The Cost of Living at Moulin du Bayle

 Another week in paradise has flown by and there is a distinct feel of autumn in the air!

We thought we'd share a little about the cost of living over here and a visit to the supermarket ...or the Intermarche as our local is called. There are three supermarkets within a 5-10 min drive from us but it is the Intermarche that is our favourite. 

We consider that on balance the cost of living here is no more expensive than in NZ even with the conversion to euros. The following prices are all in euros (current rate around 55c NZ to euro):

Fillet of chicken 5.50 per kg 
Fresh fish fillets 8.90 per kg
Fresh Salmon 9.50 per kg

Pork chops 2.45 per kg

Pork sausages 3.60 per kg

Bottled Beer 6x50cl 2.39

Tomatoes 1.20 per kg

Cucumbers 1.00

Cheese (where do you begin...amazing variety) can range from 6.00 to 30.00 per kg! Mouth wateringly good!

Eggs under 1.00 a dozen, (bright  
yellow/orange yolks-very yummy)
Olives (stunning variety) 6.00 per kg

Bananas 0.90 per kg                                      

NZ Kiwifruit 5 for 1.00

Potatoes (absolutely fabulous tasting) 1.90 per kg

Grapes free from our vineyard and ready to eat now!
PLENTY FOR A VEGETARIAN TO LIVE ON!

Patisserie HUGE selection 5 for 4.00, flans to die for 5.00

Croissants 5 for 1.00

Baguettes Flute 0.85 which we have fresh and toast as there is no toast bread worth eating here.

As at home there are always promotions, this week it's a huge wine sale which we have taken advantage of...a little!

Water is very cheap here we can buy 6x 2L bottles for 1.12. Our drinking water is okay but is very hard so we prefer to use bottled for the jug. However, at a neighbouring village we have started to fill our own containers from a mineral spring which is rumoured to have healing properties and has been a place where people come from miles around to drink the water as well sit in the thermal pools for hundreds of years.  There is a large water bottling plant next door. The water is beautiful and free!

Diesel is about 1.12 per litre, (petrol 1.45 L). We have been doing about 2000 kms per month that's about 200 euros per month to keep our little Pugget mobile, which we think is pretty good value! 

We have bought a load of firewood at 70 euros per cubic metre, cut and delivered native oak, not particularly cheap compared to NZ. 

A two bedroom village house to rent is around 400 per month. That same house you could buy for around 70.000 euros ($127.000 NZ). A gite (BandB) around 50 euros a night for two, can be a lot more if you want real luxury! Rates and insurance about the same as at home. 

A visit to the doctor (to check out the hematoma) was 22.00 euro for a very thorough examination which took 20 mins, heart checked, blood pressure checked-both arms as well a hematoma prodded!

Well, you get the picture I'm sure. We have been pleasantly surprised at how far our NZ dollar has been stretching.

As always we send our love and smiles to you all. Seems strange to think that as we begin to think about winter you all will be getting ready for a well deserved summer. The statistics here proudly boast that there are 300 days of sunshine in the Aude region, we are certainly hoping that this is the case!
Take care til next time
Martin and Peggy

Communication, Cycling and Chateaux

We're back in the land of internet! 

You will have noticed a decided paucity of information on the blog over the last few weeks...it's not been for want of trying believe me! No, it's been more like a lack of internet connection at Moulin du Bayle for the last 6 weeks. The satellite 'box' died and it has taken this long to persuade the internet company that they needed to send us a new one. We were prepared for it to take some time, we are in France after all, however, 6 weeks was a lot more than we bargained for! During that time we found two wifi cafes (McDonalds being one-brilliant for a vegetarian!) which we haunted in order to keep up with news from home and send friendly, pleading, begging and finally nasty emails to the internet company who would respond (in French naturally) by basically thanking us for our email and take an number! We eventually found a wonderful technician who spoke some English and who had previously worked for this company and it was he who finally got through the bureaucratic web and persuaded them to send a new box. So we are back on the communication highway. Long may it last!

Looks like she's been doing it for years??!

