

The ride to our house in Quarante was uneventful. The cats were more than pleased to be released from bondage when we arrived. And they spent the next few weeks taking over their new home.

For now, that's the story of their journey. Perhaps we'll talk about the acclimatizing process in future.

TRAVELING WITH OUR CATS TO FRANCE - PHASE 1: PAPERWORK

We made it! Mimi and Chloe are with us in France. Here's how it played out.

If you've read my previous posts on the subject, you are aware that there are rules to be followed when bringing domestic animals into France. They must be micro chipped. They must have all the appropriate vaccinations. They must pass a health examination within ten days of entry into France. And the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) veterinarian for your state must sign off on their paperwork within ten days of entry into France. The timing is tight. The rules as published on the French consular website can be found here.

Again, as reported previously, we forewarned our new vet, Dr. Greg Leck, months in advance. (The vet who had cared for our Siamese step-sisters since their birth having retired, apparently just to avoid this craziness.) The girls were chipped. The paperwork downloaded, printed, and discussed. Meanwhile, in order to bring the girls with us in the cabin and in order to go through French customs rather than customs in Barcelona (so that the girls would arrive as French rather than Spanish cats), we chose Turkish Airlines - JFK to Istanbul to Marseilles.

We bought soft-sided carriers, left them out and open for the girls to explore, put their favorite toys in them, and took the girls for several short rides in the carriers in hopes that would acclimate them. The girls weren't happy about it, Mimi (the elder of the two by one year) being the more vocal. She would also occasionally mark the padding with a spot of piss - just enough to let us know that she was pissed. But all in all, they dealt with the carriers well.

As our day of departure approached, things began to get tricky. Our vet had trouble connecting with the USDA vet in Harrisburg, the Pennsylvania state capitol about 80 miles from our home in Bath. The USDA wasn't responding to voice mails or faxes. Finally, during our visit to our local vet exactly nine days before our anticipated entry into France, we asked Dr. Leck once again to try to contact the USDA. Lo and behold, contact was made. "Fax me the paperwork," said the USDA, "and I'll get back to you in five minutes."

Yeah. Right.

But that's exactly what happened. Surprise, surprise. A quick tweak, another fax, and according to the USDA we were good to go. Good to go, that is, to Harrisburg to have the paperwork signed and sealed.

Can it be done over the counter?

Yes.

What are your hours?

8 AM to 4 PM.

Great. I hopped on my Suzuki and took the 80 mile ride to Harrisburg from Bath, found the right building, took the elevator up one floor, found the right office, and walked right in. And there, at the counter, was a sign that read: By Appointment Only. Appointment Hours 9:00 - 11:00 AM, 1:00 - 3:00 PM.

Frack!

I rang the bell. I begged.

Maybe it could be done today. Maybe not. The vet is a busy man. He might not be able to fit you in.

I proposed to go to lunch for an hour, come back, and see where things stood.

I went to lunch for an hour and came back. I rang the bell. The vet appeared.

You're the one with the cats going to France?

That's me.

That'll be $38.

Done.

I'll post once more when we arrive at our house in Quarante.

ON TAKING OUR CATS TO FRANCE - PART 2

We've determined on which airline we'll be flying to which port of entry - Turkish Air through Istanbul to Marseille (See Part I). The next hurdle? Paperwork.

The website maintained by the French embassy in DC has a section on regulations regarding bringing privately-owned pets into France. It seems simple enough. Dogs, cats, and ferrets as well as hamsters, mice and other domestic pet rodents are welcome with the proper paperwork. Birds must undergo quarantine either pre- or post-entry. Here are the rules  ripped from the website and slightly modified for clarity for dogs, cats and ferrets coming to France from the US:

• Every animal must be identified by a standard ISO 11784 or annex A ISO standard 11785 microchip or a tatoo clearly readable and applied before July, 2011. If the microchip standard is different from standard ISO 11784 or annex A ISO standard 11785, you must bring your own scanner in order to read the microchip.  
• Every animal must have a valid rabies vaccination, even if less than 3 months old. If it is the first rabies vaccination for the pet, you must wait 21 days between the last shot of the vaccination protocol and departure.
• An OFFICIAL health certificate.

