Voila la voiture!!

 Finally we're all set up and ready to go!  After much searching, haggling, negotiating and  bargaining, we have bought a Renault Scenic 1.9 Dynamique diesel (all sounds appropriately French doesn't it?!)  We found a garage in Cheltenham called "The French Car Centre", and they have been just great.  For the asking price, we managed to get them to also include a full service, a year's MOT (WOF), a new cam belt, new engine top mount (now I really sound like I know what I'm talking about!) fix the AC fan, new steering linkage arms, new brake discs on the rear and new brake pads all round, wheel alignment, new low beam headlight bulb and new wiper blades!  Admittedly we had bought the car and ended up taking it back to them twice as we discovered various deficiencies, but they happily did everything that was required with no questions.  We're now very happy with our car, and hope she performs well in her home country!
There was a moment that might not have ended up so well but with calmness and a strong desire to live a little longer, fear was overcome and normality was restored.  This memorable moment occurred during the test drive of Le Renault.  While coming down the M5 on-ramp I decided we'd better see how much acceleration this diesel beast had so I planted the boot in order to get past a truck that was also on the on-ramp.  Having not had too much experience with on-ramps in the UK I soon found that this particular on-ramp was short and before I knew it the truck was merging with the traffic and we were pushed out into the middle lane with traffic bearing down on us at pace.  In summary the acceleration is terrible but the brakes work incredibly well.  Phew!! 
When we opened the boot of the car there was a surprise - proper Renault roof rack bars!  Fantastic.  So off to a cycle shop in Cheltenham where we got our hands on a twin set of Thule bike racks.  Things are going well.  We will just slot those bars onto the Renault and clamp the Thule holders on and it'll be easy peasy.  That solves how we'll carry the bikes.  Yeah right - more on that later.  
Second purchase, as you will see on the roof - the bikes!  In pole position at the front of the photo is Lew's bike: a 29'er extra large sparklingly white enormous contraption, bought from Decathlon, the Warehouse equivalent for sports goods in Europe.  For 350 GBP (NZ$700) its certainly not going to get him into the next Olympic team, but will hopefully get him to the boulangerie for the croissants each morning.  Hiding behind this behemoth is my bike, very kindly donated by Becky and Steve, from their basement collection of retired bikes!  It's a  Marin, extremely comfortable, and speedy up the hills, with many miles left in her, so I am very grateful to Becky for passing her on for new adventures.

 A trip to Sheffield was required to obtain the bikes, and spend a couple of days with Becky and Steve.  I went to University in Sheffield, and always love going back to the Peak District.  We had a couple or walks around Bradwell where they live, and it was lovely to be back amongst the dry stone walls and small fields again.  Amazing country for walking - in between the showers!  The rain has really set in during the last week, and several areas in south-west England are very badly flooded - reminds us of Nelson last December.
Back to the roof rack saga.  So here we are at Steve & Becky's with a bit of time to spare, so I thought 'let's put the roof and bike racks on'.  This won't take long. On the Renault there are 4 little "hatch covers" on the roof that flip up so you can insert the roof bar lugs.  Easy - just flip those up and somehow they'll slot in.  Steve and I peered inside and wondered how the hell does this work?  After a bit of fiddling around and Steve looking at a YouTube video we figured out that we needed 4 x M6 x 20mm long bolts - ideally allen capped heads that would screw inside the bolts under the hatch covers.  Ok we can do that.  So off to Bakewell (famous for Bakewell tarts - bloody awful and nothing as wonderful as treacle tart).  We figured there must be an engineering place in town that would look after all these farmers but no.  Only a farm shop but they had M6 bolts with ordinary square bolt heads.  Well that should do.  I took one of these bolts from the car roof and over lunch it became obvious that the holes inside these bolts were full of rust and rubbish and the M6 bolt wasn't going anywhere.  So back to the farm shop where I'd earlier spotted a metric tap and die set.  Bought that for 8 GBP and that did the job.
Meanwhile it was pissing down with rain and dark but I was determined and stubborn enough that we would get at least one of these roof rack bars attached.  Fortunately Steve had enough tools.  So with a torch between my teeth, raincoat and initially putting the bar on back to front there was success.  Jean and the others had rightly stayed inside drinking wine and eating Christmas pudding.  The bikes did stay on all the way back to Clevedon and we now have 4x M6 stainless allen head bolts but no tools!!

Back to The French Car Centre for one of our many visits, we wandered down the road while we were waiting for some work to be done, and found the Whole Foods Store.  Basically an upmarket supermarket that originated in America, with the emphasis on local and unusual produce, very well set out to encourage spending lots of money!  The photo above is in the spice section, where you could buy however much you wanted, spooning it into a bag to be weighed - a bit like a posh Bin-Inn, but maybe  less hygienic?!  Amazing cheese and meat counters, with very knowledgeable staff.  However, the best part was the tastings - we worked our way steadily through fruit, cheese, mince pies, yogurt, mulled wine and chorizo, plus a particularly stunning trifle,  thus saving ourself a small fortune on actually buying our lunch!  Bargain!

And so we come to Christmas, which is only two sleeps away.  Just got back from  James and Helen's house, where we decided that seeing as James is a born and bred Wales supporter,  their angel needed to show her true colours and support the rugby world champions.

Tomorrow will be the final trip to Tescos, to do battle with the hordes of trolley-pushers squeezing just one more turkey/Christmas pud/brussel sprout into their trolleys to the sounds of tuneful supermarket carols courtesy of Bing Crosby.  It certainly won't be a white Christmas this year, more like a soggy one.  Roll on the south of France....