Probably our biggest news is that we are now proud owners of two bikes which we have been riding along some awesome trails. The best has to be the Canal du Midi which stretches from the Mediterranee to the Atlantic some 500kms! Our biggest 'journey' so far has been about 12kms...certainly a lot further than the 'carrot'! Needless to say there are few (if any) hills!
All had been going swimmingly in the riding department until Peggy decided to fall off her bike nearly sending Martin into the canal. She is now sporting a rather large lump on her leg which is not very attractive and has slowed the riding expeditions this week. The Plane trees you see in the background of the pictures were reportedly ordered to be planted by Napoleon so his troops could stay out of the sun when they were marching cross country. You see them everywhere.

Dressed for...

Chateau Puivert

We continue to explore in and around our 'Department', the Aude and are never short of a chateau or two to visit. This area is known as Cathar country and has an amazing history of some very horrific wars and battles, very often connected to the Catholic church and the Inquisition. We are in the heart of 'Dan Brown' country, with Rennes le Chateau being the church where the mystery of possible Cathar treasure (Holy Grail?) is centred. Many of the chateaus are just skeletons of their former selves but they are amazing to wander around especially when you realise the history that they hold in them. Views from the top of the surrounding landscapes only serve to further confirm that this is a truly beautiful part of France.

Chateau D'Arque

View from top of Rennes le Chateau, Pyrenees in back

Well, enough for now, it's now way past wine time and there is a glass just waiting for me. So here's wishing everyone all our love and best wishes. Til the next time. Will end with a couple of pics from other 'happenings' in our neck of the woods.

Our grapes ready to harvest any day now!

Our Village 'Fete', Martin making friends with the locals!

 Love and smiles from Moulin du Bayle!

News Flash: Two Weeks & Three Days & in Trouble With Authorities Already!

Today's big excursion was to le cave a vins, our local wine 'depot'. All went very well, we filled our two 5 litre tubs with a Merlot and a Rose, collected a cask of not too shabby savvy and paid the nice Mademoiselle 24 euros...approximately 15 litres of wine or twenty bottles for $2.00 each NZ.

The 'not so cheap' wine!

Feeling oh so clever, not too mention wondering how on earth we were ever going to drink it all, we headed for home with a quick stop at Esperaza for the regulation French baguette and croissants. Another brief visit to the librairie (bookshop) to pick up some blutac so Martin can put a big French map up on the wall in order to scrupulously plan our future big trips, all completed in a matter of minutes.  

The Ticket!

Back to the car only to find two uniformed monsieurs giving it a lot of attention, one monsieur appeared to be writing in a notebook. With all the memorised French she could muster Peggy asked if there was a problem...to be told that we had parked in a no parking area and we needed a special ticket to park there. What is it with the French and tickets!? Peggy tried to explain that we had parked there only the day before and was shown the newly painted arrow markings on the road which apparently meant ticket parking only. Our park only had a faint shadow of one of these but that was of no consequence, the ticket was handed over and we were told to pay the 11 euros to the Esperaza Parking Authority. Suddenly our oh so clever wine purchasing didn't seem quite so clever or cheap any more!

Not so happy 'Ticket Man'!

A slightly tiddly, sulking Ticket Man!

With our tail between our legs we arrived home and as I write Martin is sulking in his hammock, glass of red in one hand, book in the other!

Another brush with French bureaucracy just when I thought we'd aced it! Ah well, you live and learn...the pain will ease after a litre or two of not so cheap red wine...salut!

Markets, Motoring and Moulin du Bayle

Our first two weeks at Moulin du Bayle seem to have flown by with nearly everyday filled with either exploring a new local market or dealing with French bureaucracy so we could purchase a car. 

Mirepoix Market

Olives to die for!

