BACK HOME AGAIN...IN FRANCE - JUNE 11, 12

All went well in the beginning. The trip to the airport went quickly. Not much heavy traffic mid day on Sunday. No problems with flight tickets. Luggage under weight. Flight on time.

The one glitch came at security, where Cathey's new metal knee prompted a public pat-down – she hadn't read that she could request privacy. And the card that she showed to the TSA agent explaining the knee replacement had no effect.

I suppose that it's a sign of the times, but the flight wasn't full – first time in years. I had a seat mate on the window side but Cathey, sitting in the four-seat center section, had two empty seats next to her.

Our rental from Alamo – a Citroen C3 5-door diesel – was satisfactory although the construction felt a bit cheap. The expressway north is well marked – just follow the signs to Girona and off you go. It's hard to stay under the speed limit when you're in a hurry. I've had a few tickets in the past – radar taking a picture of the rental and the rental company charging our credit card – so I won't know if I've been caught until the charges show up on the card.

Jill, the long-term let who vacated for our two-week stay – left the house spotless. She also provided us with milk and fresh bread. Very thoughtful. As usual, we discovered a problem or two. The doorbell no longer works. Wine glasses continue to disappear. And the handle that holds the shower wand in place has broken, replaced by a wall-hanger apparently fitted by a tall man. Fine for me, not for Cathey. But all in all, our little house had weathered the year well.

Suddenly, the lights went out. No electricity. I reset the breaker and, for a moment, the lights returned. For a moment. Then nothing. We learned later that there had been a thunder storm down the line and all of Cazouls was dark, but at the time we were devastated.

When all else fails...shop. Not in Cazouls. Carrefour closed. (It had been open as we made our way into town.)

We had to go all the way to Narbonne to find an open market. Again, it was only later that we learned that Monday was a bank holiday...sort of. Pentecost Monday. Anyway, the Carrefour in Narbonne was open and we dropped 90+ euros on essentials – dish soap, toilet paper and such – as well as a bottle of wine, instant coffee, sausages, pate, cheeses, salt, mustard, salad fixings, cherry jam, and more. We returned to the house and voila, the electricity had returned.

We forgot to purchase hand soap. I'll make do with Cathey's shower gel.

Cathey discovered a cinsault/syrah from Caza Viel in the cellar left over from last year that held well and I worked on the grocery store rose with dinner – bits and pieces of bread, butter (yummy French butter), chorizo, pate, serrano ham, and cheeses (bleu, goat, and St. Nectare).

I fell asleep on the couch and moved to the bed after Cathey shook me awake. A full first day.

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.

TIME FLIES

A fried computer, additional responsibilities at work, my wife's knee replacement and the ensuing domestic disruption, and months have passed.

This week I'll begin a new series - a step-by-step discussion of how we plan to accomplish our permanent move to the Languedoc in the south of France. I'll begin with our plans, then describe how well we anticipated next steps and problems along the way...hopefully in real time.

It should be interesting - to live and to read. Let the fun begin!

THE KING'S SPEECH - A REVIEW

The King's Speech is a smartly written, beautifully photographed, impeccably acted, thoroughly engrossing movie.

Need more?

Did you enjoy The Queen? If you did, The King's Speech is a no-brainer. To be certain, the subject of The Queen is of recent memory while for most of us the details of the ascension of King George VI (Bertie) after the abdication of his brother King Edward VIII (David) in order to be with American divorcee Wallis Simpson are somewhat less clear. Americans are even less likely to be aware of Bertie's speech impediment. Consider it a learning experience.

Colin Firth as Bertie; Geoffrey Rush as his unconventional speech therapist, Australian Lionel Logue; and Helena Bonham Carter as Bertie's wife, Queen Elizabeth - mother of the current Queen Elizabeth - each contribute in different ways.

Firth's portrayal is sensitive and complex, presenting us with an unassuming man who in the end had sufficient inner strength to not only overcome his disability but prove to be the stronger of the two brothers after having spent a life being considered the weaker, both within his family and in his own mind.