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!! 

Freezing in the UK

Welcome to Lew & Jean's blog.  

Going to house sit in France is a totally new experience so writing a blog for the first time is all part of it.  There were a lot of requests to "keep in touch" and the blog seemed like a good way to do that so we'll give it a go.  We're not too sure how often we'll post updates and it's unlikely to be completed on a regular basis so best to check into this blog site when you wonder what's happening in our world.
The different font colours is the cunning plan to stop the squabbling about what to write.  I'm sure you'll soon figure out who's writing what!

Frosty start for the rental car in Rugby.  This Kia Venga is
 fantastic. Luckily we got upgraded from a Vauxhall Corsa match box!

Arriving in the UK has been a bit of a shock.  First of all we arrived into Birmingham and went straight to The Merchants pub in Rugby to watch the All Blacks get ambushed by the English.  We cheered loudly when the AB's surged back into the game after half time but that didn't last long and we snuck out of the pub quietly soon after full time.  Nothing worse than being in a pub full of excited Englishmen.  Most of them hadn't experienced England beating the All Blacks before so it was best to leave them to celebrate the unique moment without us.  Secondly it's ridiculously cold over here!!  All I can say is thank goodness for central heating.  That is one thing they do very well here.   The weather has been brilliant with frosty mornings and generally clear sunny days but bloody hell it's cold.  I've lived in this part of the world before but I can't recall it being this cold.  The down jackets, woolly hat and long johns are life savers.  A better pair of gloves is definitely required.  

  

Really enjoyed a walk along the canal near Rugby with Amber and Jean's brother Mark.   Ice had formed on the canal and the boats smashing the ice caused quite a spectacular noise.  

Amber provided a great commentary on the wildlife and birds some of which had come down from the Artic.  At least they'd be used to the cold!!

We spent most of the first week searching for a car to buy.  "Kate" the new Garmin sat nav has been invaluable.  Got that on the first day at Halfords in Rugby.   We thought a Renault Scenic Estate was a good option for us, having rented one 10 years ago when we drove through France.  We used Auto Trader and Auto Express to find a few cars we wanted to look at.  The reputable Renault dealers tend to sell used cars that are no more than about 5 yrs old and flick the rest to auction or second hand car dealers.  We could also buy privately.  So we started by going to a few second hand car dealers close by in North Hampton and Burton on Trent.  Unfortunately we didn't take any photos to show the huge variation in where these dealers operate from.  Most seem to have yards either in the countryside (literally in the middle of no-where with cars scattered across a paddock) or in town they have a back alley lot up a side street with 20 or so cars jammed in door handle to door handle. Most of the cars we saw in the first couple of days weren't suitable to keep a dog in, let alone drive around the country safely.  Two were full of water under the carpet - yeah we looked everywhere.  Finally discovered "The French Car Centre" in Cheltenham, who are much more presentable and reliable (we hope) and bought a 2004 Renault Scenic from them.  Managed to talk them into a full service, MOT (warrant), new top engine mount, new cam belt, repair some panel scratches, fix the fan on the AC, and fit a new lock on the roof rack as the key was missing, all for the asking price of 3000 Pounds!  Picking the car up tomorrow, photos to follow.

Yesterday (12 Dec) we had a bit of a "culinary tour" of Somerset with my parents.  The first stop was a cider maker where they were hard at work shovelling the apples into the press.  The dry matter, known as "cheese" that was left went up a shute to one side, where a young lad was shovelling it into a trailer and it goes down the road to a farm for cattle feed.

They make several types of cider, and also sold apple juice which was labelled by the apple variety.  The second stop on the tour was.....a cider maker!  This one however specialised in perry (using pears), plus apple brandy, so we had to have a bit of a tasting session, working our way through the brandy vintages from 1 to 3 to 5 to 10 years!  We were on a roll by this time, and moved onto the morello cherries marinated in apple brandy, then some apple liqueur, and finally some cherry brandy.  It was a fascinating old place, we wandered around the vats and barrels for a while to sober up and continue the tour.

Next stop was a smokery, where they smoke everything from fish to macadamia nuts.  Apparently the smoked eel is what everyone comes for from miles around, including my parents, so some of that was purchased, along with salmon and duck, to bring out over Christmas some time.  They also did a great carrot and ginger soup in the cafe, which warmed us up a bit - the cider places in particular where freezing buildings to stand around in. In the carpark was a guy wearing a woolly hat with New Zealand all over it.  Had to chat to him of course but he was from Somerset - been out to NZ.  Too warm he reckoned so came back for some decent cold weather!!

So, other than drinking our way around Somerset, the main activity since arriving has been spending money!  My English bank account hasn't seen so much action in 20 years, and we are content in the knowledge that we are helping pull Britain out of the recession single-handedly!  We've bought a car, car insurance ( the cost of that alone would feed a family of four for  several months in NZ ), ferry tickets to France, bike helmets, gloves, pumps etc, walking boots, gumboots (or wellies, as we have to call them here, or no-one knows what we're on about), and all the other paraphernalia that we couldn't be bother to pack.  The only thing left on the list now is a bike for Lew, so that's this week's task.  We're off up to Sheffield tomorrow, dropping the rental car off and picking up our car.  Apparently its colder up there.....      Let's hope it's warmer in southern France or I'm going to carry on driving to southern Spain!  The other thing I had forgotten was that the days are soooo short.  Even on a sunny day it's dark by 4pm.  Yip - she's all a bit of a shock to the system.