It must have been about night 3, I thought I'd have a go at roast chicken in the built-in oven that the old owners thoughtfully left for us. A few years ago we voted roast chicken, roast potatoes, stuffing, yorkies and veg and gravy the BEST MEAL EVER.  It is the official Smith family favorite meal (French branch). Using a new oven, when you are a cook for a living and by instinct is probably a bit like a surgeon using someone else's knife. Anyway, the chicken was in and browning nicely, quite quickly, but normally. I popped in a tin of oil to get hot to put in the parboiled potatoes to roast. The next thing I know, the pan is actually on fire in the oven. I grab the tea towel and whisk it out and put it on the hob which is not on, of-course. I soak the tea towel in water and throw it over the tin, all the time calling for Dave. The flames appear to go out and Dave appears on the run. He takes the tea towel off, thinking the flames have gone out. They flare up again wildly and he jerks and the whole thing gets knocked onto the floor. Flaming oil everywhere. Luckily the floor is tiled and Dave missed spilling it on himself - thank god, thank god - I run off and grab a bath mat and soak it and run back and throw it on, by which time Dave has got it out.Jeeeez, it is one of my worst nightmares, having a fire, and I think it should be against the law leaving an electrical device as dangerous as that in a house you have just sold without mentioning it. It turns out the thermostat doesn't work, and it just stays on top heat. My other nightmare, by the way is drowning and becoming fish food. YUK. I just know that that is going to happen.

Anyway, we got lucky and our time is obviously not up.Today.  I do, however, have to get quicker with the photo taking. Dave is like a dynamo. The restaurant is nearly stripped already. I have sorted the cutlery (bin), crockery (bin), tupperware storage containers (bin) etc . You get the gist. Here's an interesting thing: I contacted the electricity people, EDF, and told them we would be moving on the 23rd Nov, back in Oct. I phoned them today and said that actually we had been 2 months late and only vacated the 21st Jan. and here are my meter readings. They said that, no thanks, they had terminated our contract on the 21st Nov and sent our last bill 2 months ago. All they needed was for the new owner to contact them with their details. So who pays, says I, for the 2 months elec? It is lost, say they. Tant pis. That's life. So here's a good ruse. Phone up the elec people and say you're moving and then get free elec!!!! Yessir, a good deal! We had 2 months free elec at the coldest time of year. Hurrah.

So here's a little summary of here we are: we have bought a fridge, new oven (!), washing machine (posh steam version), dryer, Freddy is under veterinary care and looking a little better. We have had one quote for central heating. Tomorrow we sort out the bank, a professionnel kitchen co is coming to have a look, we have made contact with the hygiene people and they will look at and approve or not our plans. Things are moving at full tilt. Tomorrow the yellow pages are phoning for our requirements. Luckiliy we haven't missed this years print. It is probably one of the most important marketing tool we can do. A carpenter has been round to measure up for a door to completely close in the bottom terrace, complete with push bar, so that it serves as an emergency exit. It's amazing how much we can get done in a day. And that's with me spending most of the pm shopping to fill our new lovely fridge. Well, we're going to eat well, anyway!

So, dear folks, maybe tomorrow I will have figured out the photos. If not, it will be more drivel. Hurrah! Lunch in the sun, by the way. 18° today. Mmmm. It was a good move.

Anyway, I don't really want to make out that actually we are in the middle of a bell and siren hell-hole, we barely notice them, even after a couple of days (I think they turn the volume down at night), but I find it a little strange to be in the middle of a rather picturescque landscape and find it to be rather less than absolutely silent.

