Soooo, just how large an overdraft can YOU write??

Saturday, Bergerac

While lunching at a Chinese buffet today, John's phone rings. It's the estate agent, who has talked to the banker this morning, to whom he delivered the news that he had not received the magical – and seemingly ephemeral - papers. He tells us that the banker has come up with a workaround solution – he wants to give us an overdraft line for 47,000 euros. Yikes! That's certainly an overdraft arrangement larger than any I've ever been offered. But apparently not unheard of, since the banker says that this is actually over their limit for overdrafts, which is set at 40,000 euros. I am not making this up. But, Hey Ho, why not? It seems that otherwise we could sit here in limbo forever, waiting for the fictitious mailings to arrive. At any rate, Mikael, or agent says that the notaire might possibly be able to fit us in on Wednesday morning. So, instead of trudging back to Ste. Colombe on Tuesday as we had planned just this morning, we will be staying at least through Wednesday. Which means we can keep an appointment with another bank. We're trying to open an account at a local bank, in Beaumont. We stopped in their office on Thursday morning and asked to open an account. Of COURSE this could not be done on the spot. Could we come back at 3 in the afternoon? Yes. But wait, this is too easy and Yes, here comes the hitch - a colleague walks by this woman's office and points out that whoever does such things is not free that afternoon. Much calendar checking ensues. The first available appointment is the following Wednesday afternoon at 5. What is it with banks? What on earth takes up so much of their time that they can't open an account in less than a week? Ah well, we say Yes, with the caveat that we may have to cancel if we are no longer in the region by then. I almost called this morning to cancel that appointment, but we didn't have the phone number with us. Just as well we didn't. So it looks like things may progress. We'll see. I am quite fed up with all this, I must say.

Meanwhile, we went to a local home-decorating store this morning to have a look at possible floor coverings to replace the hideous and grubby olive-green carpet in the tower bedroom. There's a lovely wool pile that looks gorgeous, but maybe it's too light, being an off white. More stores are available.

But maybe we can start thinking that things will work out and that we will actually own this house before too long. (I'm almost afraid to get my hopes up.)