I've capitalized OFFICIAL for a reason. There's a form. It is not enough to have our vet sign off on the health of Mimi and Chloe - our Siamese stepsisters. The official USDA vet in our home state must sign off on the health of our cats no more than 10 days from our date of departure. This creates two problems:

1. Our vet since our cats acquired us retired just seven or eight months before we're scheduled to leave. We're going to run this craziness through a vet who has never before seen us or our cats.

2. The office of the official USDA vet for Pennsylvania is in Harrisburg, the state capitol 80 miles away.

So I called the number that I had for the new vet, Dr. Leck. After explaining the situation, I was given a number to call in Harrisburg. I called the number. I was given another number to call. I called the second number and left a message. I got a callback in a surprisingly reasonable period of time. I had called the wrong number. I would be transferred to the right number. And I was. At least I think that I was. The guy who answered seemed to know what he was talking about, asked me the name of our vet and, when I told him, said that he had the name of our vet on his list and would fax him information.

I asked for and received a callback number.

A week later we took Mimi and Chloe to Dr. Leck to be examined and chipped. Painless for us all. The chip is inserted by a syringe and the cats hardly seemed to notice. They're both in good health, from teeth to tail. 

But no fax had been received.

That's why we started this process five months before we depart. There will be glitches. From what I can tell, the form that must accompany the health certificate appears to be somewhat ambiguous in the way that documents created in foreign languages can be when translated to English. But there's time.

Updates as they become available.

ON TAKING OUR CATS TO FRANCE - PART 1

We will not move to France without Mimi and Chloe, our Siamese stepsisters. It would not be LIKE leaving members of our family behind. We WOULD be leaving members of our family behind. So we investigated.

There appear to be two phases to the process. First, how are we going to travel with the cats physically? Then, what happens when we show up in customs with two very tired, annoyed, and vocal felines?

This post will discuss the first question.

Let me be clear. We will not fly in the cabin with the cats in the hold. More precisely, Cathey won't fly in the cabin with the cats in the hold and I, being smarter than the average bear, agree. This limits our choice of airlines. Our usual carrier is Delta/Air France. We normally fly from JFK to Barcelona, rent a car, and drive over the border to France. Delta/Air France does allow cats in the cabin - for a fee of $200 apiece. Including that fee, two one-way tickets would amount to just under $5,000. Two round trip tickets would come to  $2,300. Big difference.

So I called Delta and asked the question: What happens if I buy a round-trip ticket and don't use the return? The answer, according to the agent with an accent neither American nor French, is that nothing will happen. We will receive a credit for the unused portion of the ticket and, after a year, the credit will disappear.

That works.

A thought occurred. We'll be flying into Spain but the cats will be residing in France. We could certainly drive across the border between the two countries without stopping, or even slowing down very much, but will that result in our cats being illegal residents of France? Perhaps it would be better to just fly into France and be done with it.

The question of price became an issue as did the fact that there are no direct flights to any city as close to our destination as Barcelona. To fly to Paris, change planes, and fly on to Montpellier would be one solution. But instead of costing us $2,300, that flight would cost closer to $3,300.

What other options were there to consider? After much internet investigation and phone calls to several different airlines, we have come up with a solution. Turkish Air. We can fly from JFK through Istanbul to Marseille, with the cats in the cabin, for a total of $1,297. One-way tickets. And our tickets would be flexible. No charge for date or flight changes. Literally cheap at twice the price.

The layover in Istanbul will add considerable time to the trip but will also give us time to figure out a way to allow the cats to release their bladders and stretch their legs.

So, unless we come up with Plan C, we'll work on the assumption that we're headed for Marseille by way of Istanbul.

southfrancerental.com has moved to SouthFranceAmerican.com

We've sold our little house in Cazouls-les-Beziers as planned. It was a great place to visit but we wouldn't want to live there. Cathey needs a garden and a kitchen that's not in the middle of the living room. We've traveled throughout Aude and Herault in the Languedoc region of southern France and we love it. So we concentrated our search within a radius of about 25 miles from Cazouls. And eventually we found the perfect house in the little village of Quarante, close to the Canal du Midi and Capestang, 10 minutes or so from Cazouls. 