 We Vernet people are very proud of our bells. Tomorrow: the house-fire, and not even owners, yet!! Arghhhh

Monday as exceedingly stressful as you can imagine: trying to keep the fluffies in one place and calm, the new owners, their parents arriving stomping all over the place, the removals people doing their thing etc. Arghh. In the end I drugged the cats early and hid them in the reserve. Well, that is to say 2 of them, one of them got loose, but we later trapped her in the reserve and had to put on the tough gloves and shove her in the panier. 2 hours at the notaire - not bad! - whizzed back to the Tref and said our goodbyes and shot off. It as all a bit wierd, we left the notaire without a penny and without any proof we had sold anything. Today we left the notaire with 5 copies of attestations of all we'd bought plus a reimboursement of notaire fees.

About a half hour into the drive (Dave was driving) he looked in the rear view mirror and said 'hello', and there was Mittens treading carefully over the duvet! We saw later that she had undone the zip -who says cats are stupid?! She was very sweet and just sat on my knee admiring the view. However, we put her back on our first motorway stop, as we had to keep winding the window down to pay the tolls and didn't want to risk it!

Well I will go into more detail tomorrow, but I was so excited about everything I woke up at 5am, and I'm bushed! Thanks to Kylie and Soniak and Kommerse for their comments, it's nice to know there is someone reading this! Thanks also for the link to the other foodie site. More tomorrow, snoreeeeeeeeeeeeeee xx

The kitchen has been cleared out and emptied, the inventory done, most stuff is packed, the cats are nervous. Freddy will have to go straight to the vet when we get there, on close examination his excema is much worse than I thought, poor little thing.  People who see him will think we don't look after him. I hope there's a Yellow Pages in the new house. The owner of the New House has phoned to tell us where he has left the keys, so what could go wrong? I shall tell you in a few days! It really is a bit complicated selling a business. There's so much to do. For example, the new owners are obliged to buy what stock we have up to a value of €3000, but we hardly have anything left, but there are some wines. We have to produce the original facture to justify the price they are paying, some of which have gone to the accountant as it is the end of the financial year, some of which have been packed and are in a box somewhere. Aghhh. Still, what we can't find, I shall just have to drink. It's a tough call, but I guess I shall just have to grit my teeth.

So wish us luck and I shall be posting shortly from Vernet - forecast looks lovely! Ciaou!

I have been packing the cats things today. They almost have more than me. I've got their travel boxes ready, Freddie's medicines packed (he's a true French cat with a whole raft of medicines) and they have more beds than is decent. The vet gave me some tranquilisers for them the other day. I am particularly worried about Wilma as she is not very good at being handled. The vet said I should try them out beforehand as the dose can be a little tricky to determine. Last night was Wilma's lucky night on drugs and within about 45mins she'd gone cross eyed and all floppy. Marvellous! She actually seemed a little pathetic, ahhh. Isn't it strange how a human would just think, Mmm, time for a nap, whereas animals try to ignore it and carry on. So we have established that one is enough!

I have had contact with 3 hot stone companies. There is a French one which owns the trademark 'Pierrade', a UK one called Blackrock Grill and another UK one called Steakstones. Blackrock Grill is a nice system, but incredibly expensive; Pierrade is nice, but not as nice as Blackrock Grill, but a third of the price, so pushes into favourite, but looks like it may be pipped to the post by Steakstones which strike a good note with nice presentation combined with reasonable price. Hurrah! I think our guests will have a memorable dining experience. It's great to decide now, as we can plan the kitchen around it. For example, I probably won't have a grill, as any steaks or grills will be taken care of by the hot stone side of the menu. I am making myself hungry writing this!

So anyway, how did we accumulate so much stuff?

So less than a week to M-day (move). We are pretty much ready to go, the cats have got their tranquilisers at the ready. Just got to stuff everything back in the boxes that we packed in October. It's all pretty much come out again!