Rush, who can go over the top when given free rein, brings just the right blend of humor, self-confidence, and authority to his role. He demands to be treated as an equal and in the end proves his right to be.

Bonham Carter's role might be viewed as subsidiary, but as the woman who comes to be known as one of England's most influential Queen Mothers, her quiet determination to prepare Bertie to take his rightful place undergirds the entire narrative.

The script, the sets, the photography, all are equal to the task. And yes, if the portrayals of Simpson and Churchill border on caricature, so what? Their appearances are brief and their points are made.

If you can appreciate a movie that can be totally engrossing without blowing things up or gratuitously displaying genitalia, this is a movie that you must see.

SNOW + MANUAL TRANSMISSIONS = STAY OUT OF MY WAY

I began driving manual transmission cars in my early twenties. Ever since, manual transmissions have been my choice. From my old Triumph Herald to my VW Bug (the original, not the recently marketed faux-Bug) to (I'm ashamed to say) an AMC Hornet Sportabout to a rickety old Toyota wagon to a series of Ford Taurus 5 speed wagons, we've always had a stick shift in the drive...until recently.

About five or six years ago, we took title first to a Caravan then a Taurus, both automatics. Understand, all of these vehicles - with the exception of the VW - were bought used. Find a good body, replace the drive trains as necessary. That's my motto. But folks...American folks...don't buy sticks any more. Ford quit putting out the manual wagon. No used sticks to be had. So we bought what we bought and drove lazy.

Then, this spring we closed down our small business and didn't need the Caravan for deliveries and therefore didn't have to support its 16 MPG motor. Ain't cars.com a wonderful thing? I searched for a manual transmission vehicle and lo and behold, a four cylinder, 5 speed Toyota Camry was waiting for me. I sold the old Caravan for $1,500 and bought the Camry for $2,000. It's a 1995 with 150,000 miles on it but it was a one-owner car, the owner was a mechanical engineer, and he had every piece of paper that he ever spent on the vehicle. I call him Gandalf the Gray and he's a runner.

So we had our first snowstorm of the season and I'm doing a late night blues show on the radio and it's one AM and the snow's coming down hard and I'm on my way home. By George, I've got a front wheel drive 5 speed under me. And suddenly I'm in the left lane going 20 miles an hour faster than anybody else on the highway.

Damn, I love 5 speeds.

MICHAEL VICK, PROGRESSIVES, REHABILITATION, AND REDEMPTION

As the Philadelphia Eagles near qualification for the playoffs, and as the possibility of Michael Vick being named the league's MVP heightens, the blogosphere is abuzz.

I cruise Huffington Post a couple of times a day and the pheromones are flying. The consensus - unscientifically arrived at, I admit - seems to be that THE GUY KILLED DOGS, FER CHRISSAKES. There are those who nitpick at bits of the content of blogs that support Vick's apparent journey to redemption without seeming to be too judgmental. There are even those who seem supportive of Vick. But for most folks commenting about Vick on the quintessential internet meeting place for progressive thinkers, the prevailing emotion seems to be THE GUY KILLED DOGS, FER CHRISSAKES.

I have to believe that most of those folks are Progressives. Well, not Progressives, really. I call them PINOs - Progressives In Name Only. You either believe in redemption through rehabilitation or you don't. Yes, I know. Animal mutilation is a theme that runs through the childhoods of serial killers. But there's no indication that Vick was drawn to dog fighting until he became famous, got paid an obscene amount of money, and fell in with what was definitely the wrong crowd. It was a learned behavior. And like any learned behavior, it can be unlearned.

So those who can't or won't believe that Michael Vick can be redeemed, and I'll go along with those who say that the jury is still out, aren't really Progressives at all. They have to rethink the basis for some of the most important tenets of Progressive thought. Not the least requiring their re-examination is opposition to capital punishment. If there is no redemption, is it ethical to cage a serial killer for life and place the lives of those who we pay to protect us from them in constant danger?

PINO...

Neat.