Since we no longer need a website to promote the rental of our house, we've discontinued southfrancerental.com, purchased the new domain, redirected traffic from the old domain, and for the time being I'll just be blogging. Note the Pages linked on the left. New posts began appearing on those pages beginning in June of 2014. Older posts are archived on my formerly separate blogs, also listed on the left. Read and enjoy.

Two Hours and Two Bottles of Wine

There's not a country in the world, perhaps in the universe, in which folks take food as seriously as they do in France. I suppose that the Italians and the Spanish and the Greeks might disagree, and to be sure the cuisines of those countries aren’t the only ones that deserve thorough investigation. But the French are just so gosh darn serious about it. From the epic and definitive (in its day) Larousse Gastronomique to iconic Julia Child and her revival through the efforts of that annoying Julie person, the French and those who treasure the French style have set the standard. It's idiomatic: If you haven't studied in France, if you haven't apprenticed in France, if you haven't cooked in France, you haven't made The Big Show.

For the less sports-minded among you, The Big Show – or just The Show – is how minor leaguers refer to Major League Baseball.

I don't mean to imply that there's no such thing as bad food or fast food in France. The French can be in a hurry and are not above eating on the run. But we're not talking about tuna fish salad stuffed between two slices of white bread. And, although McDonald's and KFC and others have made inroads physically if not culturally, French fast food isn't about drive-thrus. Thank God that abomination hasn’t penetrated into the Languedoc.

So what exactly is French fast food? Particularly in the cities but throughout France, you can see folks hustling down the sidewalk, sandwich in hand…one of those great baguettes, cut in half, sliced lengthwise, and containing a fresh lettuce leaf, a slice of cheese, and a taste of meat, just enough to flavor the loaf but not overwhelm it. Now that’s my idea of fast food.

But this post is about restaurants. Not the Five-Star variety, but the restaurants that you find in the small villages with menus driven by chefs with enough skill and enough capital to cook what they want to cook when they want to cook it. This can be a good thing or this can go wrong. Two examples:

The Hotel Residence in Nissan lez Enserune is owned and operated by Bernadette and Philippe SANS. It’s a perfect match. Philippe is an accomplished chef and Bernadette loves to decorate. Between them they are transforming the hotel from a working-class village’s commercial traveler stop to a destination location with rooms either filled with country French ‘antiques’ or rooms fully modern with wi-fi and hot tub. Our preference is a second floor room in the main house facing the pool. (First floor for Brits and Europeans.)

The menu for the restaurant can be found on the hotel’s website: http://www.hotel-residence.com. The fare is diverse, creative, and reasonably priced for the quality. A French –native friend who has spent a lifetime in the high-end food and beverage industry stayed at the hotel for a week at our recommendation as he toured the Languedoc with his American-born wife. He reports that he enjoyed the restaurant so much that they never felt the need to have dinner anywhere else. I can think of no greater recommendation.

Although when we first visited the Hotel Residence several years ago the restaurant was only available to guests for dinner, the restaurant now serves lunch and dinner and is open to the public. If you’re planning to visit the Languedoc and prefer small hotels in the midst of French village life, you really must consider staying with Philippe and Bernadette. At the very least, take a meal with them. If you see Philippe or Bernadette, tell them Monsieur Faro sent you.

Not every chef pulls it off as well as Philippe, though. Take the case of the restaurant in the Hotel Pressoir in Cazouls-les-Beziers. The establishment – both the hotel and the restaurant – are owned by the Furlans and I assume that Monsieur Furlan is the chef, a big balding guy with a moustache. When we first arrived in Cazouls, the restaurant was a simple neighborhood joint, as good as anything of its type in the area, serving a thick, earthy seafood stew, personal pizzas, steak frites, and the like. Then the place changed hands, the restaurant was renamed Les Agapes, and things are definitely not the same. The offerings became more diverse, the prices pushed higher, and the comparison to restaurants at that next level became less flattering. We ate Furlan’s cooking once in a large group several years ago and have not returned since. I’m not saying that the food was inedible; it just didn’t have the flair necessary to justify the price. Clearly, Furlan aspired to culinary heights to which his talents were not capable.

