Au revoir Tavel.

Guys, I’m on the train, with my dog, heading for Calais and then the UK. I have too many bags (one of which is full of at least a case of wine).

Why do French trains all have their luggage racks upstairs? I had to hand Evie over to another passenger while I dragged my heavy bag up the stairs. Then Evie decided she was too scared to get on the train, so I had to lure her on with a treat while everyone crowded round to watch.

You’ll gather that I’ve decided to move.

Our plan for me to be in France and Jon to work from home just didn’t work as well as we’d hoped. I have loved it here in Tavel, but I’ve spent long stretches on my own. So I made the decision and here I am.

The last few days have been a whirlwind. Strap in and I’ll tell you more.

I thought I had everything planned out for this move. I generally always have a Plan B up my sleeve anyway,

Just as well, as it turns out.

So the issues started while I was at a friend’s house near Toulouse (you know who you are). I had booked a man with a van to move our stuff. We don’t have very much to take and I could have used ‘Send My Bag’, except for my beloved Peloton bike.

I tried to sell the bike on a couple of online marketplaces but only got scam replies. Peloton has never launched in France, so I guess it was always a long shot that someone might actually buy it.

I decided to take the bike with me.

Thanks to Brexit, it has apparently become very difficult to move things between France and the UK. I knew I needed to file some paperwork and get an approval number in order to pass through customs without paying duty.

The man with the van was asking for my approval number.

I didn’t have it yet.

In fact, I still don’t have it.

Perhaps naively, I had assumed that if I didn’t have the number, we could just cross the border, pay the duty and claim it back retrospectively.

Man with the van was not happy with that.

He told me to postpone my move until I had the number.

Postpone the move????

I had already given notice on my house in France. I had a ticket for the train. Etc etc.

I was not postponing the move.

Plan B no.1: I asked the owners of my house if I could leave my stuff in their outhouse and have the movers pick it up in a week or so. I knew they didn't yet have incoming tenants so figured it might not be too much of an imposition.

They were not happy with that idea.

Plan B no. 2 (or is that Plan C?): I decided I would need to move everything into storage and have the movers pick it up from there once I had the necessary paperwork.

So I booked a storage unit and did a couple of car trips with boxes and bags.

The only issue, once again, was the bike, which is super heavy. In fact, I believe it weighs 62kg. I dismantled it as much as I could to lighten it and asked the owner of the house to help me get it down the stairs and into my car.

My main worry was getting it out of the car at the storage end.

Somehow I managed it.

The next worry was fitting it into the 2m³ storage facility.

It was tight.

Very, very tight.

So far, so good.

I had earlier received an email from the landlord about the process for inspecting the house on departure. In France, both landlord and tenant have to be present at the final inspection to go through the house, agree on any issues and then sign the inventory report, adding comments if necessary. The comments and how they are worded can affect whether you get your security deposit back.

The email suggested that the owners come around the night before the inspection to show me some ‘tips and tricks’ to ensure a flawless checkout the following day.

Tips and tricks?

I immediately suspected there would be no such tips and tricks.

I was correct.

On arrival, the sweet older lady who had been so charming and lovely when recruiting us as tenants turned into what can only be described as something resembling a snarling Jack Russell terrier.

She immediately honed in on the windows, which I had already cleaned twice. She basically said they were not done to her standard and tried to encourage me to hire a professional to do them. She said it would take three hours.

Her husband chimed in that it takes him six hours to do the windows, which I believe was meant to further encourage me to hire a professional, because I did not have six hours to spare the following day.

She went through the house, pointing out various issues and threatening me that if she had to get professional cleaners in, it would cost €1,000.

This is a small three-bedroom farmhouse.

After they departed for the evening, I raced to the storage depot with the Peloton bike and then came back to start cleaning some of the areas she had pointed out.

I also spent a fair bit of time researching my tenant rights so that I was prepared for the following day’s inspection.

I got up early the next morning and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned the windows as best I could. I did everything else that was outstanding.

To my mind, the house was as clean, if not cleaner, than when we had arrived, and I was prepared to argue with the landlord if she made a fuss.

They were due to come around at 5pm.

I had to leave at 1pm because I had an appointment with a car dealer to sell my car.

I had obtained several online estimates for the sale. All of these companies say they have a process where you get your online estimate, take the car in to get a firm quotation and, if you’re happy with the price, they buy the car from you there and then.

What could possibly go wrong?

I had decided to sell the car to a company called Spoticar and drove to where the appointment was supposed to be — via the car wash, so that my car was looking spick and span.

First up, I couldn’t find the Spoticar office.

I ended up going into local businesses asking if they had heard of Spoticar. Eventually, I found it — a tiny sign in the window of the Peugeot dealer.

