Finally!!!

I'm sure you have all been sitting on the edge of your seats waiting for news from Grand-Couronne.  We have signed and are now the proud owners of the house situated at 14, allée Pablo Neruda  76530 Grand-Couronne.

"Vendu" means SOLD

 We left on Wednesday morning after stuffing "stuff" and ourselves into our little Opel Astra.  We tried to remember everything but of course once we got here we remembered the things that we had forgotten.  Like the banana bread on the kitchen counter.  I wonder what shape it will be in when we go back to Reims in a month. :(

We went straight to the Notaire's office (a sort of lawyer) to sign the papers.  But when we arrived the offices had moved.  I tell you this because in the end this will be the story of our lives these last few days!!  We found the new offices and signed the papers.  FINALLY!!  We had the house.

We had the keys and we knew how to find the house (though I did turn down the wrong street again.)  We unlocked the door and to our surprise . . .the house was FILTHY!!!  Not just the usual dirt from moving.  No!!  Years of dirt, grease, etc. etc.!  We unpacked the car and put the stuff on throw rugs that we had brought from our "dirty" garage (at least it was OUR dirt.), then went to Kristi's to pick up some more of our stuff that we had left in her garage after the summer.

Emily is in the room that will be my study/guest room

We're in the living room

Before we inflated the beds we swept the floor (oops, forgot the dust pan) then wet mopped the floors and baseboards.  I washed off one counter in the kitchen to be able to fix supper (we brought our microwave with us).  After supper we got the bedrooms set up the way we wanted and I scrubbed the bathrooms (yuck) with bleach that we borrowed from Kristi.  We finally went to bed that first night around 12:30.

Yesterday we did somemore cleaning.  And Mike started taking the wallpaper off in one of the bedrooms.  He also spent hours on the phone.  The gas man came BUT the water heater/furnace won't stay turned on.  The technicien can't come until Monday.  When we arrived in the house we expected there to be a refrigerator BUT no fridge.  We ordered one, it will be delivered on Wednesday.  Mike tried to get the internet hook-up going BUT the ex-owner of the house hadn't closed his line yet.  And the list goes on.

We have been having beautiful, warm, not always sunshiny weather, but who cares.  Which means that even though we don't have any heat in the house we have been warm enough.  We did bring a space-heater with us and the ex owner left a space heater too.  So we are fine.

My time is running out so I'll close for now.