The Physics of Moving

For the last few days, I've been reading Lee Smollin's book, The Trouble with Physics. Fascinating stuff, string theory and all that. Fun because I know there won't be a quiz. But since physics is running about in my mind, here's my new view of moving.

The Laws of (Moving) Thermodynamics

The laws of moving turn out to be a special case of the Laws of Thermodynamics. In case you've missed these laws, here's a paraphrasing of them:

First law: You can't win.

Second Law: Everything gets worse.

Third Law: You can't quit the game.

Wow, does that all sound familiar! That's moving! The First Law is obvious and needs no explanation. The tedious, never-ending dealings with the banker are obviously an aspect of the Third Law, but it's the Second Law that seems to be showing off right now. This law is often paraphrased as 'everything tends toward disorder', i.e. entropy increases over time. Here in Ste Colombe sur l'Hers, entropy has taken over. Where's the small cutting board? Is it already packed? Is it in an as yet unsorted bag of stuff that we brought here when we moved out of the Espéraza house? Or is it just misplaced?

Well, as if entropy weren't increasing quickly enough, a brand new opportunity for disorder has been added, and it will bring more disorder in its wake. The date for the move was to be next Wednesday. We can't make it, obviously, so we've cancelled the date. The next available date (here comes that disorder) is May 25th. That's 6 weeks from today! We'll be living in a house full of boxes for 6 weeks. The current state of disorder is all but overwhelming, and it will only get worse. (First law!)

In addition to the laws of thermodynamics, a local variant of another law of The Physics of Moving seems to be at work as well, which I will call

The Clemens Uncertainty Principle: The location of all objects that we own cannot be known simultaneously. This law is true even at the best of times and becomes only stronger during a move. It also has a corollary:

Corollary to the Clemens Uncertainty Principle: If one object is located, another object will disappear.

The latest thing to have an unknown location is my camera. I always put it in my pocketbook, and yet it is not there. I hope it's not the the pocket of some piece of clothing that I put in the washing machine about 10 minutes ago. John reassures me that if this we so I'd hear it clunking and thumping around in there, which I don't. So it's gone into some alternate universe, whence it will return in its own good time. Then I can download some photos for this blog!

Tum de dum de dum; some time passes...

As an example of the above principle and its corollary, I have found the camera, which was cleverly hiding in the car. But I now cannot find the umbilical cord for the camera which allows me to download photos.

The Bank Saga - Chapter 483, Section 37, Paragraph 94.82

Remember the overdraft idea? I suspect it was nothing other than a way for the banker to get the estate agent to stop calling him. Nothing came of it. It was never again mentioned. but while we were still believers, we met with the notaire, signed all the necessary papers, just as if we were actually at the closing. But with no money passing hands, the deal was not yet final. When the money appears, the notarie will finalize the deal by signing for the sellers, registering the deed and letting us know that we own the house. We figured this would be in a day or two.

Ahh, but it's that "when the money appears" that is the continuing problem. Yesterday we stopped by the bank, just to let the banker know we were still there, still waiting for the money thay had agreed to lend us a full four weeks ago. Alors! He had some news! The dossier that had been sent out from Montpelier had surfaced once more, back in Montpelier. It had been sent to our Espéraza address, where of course we no longer lived, having sold that house. (Were you paying attention, monsier le banker?) Instead of forwarding it to our new address, La Poste saw fit to return it to the sender. The banker said we were lucky that it wasn't just thrown away - a disturbing comment on the reliability of the postal service, eh?)

So he sent email to the Montpelier bank, directing them to send it directly to him, personally, at the bank in Espéraza. So we are again - still - waiting, but this time with a new and different story. Stay tuned; we'll see what they come up with next.

Now, I think if I were a banker, and I had clients who were selling one house, moving to a second one temporarily, and buying a third one, the very last place I would have chosen to send the dossier would be to the house being sold and moved out of. It's not like this was not known to him, since documents outlining the date of the sale of that house, the amount of money to be realized, etc, had been provided and talked of in detail.

On the brighter side, spring is here to stay, the orchards in and around Nojals are now clouds of white blossoms. Oh, another little thing. I was a bit sad thinking that when we left Espéraza we would no longer be living in an AOC wine region. But not true! Nojals is in fact in the Nergerac AOC wine region. We learned this at the notaire's office, it being mentioned as part of the description of the location of the house. So we're moving not just from the Aude to the Dordogne, not just from the Languedoc-Roussillon Region to the Aquitaine Region, but from the Blanquette de Limoux AOC wine region to the Bergerac AOC wine region.

Salut!

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.)

Poisson d' Avril! April Fools' Day!