So how do you choose? Take the recommendations of those who know. Here are our favorites:

1.    Le Patio, Nissan-lez-Enserune: Also owned by the SANS, a delightful little place, less expensive than the Hotel Residence, to take lunch or dinner with friends. Fresh ingredients, well-prepared and thoughtfully presented. In good weather, dine on the patio.

2.    Le Provence, Capestang: Another of those local joints with a charming patio. The menu includes an earthy seafood soup for the brave, lots of appetizers and entrees to choose from, and personal pizzas (try the one with foies-gras).

3.    Le Terminus, between Cruzy and Quarante: This is a recent find, recommended to us by a Brit contractor in the area. New young owners have turned this former train station out in the country into a perfect spot to enjoy a couple of hours in the sun sampling authentic country cooking.

4.    Le Mewen, Narbonne: A couple of blocks from Les Halles, Narbonne’s comprehensive covered market, Le Mewen is an old-fashioned creperie without frills serving both sweet and savory concoctions. Try the apple cider instead of wine.

5.    L'Auberge de la Croisade, on the Canal du Midi, near Cruzy: This upscale restaurant is our special place along with the Hotel Residence. Your host is multi-lingual, full of energetic hospitality, and the food is to die for. There are those who say that the menu has grown a bit lazy, but we don’t visit often enough to notice.

6.    Hotel Jalabert, Ouveillan: This place is definitely NOT for everyone. A funky old restaurant in a backwater hotel with exactly zero ambience, the feisty old Madame will serve what she wants, when she wants. She’s got a heart of gold, though, even if she’s missing most of her teeth; she’ll take the time to cut the meat into bite-sized pieces for the ancient villagers who have been her customers since the year the cow had a two-headed calf. We love it. You’re likely to think I’m crazy.

Remember, in most places lunch is served beginning at noon and ending at 2:00 PM. And that doesn’t mean that you can show up at 1:45 and expect service. Dinner may start earlier than 8:00 PM but don’t count on it. CALL FOR RESERVATIONS, particularly for your evening meal. If you just show up, you may not be able to get a table, particularly as the weekend approaches.

DAILY MENU

Mobile Meat Counter, Cazouls, Market Day

Now that we've shopped, let's eat.

Breakfast

Cathey's day starts with coffee. Two cups. French press. Nothing, and I mean not one single thing, happens before the coffee happens. If she's lucky, the smell of the fresh-brewed coffee wakes me up.

I scratch, yawn, wash and brush, dress, and take the short walk to the artisan patisserie for my morning pain au chocolat, Cathey's croissant – when she chooses to risk the carbs and the fat, and the day's baguette or other specialty loaf. Yes, one of the truly wondrous experiences for any foodie living in France is having the smell of fresh-baked bread permeating the house every day.

Once coffee has kick-started the digestive and intellectual processes, we decide on breakfast. To a certain extent, the breakfast menu depends on the previous night's dinner. If we splurged, went to a favorite restaurant for courses and courses and wine to match, there is the distinct possibility that we're still full. Or we might be anticipating a lazy, grazing lunch. If either is the case, a simple menu of juice, fruit, and that flaky pastry that I just bought might suffice. If UK Sharon brought some fresh preserves – or if we bought some at the market – we might spread a bit on slices of our baguette.

If a greater degree of sustenance is required, add a one-egg omelet, perhaps with a bit of cheese. Beyond that, the choices are endless – a couple of links of merguez left over from the night before, rashers of thick-sliced smoked bacon, perhaps a few slices of smoked salmon; Europeans really appreciate smoked salmon and that particular section of the supermarket is a delight for this Jersey boy. (That's NEW Jersey, if you please.)

Lunch

When we're on vacation and money is no object (yeah, right) we generally plan to eat out once a day, either lunch or dinner. Most often, it's lunch. We're already out and about, often far from home. So many of the places to which we might want to go – specialty shops, vineyards – are closed for the lunch hour...or two or four. And the specials at good restaurants can be inexpensive and a good measure of what the dinners might be like. For instance, the 12 euro lunch special at Le Terminus, a picturesque dining spot in a beautifully redesigned old railroad station between Quarante and Cruzie, includes an amuse and three courses.