The chap I had made an appointment with came out of his office. He was probably in his 60s, with a voice that sounded like it had seen many cigarettes, and I immediately detected an attitude which I wasn’t sure was because I didn’t speak good French or whether he was just in a bad mood.

I tried to show him my estimate, thinking that this would be the starting point of a negotiation.

He refused to look at it.

He said it was all just publicity and basically bullshit.

He went over to my car.

Then he asked me if I wanted to do a trade-in.

When I said no, he said he could not buy the car from me without it being a trade-in.

That is certainly not what it says on the Spoticar website, but it is very hard to argue when you’re not a native speaker of the language.

So I came out of the dealer wondering what the hell I was going to do with my car.

I didn’t have time to shop around because I had the 5pm appointment with the landlords. I also had a 4pm appointment to pick up a Turo car that I had booked in anticipation of selling mine — and because I had been unable to find a taxi company for the next morning that would accept a trip with a dog.

I sat in my car and tried to look for long-term parking in or around Avignon where I could leave the car for a while and deal with it when I came back to France.

I enlisted the help of my partner, who found me a long-term spot underneath a hotel.

I had to download an app, pay and then I could get the spot.

Great!

I drove to the spot and that part went well. I got into the car park and then took an Uber to where I was picking up the Turo car.

The owner of the Turo car had messaged me, but I had a hunch about what had happened next.

I had asked him if I could drop the car at Avignon TGV station the next morning. When he messaged me in the afternoon confirming our 4pm appointment, I also confirmed where we were meeting — at his house.

He obviously didn’t read that bit.

He called me, asking me where I was.

I said, “At the entrance of…”

He said he was coming.

Ten minutes later, he still wasn’t there.

I was really wondering if I was in the wrong place. I sent him a dropped pin. After a few more minutes, I called him.

He had gone to Avignon TGV station by mistake and said he would arrive in five minutes.

At this point, I was starting to stress about whether I would be back home in time for the 5pm inspection.

It was 4.15pm.

Google Maps was saying 38 minutes to home.

The car owner finally showed up and proceeded to spend several precious minutes taking photos of the car.

Then he told me to get in the passenger seat and said we would drive him back to work, after which I could take his car.

I was desperately hoping that wherever he worked was on my way home.

…

When he finally got out of the car, I drove like the clappers.

I could just imagine Mrs Terrier at home, snarling because I wasn’t there.

I couldn’t text them because I wasn’t familiar with the tech in the car and was having a hard time trying to read Google Maps on my phone.

The aircon didn’t work either, so I was sweating buckets.

I screeched up to the house at 5pm on the dot.

The owners were one minute behind me.

Phew!

So the inspection started well.

She was impressed, finally, with my window cleaning, although she still pointed out some streaks, which were entirely down to where the sun was shining.

These were not acceptable.

She went into all the cupboards.

The dishwasher.

The oven.

She ran her fingers along ledges and doors.

Then she went to the cupboard housing a set of saucepans.

The saucepans were quite black on the base because their extremely old gas stove obviously wasn’t burning efficiently.

She pulled out every single one and told me I had to scrub them until I could do my makeup in them the next morning.

As she pulled the items out of the cupboard, I had flashbacks to my childhood.

One dirty item and the whole cupboard was emptied out for me to wash and dry.

She was treating me like a naughty child.

Then she asked me about breakages.

We had broken a cereal bowl and, unable to find bowls as ancient as the ones in her house, had simply replaced the broken one with a generic white cereal bowl.

She was not happy with this.

I asked her where she suggested I find a bowl to match hers.

She did not have an answer.

We had also broken a wine glass.

Again, I had been unable to find the exact same one in the shops, so I had replaced it with a pack of three similar glasses from the supermarket.

She was not happy with this either, stating that she wanted them all matching.

I pointed out that they weren’t all matching to start with.

The rest of the house was not too bad.

Then came the garden, which was also fairly acceptable, except for two areas where we had let lots of leaves collect.

I guess that’s an Aussie thing — the leaves acting as mulch.

They were not accepting that.

“We don’t do that in France.”

Her husband asked me to remove as many leaves as I could when I had finished scrubbing the pans.

I felt a bit like Cinderella, except I had no ball to go to.

Just a train to catch!

I was so relieved when they finally left.

So today arrived.

I was awake super early. It was still dark when I took Evie for her last walk through the vines, and the full moon was still shining brightly.

As I pulled out of the driveway, I felt grateful for my time in Tavel.

I so enjoyed it.

But I also felt like I was leaving Arthur behind.

I am taking him with me in my heart.

Now we’re on to new pastures.

We’ve found a small rental property right near the water — the closest thing we could find in England to what we have at home.

I’ll keep writing the blog, but I won’t change the name.

PittwatertoProvencetoBosham is a bit unwieldy.

A bientôt. ❤️