The new restaurant is currently called Le Cortal and we're renaming it slightly to Bistrot Le Cortal. This is to indicate a change of ownership and more modern image retaining any recognition of it in the area. We shall have two sides to the menu - hot stone cooking (Pierrade in French) and the bistrot menu. The idea of the hot stones was inspired by a visit when we were looking at properties to a restaurant in Aigues-Morts in the Petit Camargue who did this. Stunning place, by the way, if you get the chance to visit that area. I wanted to go to the restaurant specifically to try it, and thought it was great fun. Not haute cuisine, it is sure, but novel, convivial and delicious. From an operational point of view it is also very practical as all the work on my side is in the preparation, leaving me time to do real cooking during the service. So hopefully this would allow us to have a wide choice of things on the menu without having to have a whole brigade in the kitchen. The one thing you have to avoid in France is having employees. I shall discuss this in a future post.

Dave has been trying to set up a 'bail commercial' which is a rental agreement for our new business. We used a website called statutsonline to set up our new company and saved ourselves about 1000 euros by not doing it through our accountant. So, feeling pretty chuffed with ourselves, we thought we'd do the same thing for the rental agreement, which has to be in force for the day we buy the company. Well, on this website it costs 49 euros but you cant add clauses which we want to do as the rent will be free while we are renovating. Dave did a search on the 'net and found a changeable model one for free!!! I'll have to go shopping, we are saving money here! But then I remembered the termite report....well, you can't have everything. We need a rental agreement because we are buying the restaurant building as private people and renting it to our company. Complicated huh.

We are currently working as registered individual entrepreneurs which effectively means if our business fails all we own can be taken to pay the debt. For the new place, because there are several seperate elements, a house, a (small) piece of real estate, as well as the business, we don't want to be homeless if the business fails. So we have formed an SARL which is a limited company. This means we are only liable for the capital we have put up which can be any amount from €1 upwards. Usually an accountant or notaire does this, but like I've already mentioned, we saved a load of money by taking our accountants advice (already paid for in his fees) and doing the rest over the 'net. This website even put in the required ad in the paper local to our new business. You print out all the forms and send them to the Chamber of Commerce, they register you and send you your all important registration number, et voila!

TTFN

Well, the move is set for the 21st Jan. The notaire has everything he needs, so, short of sudden death (god forbid!), nothing should go wrong. We are 2 months late moving due to the future owners changing their loan requirements, and French banks are not the most efficient in the world (hollow laugh), but it looks like we are getting there. We shall be very busy: the removal company can only come on the 21st (monday), so they shall arrive at 0830, we sign at 1430 and then it's off to Vernet - a 5 hour drive- with 3 cats in the car. We'll probably get there quite late and tired! I hope we can catch the cats. Well, it makes up for the 2 months we've been kicking our heels.

So the new (old) restaurant is in a Pyrenean spa town at 650m. It is said that no north winds blow there and it has an average of 300 days sunshine a year. If only it were also at a constant temp of 30 °C, then it would be perfect. Still. You can't have everything. As is quite common in France, there has been no reinvestment in the business and no longer conforms to hygiene regulations, if it ever did, and is quite tired and in need of some TLC. I shall be posting pics when we get back on to a broadband connection. We are currently on dial-up Yuk! However, it has the bare bones - natural stone, beams, terraces overlooking the mountains etc. It could be a cosy intimate place.

 We have discovered that, while difficult to make a buck in France, amazingly it is possible to make some with a what's called the 'Fond de Commerce'. this is the price paid for the equipment that supplies the business, ie tables and chairs, kitchen equipment etc and the 'goodwill', existing customers, reputation in the area etc. Quite often the French will buy just that and pay rent for the buildings, the reverse of what the Brits are used to doing. However, we bought our business in the Dordogne when it was in receivership, so we paid a nominal amount for the fonds, and as long as you keep it for 5 years, it is currently exempt from capital gains tax. Quite amazing to find anything here exempt from a tax, but there you are. Sarkozy even plans to tax the internet here. So we have picked up the fond de commerce quite cheaply on the new place -and rightly so - and we hope to make a nice tax free profit on that as well. Of-course, they'll probably close that loophole by the time we sell.

Well, that's probably enough to have sent you off to sleep for today. I hope to see somemore friends tomorrow!