But more about restaurants in my next post.

The point is, if we're eating lunch at home, it generally means that we're either going out to dinner or cooking dinner ourselves. Either way, since we expect dinner to be heavy, lunch at home is usually light. Remember the wonderful deli and cheese counters at the supermarket? When lunch is light, we graze.

One plate holds a selection of cheeses – St. Nectare, something bleu, something hard, something goat. One plate features meats – a dry chorizo, salami – perhaps with a peppery crust, a country terrine, a coarse pate, thin slices of serrano ham. Side goodies might include a selection of olives for Cathey, perhaps some of those marvelous Mediterranean anchovies for me – although Cathey gets into them too, maybe a few slices of smoked salmon. Don't forget the slices of fresh baguette and the fine butter of Normandy or Dijon mustard.

And wine. Usually rose. Usually only 3 or 4 euros a bottle. Often from Caveaux St. Laurent in Capestang.

By the way, this setup can be packed up and taken along as a picnic lunch. Don't forget the sharp knife and the corkscrew, though.

Dinner

If we've eaten our lunch out, dinner is the grazing described above. If the dinner at home is to be the main meal of the day, wondrous possibilities present themselves.

Main courses in our house in Cazouls have included French lentils with merguez sausage, rabbit braised in wine, beef steaks on the grill, salmon steaks on the grill...

And speaking of the barbecue out on the patio, you should know that grapevine wood added to the fire imparts a distinct, delicate flavor to grilled foods that is unique. We've used it for grilling duck duck breast – complete with a thick layer of fat that kept the breast moist through the process, for smoking fresh sardines from the Mediterranean, and for mutton chops.

Starters might include salad with buttery fresh lettuce or leek and potato soup. Sides of fresh veggies (haricots verte or potatoes or whatever else looks fresh that might come from either the outdoor market or the super. – except Brussels sprouts. I hate Brussels sprouts.) And dessert.

DESSERT!

Wonderful little pastries from the artisan patisserie. Chocolate.

FRENCH CHOCOLATE!

DESSERT!

SETTLING IN - JUNE 14

It didn’t take long. 

Cathey asked me to pick up a croissant along with the usual pain au chocolat for me and baguette at the bakery in the morning. Warm, flakey, buttery goodness. Not her style…except in France. I bought two desserts in anticipation of UK Sharon’s arrival that evening – a chocolate 'brownie' with the consistency of a super-thick mousse and a saucer-sized, sugar-coated, raspberry-filled butter cookie sandwich. Cathey wondered why I’d bought the sweets, didn’t believe that it was already Wednesday and that Sharon was due, so a 15 minute discussion ensued about what day of the week it was. 

To my discredit, I won.

We wait for the Live Box.

Our long-term tenant – we’ll call her Kerry – came by later in the morning. Neat and petite. Dark tan and blonde and Brit. She’s a very nice lady who lost her husband suddenly not long ago and is renting her villa down the road over the summer for at least three times what she’s paying us. And we've solved the problem on storage and house security. More about that in a minute.

Light lunch – charcuterie, cheese, bread, and wine again. It hasn’t gotten old yet and it won’t get old for the rest of the trip.

The ladies who have been managing the house for us, doing the turnovers and taking care of the maintenance, popped over after lunch. They’re going to be heading back to England soon. Itchy feet. Given Kerry’s long-term let and her willingness to take charge of the house, deal with the showings by the real estate agents, and even store the few small bins of items that we want to keep if the house should sell, we’re OK with it. Off they go and leave the keys.

Following Berangere’s advice to hook up with a local agent, I walk down to the agency on the main drag in Cazouls. The receptionist speaks no English. An older, put together guy with a bit of English comes out to speak to me in broken English and refers me to a younger, bearded and sandaled guy with no English in the biggest, well-appointed office in the far back. He knows the house, even showed me pictures he had on his computer from when the house was up for sale at the time that we bought it. I'd forgotten how ugly the furniture was before we recovered it. 

