Seeing as it was a year or more between posts, I skimmed the previous ones and thought I’d do an update of non-medical things that happened here in le nord de La Dordogne in that year, with particular referene to previously mentioned topics.
jardinage
We have made some progress with the large, unmanageable, poorly thought-out garden. Gone now are 6 or 7 trees in total, believe it or not, 2 sumac, 1 of the 3 hazlenut, two smaller cherry trees that were in the shadow of those and the massive big walnut tree, which only served to feed local rats and prevent other nearby trees from thriving, and I took down the smaller apple tree that overhung the pool and produced small, and not very nice apples anyway.
Even after all that, we still have many trees left: A huge cheery tree, which needs properly pruned finally this year; 2 pear trees, one of which bears fruit, but we will need to manage in some way to get something edible from; A cooking apple tree which also needs some reduction in branches and bears a lot of fruit, and the two remaining hazlenut trees, which need thinning also. At least know, we have the relative of a neighbour on our books who did a good job with those larger trees for us, so we can get him to help out with that and the giant laurel hedges which I failed to keep on top of.
One I didn’t mention is that we have a banana tree and this year it has bananas, something we haven’t seen since we moved in here in May 2021. Perhaps the massivelt wet start to this year is a factor there. We had the most rainy May for 30 years I read.
Nouvelles poubelles, nouveaux coûts
French language article about the new bins
This is a Dordogne specific thing, though other departments have similar. We live right next to the border with Charente, which still has the old system of communal bins that are freely acessible that you drop recycling and waste bags into. The new one is run by SMD3 and the way you pay for it has changed. There is a standing charge, plus a fee that allows you to open the bin, with your smart card, to throw 2 black waste bags away every 2 weeks. You can open it more, but each of those costs you ¢5.50 a throw. Of course food waste should be composted, which we have done, but we have a problem with rats, which is not condusive to that, despite all the neighbourhood pet and feral cats. There is a communal food waste bin for some things in nearby Verteillac, but it’s locked and you have to go to the town hall to get access at specific days and times, which is a bit of a pain in the cul.
People are rightly pissed off about this as, although there is always merit in encouraging recycling and reducing waste, the system is more expensive and very one-size fits all and not well thought out. For example, what about the elderly and others who need to use continence products and throw them out frequently, or disposable nappies? I’m not sure if they are now addressing these things, but many French folks made their own arrangements, so that those who didn’t throw away much would take a bag for their neighbour who had a need to throw out more. Presumably they will give some sort of additional credits to such affected folks, probably requiring another form or other as the French often do :)
Anything remotely recyclable, and not if it’s packaging, card, literally anything not smelly/veg/meat, is freely disposable in openly accessible recycle bins at the same location in the village. For larger things, access to the dump, dechetterie is also done via the smart card, and that does for garden waste/white goods etc.
You are thinking now about council tax and costs, and there is a similar thing based on property value, which for us is around ¢116 a month. With the water bill also, for viewers in Scotland, it kind of breaks down like this as a back of a Gitaines packet calculation.
Bins: 403 + Taxes foncières: 1,392 + Water: 260 = €2055 a year, or £1751, £145 a month
Not sure what council tax is these days for our house in Milngavie, probably cheaper maybe? Of course, we have a much more land here, a larger footprint house, a garden easily 3-4 times the size, a separate garage and swimming pool, so all that is taken into account for the council tax equivalent, and it’s not based on some ancient value like the UK still does delusionally. But, to be honest, here you feel you get something for taxes, the place is just much better maintained. Rarely see a pothole you’d have to avoid for example. In fact, last month was the annual round by the local dude who fills in any wee holes around the village with tar/bitumen.
We get a monthly, mensuelles, newsletter from the Maire of the Commune, and they are currently looking to rennovate the old schoolhouse into a multi-usage space with a shop and co-working location, no doubt inspired by another project, the long-awaited works by Orange to finally bring fibre internet to the village (Hooray!). They/we have also been landed with shoring up an abandoned house across the road from the salle des fêtes/mairie/salle des multi-usages, town hall/wee municipal space. It seems the inheritance situation went south for some reason, and now it’s the commune’s responsibility to ensure no third party damage or injury occurs due to the property, so there is a fair amount to take care of, as well as all the usual community events, theatre shows, music, fêtes and communal meal things. Not everything is paid in full by the commune though, things like the fibre connectivity are part financed by The Dordogne department itself: Devolution and community and co-operation very much the way here governmentally, not centralisation.
Situation de travail
Apart from that, and all the medical appointments, what else is on the horizon? Well hopefully a job in France for once. So far, I have continued remote working with the UK client I had when I came to France, and then most of 2022 with another different one after that, which weirdly mostly involved working alone in the mornings in peace (Great), and with Americans in the afternoon (Not so great), as a US company had bought the original UK end client. Then I had one with a Swiss based company most of last year. So no French client yet and never paid in Euros yet either, which is an extra expense and admin of course.
The job market in IT/tech is currently the worst I’ve ever seen, in my 27 years of contract work; Worse than the post 2000 dot com bubble bursting, and the 2008 financial crisis fall out, and it’s made worse by the pig headed decisions by company bosses to insist that everyone has to come to an office 2 and 3 days a week, to sit with headphones on, in the same Teams/Zoom/Slack meetings they could’ve dialled into from home… if you want to know what I really feel about all that, it’s thoroughly explored here (And a fair few folks seem to like what I said going by feedback).
In my own case, I’ve barely had a conversation with a recruitment agent since I started looking for my next contract in December, maybe 2 or 3 chats, and only once, last week, has my CV been sent to a client with an actual job to fill. I am to discuss the possibility of an interview (entretien, which weirdly also means maintenance) on Monday 3rd. That job is remote, but with 1 monthly visit to Lyon, which is 5 hours of car travel away. You are thinking, “But France has amazing, fast and cheap trains!”, it does, but not in that direction typically! You’d need to go to Angoulême, to Paris and back down to Lyon, which is long and adds up in costs. We shall see anyway, on verra quand même, meantime I will keep looking for that elusive 100% remote work, so I can keep working like I have since 2020.