One of the many things we were looking forward to doing when we got to France was to visit the local weekly market to buy our fresh vege, fruit, cheese and bread. We most certainly have not been disappointed, from the small village markets to the larger town ones, the abundance of fresh food as well as unique jewellery, clothes, shoes and general bric a brac has been wonderful. It seems that there is a real avante garde cum alternative flavour to the markets, particularly the clothing, handcrafted footwear (gorgeous and unusual leather sandals, boots, shoes) and jewellery. The prices, however, are not cheap especially at this time of the year when it's the height of the tourist season. 

There are always cafes and restaurants dotted around the squares selling great food and coffee -the kind that knocks the top off your head or for the less serious coffee drinkers they now have cappuccinos which were not in evidence when we were here in 2006.  Apart from what is on sale at the markets it's the surrounds that are what makes the whole experience so stunning. The markets are held in village squares which are bordered by wonderful old buildings, ancient churches, chateaus and in Mirepoix the whole square has a medieval veranda under which there are shops and cafes, it is absolutely fabulous. 

Melons, peaches, nectarines in abundance

It's the history around every corner that really constantly surprises you and reminds you how young we are in New Zealand!

Around every corner, about 3kms from home.

Now to the second 'M' of this blog, our motoring experiences! I'll start by saying that we are now the proud owners of a 2004 Peugeot 206, 55,000kms on the clock, two new tyres, a service and a new CT (registration) good until mid 2012. All in all a pretty good deal but it did not happen without a fair amount of frustration and perspiration! Martin, car buyer extraordinaire, had us looking in every car dealership we came across, trying to explain what we were wanting to purchase -lots of hand waving, diagram drawing as well as a few sentences Peggy had memorised - worked well until they answered back! All this usually eventuated in us looking at one or two cars at each dealership but always at a price more than we were willing to pay...so...back to the internet. 

We finally found our car in a nearby town, Limoux, being sold by an English lady who is moving back to the UK. YEAH...job done...yeah right! It turns out that changing ownership of a car in France is something akin to gaining a PhD. Deidre, the lovely lady we bought the car off provided us with all the information she thought we would need to do our part of the changeover and it was agreed that we would go to the Prefecture (Govt civil servants) in Carcassonne together to get the job done all in one hit. So at the appointed time, armed with every piece of paper conceivable, we rocked up to the office, handed over the relevant documents, waved our arms around, smiled, said a few more memorised words and waited. The young prefecture for his part, looked through the papers, waved this arms around, consulted with three others and then told us that we could not do the changeover until we had been to see our local mairie (mayor) to get a piece of paper to say we were resident in his 'commune'. By this time is was 12o'clock and everything closes down for two hours so it was back to Moulin du Bayle for a few deep breaths and some lunch. At 2 o'clock we trudged up to St Jean de Paracol with the hope that the mairie might be in...we had heard that they generally only open their offices Wednesday from 2-3.30 in the smaller towns and this was Wednesday! We were in luck he was there and happy to see us except he didn't speak a word of English. Once again, Peggy managed to spit out her memorised intros (getting pretty good at it now) and the rest she left to the 'google translations' she has written down prior while waiting for 2pm. He got the picture and eventually found the relevant paper and signed it. After that I think he welcomed us to the village and said that there were a number of English speakers who we might like to meet. As it was too late to get back to the prefecture before closing time, we took another trip to get more money out of the bank (can only take $1000 a day) so we could finalise the purchase in the morning. 

The new day dawned bright and we were all away back to Carcassonne with some trepidation but positive that today was the day! In a repeat of the day before, we presented our paperwork to the same prefecture who appeared to remember us and in what seemed no time at all he waved us over to a ticket machine. It seemed he was just the first phase of this process, we now needed to take a number and wait to see someone else to have everything checked. It needs to be said there were at least 20 other people waiting holding tickets!  After a relatively quick 15-20 French minutes, we were called to a man who looked at the papers -not at us- stamped them and waved us back over to the ticket machine. Rather nonplussed we wobbled our way back to the machine just as a English woman had been issued her ticket. She told us that this ticket was for the final part of this process...the paying part. Another 10-15 French minutes and we handed over 140 euros and we had our temporary 'carte de grise' (change of ownership). Once outside there was much cheering and clapping and wiping of the brow, we'd done it...well at least most of it...