Talked price. Made an appointment for him to come over the next day.

Dinner of French lentils and merguez sausage. I’m normally not a consumer of legumes, but French lentils, properly prepared and spiced, ain’t pork and beans.

I left for Montpellier to pick up Sharon after dinner, taking a route that Kerry suggested…the  A75/750…new, free, but as it turned out not any faster. I arrive as the plane lands. Home on the A9 and the A75, the right way to go even if it costs five euros and change.

Kiss and hug. We exchange presents…books and tea and chocolate covered almonds with chili (Smooth on the tongue. Hot going down.)

Talk, talk, talk. It’s good to see UK Sharon again. More like family than family.

Bed late.

RETURNING TO FRANCE PERMANENTLY – ARRANGING REAL ESTATE SALES

Our village house in Cazouls has served us well but it is not suitable as a permanent retirement home. It has no garden; the patio is too small for comfortable, open-house, sloppy partying; and two twisty flights of stairs to the top floor is just too many for a woman with two replaced knees and a husband who is just plain lazy. So we have three real estate transactions to accomplish in order to make our permanent move to France. We have to sell our houses in Cazouls and in the USofA and we have to buy the house in which we will live in France permanently. We’ve thought carefully about how to time these transactions, making our move as efficiently as possible. Here’s the plan. Time will tell how closely the plan mirrors reality.

First, we’ll put the Cazouls house on the market. We’ve contacted Freddy Rueda, the agent who sold us the house, and may contact one or two others as well. We have to learn a bit more about the way real estate sales happen in France. We know that there is nothing like the multi-list system that we have in the Colonies – that is, you contract with one agent who has exclusive rights to show/sell your house for a fixed period of time and then your house goes up for grabs on the multi-list and any agent who subscribes to the list can take a crack at it. As we understand it, in France your agent is your agent. No multi-list. The question is: Can you contract with more than one agent? Is it legal? Is it ethical?

And one more consideration. We have a good bit of equity in the house. How do we handle that from across the Pond? I’m reasonably certain that we could make the basics happen – pay off the mortgage and have the equity check deposited in our French checking account. But there are complicating factors. We have a tenant in the house into September. Must we wait to put the house on the market until then? Although we plan to sell the house furnished, there are items that we’d like to retain – paintings on the walls, clothing, and other personal and household items that we’d like to negotiate with a prospective buyer to store for us. Could any real estate agent, having been named as agent on a power of attorney for the purpose, be trusted to follow French law and our instructions to the letter? Would he or she act solely in our interests or be tempted to turn a quick buck?

So we’ve asked friends if they can recommend a lawyer and we’ll meet with our personal banker to discuss the matter as well.

Next steps and answers to these and other questions to follow.

RETIRING TO FRANCE PERMANENTLY – SETTING THE STAGE

The Southern Woman That I Married and I are both 63 years old. Neither of us was infected with the Protestant work ethic. Work for pay does not define us. We can fill our days without taking big chunks of time out of them to ‘earn’ a living. When we can afford to retire, we will.

We’ll be able to afford retirement in a couple of years.

As my readers are aware, we began planning for our retirement over a decade ago. What did we want to do during our retirement? Travel. Where did we want to travel? Europe. Why not live there?

After investigating likely retirement locales in newsletters, on the internet, and in person, we became captivated by the Languedoc. One morning over breakfast, on our first visit to the region, we struck up a conversation with three couples at a neighboring table in what has over time proved to be our favorite hotel/restaurant, the Hotel Residence in Nissan-lez-Enserune. They were vacationing from their homes in Provence and they confirmed what we had read. The Languedoc is less crowded than Provence, less expensive, and just as beautiful in terms of both scenery and climate.

We were convinced. We bought. We took possession of our little village house in Cazouls les Beziers on January 1, 2005. We visit once or twice a year, we rent it to vacationers when we can, and we haven’t looked back.

Now it’s time to look forward, though. In the next set of posts, I’ll be talking about our plans to put our house in Cazouls on the market during our upcoming trip over the Pond and about the rest of our plans for the next couple of years.