Another overdue one – my fault. I was hoping to coerce Matt into doing an entry but failed so am biting the bullet and getting on with it. It’s still fairly mild, but that’s due to change soon, and it’s very autumnal – leaves falling everywhere and the last grapes are rotting on their vines. These are attracting a huge amount of hornets getting drunk on the fermenting fruit. Some stagger into the house and have to be escorted out, but so far no unfortunate cat/hornet encounters have ensued, mercifully. Visitor season is over for the year so we will have to make a big effort to keep organising social events to keep busy throughout the winter. It’ll soon be time to bring in the bougainvillea and then we’ll officially be in winter mode. The main thing to report is that, in addition to the 2 property taxes and our quarterly income tax, our car insurance is due this time of year. October is an expensive month at Port 80… Sorting out the latter has been a long, tedious slog and a perfect example of “French Efficiency”, my favourite oxymoron.
I shall come to that shortly but first off, a little socialising. Last Saturday, we were invited down to Bryan and Carol’s for dinner. We started off with a pastis at home to get us in the mood, then had a voddie or 2 for apéritifs around their log burner. Carol made a fab meal of goats’ cheese and red onion tart to start, followed by pork escalope for the main and a yummy orange chocolate mousse for dessert. As well as the aperitifs and the wine, we also had a bit to smoke and all of a sudden, this seemed to catch up with Matt, who didn’t pull a “whitie” so much as a “greenie” – he went a very peculiar shade indeed, so we said our goodbyes and headed back home. It took around 10 minutes to cover the 500 metres or so between our two houses, with much weaving and a few pauses along the way.
The following day we did very little apart from a few skype chats catching up with mutual friends and munching on Matt’s ‘special’ pecan cookies, and that pretty much concludes the weekend. So, back to the car insurance. We are with a company called Direct Assurance and have been since we arrived out here. They’re generally fine, and certainly among the cheapest. Our rate went up when I was added as a driver last year, but this year should by rights have come back down again: 3 years no-claims for Matt and 1 year for me. We got our renewal notice in early October and were bemused to see it had gone up, not down – and by quite a lot. This was especially galling because Matt had been on their site and obtained a quote to join as a new customer and, giving exactly the same details, was given a rate that was nearly half our annual renewal bill. And so the battle began…
I rang and was told that they couldnt offer the lower rate to us on our current contract so if we wanted it, we would have to cancel our contract and then begin a new one at the lower rate. Stupid system, but par for the course out here. In order to cancel, you have to send a letter by registered post, and it must be done within 20 days of getting your renewal. Once they have the letter, you can call up and take out a new contract. I duly sent a letter, getting proof of delivery from the post office several days later. I rang them and was told there was no trace of a letter. I left it a few days, called again and was told the same thing. I told them I had proof the letter had been delivered and this was greeted with polite disinterest. I was advised to send another letter, including with it the slip from the post office I got for the first one. I visualised an endless cycle of letters being sent and lost – and registered post isn’t cheap, so I wasn’t keen on this at all.
What is really annoying out here, and it’s true of every customer service department I’ve ever contacted in France (maybe it’s the same all over the world for that matter) is that you can ring twice with the same issue and get 2 totally different answers. Sometimes you get a moron, sometimes someone who hates their job (or combinations thereof), and sometimes you get someone who actually can tell their arse from their elbow and is prepared to help. In all, I rang the lovely people at Direct Assurance 12 times over a 2 week period, getting more and more irked every time. Eventually, I came across a number buried deep within their website for a team that deals specifically with cancellations. I rang and asked about the letter and the lady said there was no sign of it, blaming the postal service (the nation’s scapegoat). I told her I had in my hand proof it had been received, so that wasn’t going to fly. When she suggested I send in the proof, along with another letter, I told her I was disinclined to as I didnt see the point based on recent experience. Eventually, she relented and gave me an email address of even greater value than the magic phone number I had – and hence, one that is of course not listed ANYWHERE on their site – and was told to email them my letter and the proof of postage.
The next day, having no faith whatsoever that my email would ever get dealt with, I rang again, and scored gold: one of the rare helpful ones answered. She located the email and promptly cancelled my contract while I was on the line. I could barely believe it when she said it was all done. We’ve now signed up again with the new contract so just have to send in copies of various documents that they already have on file from when we joined up in 2009 (more classic French efficiency) and we’re all sorted. We’ve saved ourselves several hundred euros so despite the torture, it was worth it. I have no idea how I’ll fill my days now! On that, work is slow for me again at the moment – I am at the interminable “waiting on the client” phase for several sites so will have to do another big advertising push soon.
Well, that’s about it as far as updates from Port 80. We’re off to Nat & Jill’s to dinner tonight for a catch up. They had 2 weeks in Andalucia recently, so it’s been a while. We look forward to hearing all about that. We’ve also discovered that the new Bond film is being aired in “version originale” (ie, English) at a cinema in Angoulême, so will try and get the boys from Villebois to join us for a trip out to see that soon. Lastly, 31 October marks 3 years since we moved out to France, so a special commemorative entry will no-doubt be imminent to mark that. Watch this space…