It seems in France when you change ownership of a car you are given a new licence number which means you must purchase new licence plates. So...back to Limoux to find a licence plate maker! It is now just on 12pm so once again nothing except eating and drinking happens until 2pm so we indulged! We found our man down one of the many narrow streets and he told us it would be done in 5 mins and to bring the car to the front of his shop and they would put it on. The speed of this was a bit dazzling, so we were a little suspicious but did as we were told and sure enough when we eventually wound our way back to his shop the licence was waiting and so was a very happy and rather drunk older man armed with a rivoting gun and a drill. All plates in France must be rivoted on apparently to stop thieves?! This process took about 20 minutes largely due to our man having some difficulty getting the plates straight and helpfully putting in 6 rivots where two would have been sufficient. 

Our friendly rivot man!

Now you would think that this would have been enough for one day...but there was still one more job to be done.  It is apparently illegal in France to drive a car without insurance so we needed to get this sorted quickly or have a long walk home. We had been advised by a number of people that AXA was a good company to deal with so up the stairs to the AXA man we went and what a gem he turned out to be. In less than half an hour we had full cover insurance from Guy Serie for 491euro (about $900nz), this covers us for everything from the usual accident situations to car break downs where they will send a mechanic and a courtesy car for however long you need it. This covers us for all over Europe.

Peugette!

It was with great relief and a certain amount of pride that we arrived back to Moulin du Bayle that night in our new car...Peugette (named by Martin). So for the last few days we have finally been able to sit back and enjoy life here at our new home. We have been back to our local markets and bought a few plants for the garden pots, fixed the flat tires on the velo (bike) that was here, put up a hammock, slept during the afternoon and generally chilled out. Martin is now on the hunt for another velo for me so that we can 'go on rides together'...all of you who know about Martin's bike riding exploits can stop laughing now, we are keen to try out some of the many flat roads in the area. We have also been told about a local woman who gives French lessons as well as introducing you to conversational french with our local neighbours and french cuisine, so we will be signing up for that in September.

Apologies for the length of this blog, hopefully I will be more diligent now that we free of our bureaucracy! 

Bonsoir from France, we hope you are all enjoying what sounds like an early entrance of spring in NZ.

So much to talk about!

We're here!!!

Well, where to begin...? We are now happily unpacked and beginning to feel like we're at home at Moulin du Bayle. The house is SO much more than we expected! It is on three levels and all the rooms are large and airy. The house has been very nicely renovated and the owners Karen and Jonathan have furnished it very tastefully, we feel like we're living in a rather fancy hotel! Outside there are a number of fruit trees, apples, plums, apricots, figs and cherries to name a few. We are surrounded by fields of sunflowers, grapevines and barley. It is truly beautiful.

Our first week has been filled with trying to get some form of communication to the outside world (there was no working internet when we got here and there is no telephone reception!) as well as a vehicle of our own. We have a great little Renault hire car which has done us well through our travels in Italy and down to Rouvenac. Next week we will take possession of a 2004 Peugeot 206 diesel powered station wagon. It has had one careful English lady owner who has hardly driven it since she purchased it. It has done only 55,000kms and she is putting on two new tires, getting it serviced and a new CT (Warrant of Fitness) which is good for two years, so all in all a really good deal. It's a little larger than we were looking for but will have plenty of room for you and your luggage when you come and visit!

Getting the internet workable was a huge relief so we could finally talk to family and friends and being able to Skype when the techie didn't think it was possible is an extra bonus! We also now have a working mobile after a rather amusing conversation with a lovely shop assistant who spoke almost as good English as we do French! Communicating our needs is the greatest challenge as we expected it would be, but each day seems to get a little easier. Certainly a true 'practice makes perfect' situation!

Waiting for the Tour to begin in our village

Martin got to see the Tour du France go through the village last Sunday. It was quite a spectacle, for at least an hour before the riders appeared there were sponsors cars and elaborate floats with attractive girls throwing out goodies to the people on the side of the road. The riders flew past in a flash, the first bunch a good 10-12 mins ahead of the main group. That night the village of Rouvenac partied until the wee small hours of the morning, but we were exhausted so fell asleep to the sounds of loud music and laughter echoing up the valley.