April 1, the day set for buying the house, at 4PM. It's now 4:25 and where are we? We're taking advantage of tghe free wifi at McDonald's. Why? Becausae we are waiting for those papers from the bank. The latest story was that the originals were presumably lost as an aftermath of the strike at the postal sorting center in Carcassonne, along with 400 other dossiers. (Does it never end? Do the crazy reasons for delay ever stop?) We had to come here anyway, since we had arranged meetings with the electrician, the fellow who will do the plan for the new septic systtm, and the fellow from the gas company, and we had already rented a gite for this week. So the bank thought the best solution would be to send a new set of papers to our estate agent here. We're waiting for them. Maybe they will show up.

ARRGGHHH!!!!! Bankers!

I simply can't belileve how incompetent our banker is. Remember my last post - thas one from March 11, a full two weeks ago? The one wherein I reported that the banker had told us everything was fine, that there would be no problem about getting the money to the notaire by April 1? Hah! All of that has changed. Today he told us that it might be necessary to slip the date by a couple of weeks, but of course he wouldn't say for sure. Does this guy have a calendar? Does he know what day it is? According to him, we are supposed to receive some papers to sign and bring to the bank. We have not received them. Today is Friday. The bank is closed on Monday. If we get the papers on Monday - which seems unlikely - and return them on Tuesday, there is little chance the money will reach the notaire by Thursday. But has he told the notaire? Had he told us? Did he care in the least? The answer to all of these questions is no. Now, it is his job to make this work, or to notify the notaire if things are not going to work on time. Has he done this? No. Who will have to do this? I suspect that will be me, or more likely our charming and unbelievably helpful real estate agent, Mikaël.

So what's the fallout from all this? Well, it means that we have to cancel the rental on the gite we have arranged for the week starting Thursday. It means we have to cancel the meeting with the electrician scheduled for Friday, and meeting with the fellow from the gas company, scheduled for the following Monday. How convenient.

On the other hand, today was also the date of the sale of the Espéraza house. That went without a hitch, I am happy to say, and the money from that, unlike the money from the bank, will be entering the notaire's coffers on Monday or Tuesday.

In the meantime, here's an aerial photo of the house and grounds, from Google Earth. I've outlined the property in red, and the red arrow points to the house itself. To the left of the house, following the road, are some trees, then a slim rectangle of grey and tan which is the vegetable garden, then there's more trees, with a little white blob that's the green house. Continuing to the left is the driveway and garage, then a border of trees marking the end of the garden proper. To the left of all this is a small green field which may end up as the horse paddock.

So, what to do with all this uncertainty and confusion? Take a vacation! We're off to Perpignan tomorrow for an overnight away from it all. We'll walk on the beach, eat out, wander around in the sun. Most importantly we won't be packing boxes. We won't be talking to bankers.

All systems Go!

Being of a worrisome nature, even though the bank had reassured the notaire that he should set a time for the closing on the house in Nojals, I've been waiting for that letter from the bank, the letter approving the bridge loan, to show up. No such luck. Now, of course, our mail has been forwarded - supposedly - to Ste. Colombe as of last Tuesday, although none has shown up there. So no letter from the bank. It having warmed up here a bit, we wandered over to the bank this morning. As we sat in the junior banker's office, ready to make an appointment with the senior banker for the afternoon, the fellow himself walked jovially into the office and showed us the loan approval! He had just got the fax a few minutes before. So - all is set! Woohoo!!! I will probably sleep better tonight, instead of waking up in the wee hours wondering what we'd do when everything fell apart.

So, OK, now I feel I can post lots of info and photos of the area where we'll be living. First is a link to a nearby town called Monpazier - easily the prettiest town I've seen anywhere.

Are we back in Massachusetts???

Snow! This winter has been amazing. I've never seen this much snow since we've been here and today must set some sort of record. First a little bit of background: We're back in Esperaza temporarily, having fled the cloud of wood smoke surrounding and infiltrating the house in Ste. Colombe, brought on by sudden cold weather. So we decided to take the trip back to Esperaza and stay for a day or two - and then we saw the weather forecast: heavy snow today and tomorrow, temperatures way below freezing at least through Wednesday. So here we are in Esperaza, camping out as it were since we moved most of our stuff to Ste. Colombe last week. We woke up this morning, took a look outside and saw it was snowing. Not what we'd call heavy snow but it has kept up all day, unrelentingly, and has now piled up about 15 inches of the stuff!!!! And it's still snowing. Of course we have nothing like a snow shovel; they don't even sell them in this area. We're not in any need of one, since we stocked up on food yesterday, knowing it would be too unpleasant to want to go out.

In house-related news, I learned that we can actually inhabit the house before the new septic system is installed, which will make all of that much easier.

OK, wasn't able to post this yesterday because of continuing power outages. Things seem better today, and it has stopped snowing!