August Musings

First of all let me tell you all, I can't believe it's already August! I really can't and I feel like all we did is move again, you know?

We've just had our first real lunch guest here yesterday, a friend from France, who kindly brought our computer to us with a side order of champagne and flowers. How lovely, need those little moments with good friends these days.

I decided to cook a proper lunch, pork five ways with veggies and a peppercorn sauce, followed by a light meringue with mango and coconut. It was lovely but over way too quick. Still, whilst cooking and setting it up I realised yet again, how much kitchen stuff we are missing here. I laid a pretty garden table in the kitchen, best I could and it was okay. As my daughter would say, I managed a sort of 'bougie poor' table setting whatever that is! Did it matter? No, not really as it was all about the company and the food.

Moving costs doesn't it? The furniture from France would not fit here sadly. The rooms here are more cottage like and the ceilings certainly aren't over 3 meters. We have a sofa stuck in the garage because it won't go through the snug doors! Anyway, I'm rather proud of that garden table purchase, a huge teak table for just over 200 quid! I searched and searched until I found a gem in the sale that fitted that tiny gap in the piggy bank! Then seeing the chairs would cost over the table cost per chair, I did some surfing and ended up getting the chairs from a business bulk buy place!

Anyway, we remain hopeful that the french house will sell or rent out and soon. Working with the french tax authorities is tough and rather feels pointless most of the time and believe me they hold no space for language differences. They are also making things far worse by sticking a 40% fine on it all and not communicating in any form we can understand. We will keep trying but of course useless accountant is still bloody useless and as much help as a chocolate fire guard. We've also just found out that he hasn't finished 2024 business return even though i distinctly remember P telling him back in early spring that he had all the docs in the online space and to get them finished! C'est le vie!

I simply won't wear the weight of others opinions about our tax woes in France because they don't know the full story and never will. To those of you that think we didn't pay any tax at all, that couldn't be further from the truth. The inspection of the company and the loss of the proposed ZRR discounts has changed what we owe monumentally. Sitting ducks we were! There are many elements to this issue that are also the tax office and accountants fault. Some weird glitch after Covid added to our problems. It's a catalogue of errors finished off with P loosing his last client that would pay him in France. It could happen to anyone.

Our biggest regret will remain the company owning the house and even opening a SASU regime company in the first place. We should have continued doing 6 months in each country and paid our taxes here in the UK with an LTD much simpler, instead of throwing our lot in with France. Anyway no point crying over spilt milk is there? I just hope we can resolve it all and move on soon.

The good part is that P's job is building nicely and we remain hopeful we can build it all back up. It may take two or three years to get back to where we should be now, but its a good lesson learnt and a challenge accepted. Rome was not built in a day eh!

The august weather so far has been rather fractious in the extreme. It has felt very autumnal at times. Maybe that's why I feel like I'm hibernating? I'm sure mother nature will rally and summer will be back in full swing soon.

I decided yesterday to take a summer hiatus from the socials to gather my thoughts and be more present for a week or so, a bit like the usual holiday period we all have at some stage where we finally switch off the phone and pop on an out of office reply for a while. I'm surrounded by beautiful countryside and will walk it off. I really think it's important to let each tumultuous period of one's life settle. Plus I've run out of steam a bit and when the words don't flow, it's time to put down the pen.

Philip has gone off in search of some bits this morning from our old uk storage and is picking up an old ride on mower, so we can shear the farm grass and soon. Meanwhile the harvest has begun around us and we both are suffering from the harvest dust, literal hay fever!

I'm awaiting a delivery of Dunelm dining chairs this morning as the budget is hardly there, so once we've got our stuff back and the landlords team has updated the kitchen, I will give you a little tour of a home done on a shoestring sometime in September, which lets face it is the safest way to be these days. By the time we got to the end of the project in France it wasn't about 100 euro rolls of designer wallpaper but 10 pound rolls from Dunelm. By that time we'd learnt how to make the reality of a budget fit and not a forever stretched one, we were almost done! There's also no doubt that its cheaper to renovate here than in France but of course the houses in France are cheaper, swings and roundabouts.

Meanwhile, back in France our friend who is an actual angel, has been de furnishing the house, so that we don't have that concern down the line. It was furnished to be an a holiday let but the lorry saga kinda put paid to that and then if sold it would need to be empty, so her work has been much needed. Better to get rid of stuff in country for peanuts rather than pay for storage or a removal company. It can be a fools game!

We had hoped to travel to the house this month to finish off but until we hear back from the tax office, we will stay put.

Right, back to farm life and I'm hoping I can apply some pressure to get him to put up some curtain poles and accompany me on a paint choosing trip.

Back soon.

Out of office reply!

Love and a bucket of gumption.

Dx