Tomorrow we are going to our first market in Esperaza a village about 5mins away. It is apparently great for fruit, vege, patissiere as well as clothes and jewellery etc. Should be fun. The weather has been very hot (30+ degrees) up until the last few days. It's now a little cloudy and breezy with temps around 23-26 which is a nice relief.

As well as the wonderful french cheese and bread we have been introduced to our local winery which has a really great Merlot. You drive up with your 5 litre plastic container and the owner fills it using a petrol pump type dispenser and all for 6 euro or about $1.05 NZ a bottle!!!! The locals fill about two or three of these containers each week, we managed one...still we do have a year to practice!?

First meal at Moulin du Bayle...a boiled egg!

There is so much more to talk about, I haven't touched on our wonderful time in Italy...will do so in another blog. Until then au revoir from us both!

Last Day in Bangkok

It's hard to believe that it's a week ago today that we left NZ on the start of our year adventure!

We have been in Bangkok for 4 days and unfortunately Martin has been under the weather with a bad case of 'Deli Belly' which has laid him low for most of our time here. It's meant keeping close to the pool and the local, very good, massage house -oh darn! He's hoping to get some antibiotics today before we begin the mammoth trip to Rome tomorrow. The hotel have been very good and even sent flowers to the room with a get-well card! 

We did get to do a city and temple tour on our first day here, hence the photo, the gold buddhas are amazing!

First Leg of Our Adventure!

Well, we are now in Bangkok after an 'upgraded' flight from Sydney...YUP, we were upgraded to Business Class so spent a very comfortable 9 and a half hours being fed and watered deliciously!

But I'm getting ahead of myself...after a final mad dash to get the house cleaned and our bags packed (overweight!), John dropped us safely at the Auckland Airport. The check-in lady was very nice and calmly asked me if I had a visa to get into Australia as she couldn't seem to find it in my passport. NO!!!!! After all the drama to get the French visa I completely forgot the Oz one...scary few minutes as she checked to see if they could do it electronically for me, which  they could for $30! Next the weighing of the bags, 11kg over that will be $220 thank you very much.  By now, blood pressures were a little high but we pushed on to immigration. As we shuffled our way to the cattle herding pens to wait to have our on board luggage scanned, a lovely lady asked Martin if he would please put his bags on the scales (no more than 7kg allowed)...oops, "I'm afraid Mr Lee you will have to take some things out of your bag like cameras etc which your lovely wife (who was also carrying over the allowed limit) can carry for you". A sweating Mr Lee removed some devices from his bag, hung them around the neck of his lovely wife and was re-weighed, 8kg. "That's fine Mr Lee, have a good trip", said the smiling weigh lady. Once through scanning and a quick pat down for Martin by the 'pat down official' and we could finally find a place to sit down and let the perspiration begin to evaporate!

The trip over to Sydney was uneventful (thank goodness) until we got to immigration. I went through the alien cue and Martin rocked up confidently to the Aus/NZ one. As I was being 'processed' I saw Martin being marched away by a little man to an office area where he was told to wait. Thoroughly bamboozled I joined him in the wait only to be told that it was something about his brand new passport that the Aus computers didn't like but was now fixed. "Enjoy your stay in Sydney Mr Lee!"


We had a great chilled out three days with Walt and Kylie who is blossoming! They are all set up for baby in a couple of weeks and seem very calm and collected about their new impending addition. A great way to wind down after a rather 'busy' few weeks. Oh, and we dumped about 13kgs of gear into a box for Walt to send over to us by surface mail.

That brings me back to the beginning and our very unexpected but most welcome upgrade-what a difference to the first part of the trip!  So, our first day in Bangkok and we are off on a city tour this afternoon but first breakfast! Of course we need more food after 91/2 hours of the best food Emirates could provide us! Will post pictures and more soon.