I haven't had a rant for a while and this is a good one.
I have finally managed to cancel our house insurance, seven months after selling the house in France but I am still in the process of cancelling our 'mutuelle' insurance' five months after leaving France.
This all boils down to one thing, trust.
French bureaucracy automatically assumes that you are either an imbecile or a liar. You always have to prove that what you are saying is true! This extends from government through to commercial enterprises like insurance. I first came across this when I decided not to renew the insurance for the dogs. In the UK if you fail to pay your renewal premium your insurance is cancelled. Simple.
In France, unless you give two months notice in a prescribed format (a formal letter which has to be sent recorded delivery) of your intention to cancel, your insurance will continue and you will owe the following year's premium. They will not accept it any other way. It's the law!
They appear to go out of their way to make it difficult for you to cancel. With this in mind I alerted AXA France in November of last year of my intention to cancel all my insurances prior to leaving France but, in the case of the house insurance, because the insurance was only half way through its term I had to send official proof that the house had been sold from the notaire (solicitor). They can't take your word for it because you are presumed to be a liar.
I am still in the process of cancelling my health top up insurance. They seem to make it as difficult as possible for you to make any change and take premiums from you in the meantime.
For those not familiar with the French health system, this is (I believe) a mandatory insurance that covers the portion of medical costs that the state does not cover (approx 30 %).
OK, in order to cancel this insurance with AXA I need the piece of paper sent by CPAM (French Health Service) that states that I am no longer covered. That's the first joke.
The notion that CPAM, who are notoriously useless when it comes to doing anything practical or useful (and famous for losing documents), is nothing more than a fantasy and to receive a piece of paper from them to an address abroad is even more fantastical.
If you ever want to see the Gallic shrug just visit a French government office. French civil servants are notorious in their lack of compassion and go slow attitude. I say this from personal experience.
If I can't provide evidence from CPAM that I am no longer covered by them, I have to prove that I am covered by the NHS. That's because I'm assumed to be either lying or stupid or some combination of both.
Have you ever heard of anything more ridiculous and frustrating than this?
The story continues.
Looking back over the experience, I've learnt a couple of things about moving cars from France to England.
First thing is don't cancel your French insurance. You might need it to prove that you have insurance to the police if you get stopped. Whatever you do don't have an accident, your French insurer probably won't pay out.
Don't underestimate the time it will take to get your headlamps changed, get a certificate of conformity (if the car is French) and an MOT. You need all these before you can register the car. Then, look for insurance because the insurance company will probably only give you a couple of weeks before you have to register the car and provide them with a UK registration number.
In the end I used Adrian Flux (insurance broker) who not only gave me a good quote and cover over the phone but also gave me full NCB and were happy to provide insurance using the VIN number, provided that I registered the car quickly.
Following Craig's advice I went to our nearest DVLA office and was able to iron out a few small items which would have been much more difficult by post. Result.
And, hot off the presses, Fiat France, the new Chrysler, the new Jeep, returned my cheque for the certificate of conformity because evidently they only charge if you are importing a car and not if it's being exported. Double result.
After dropping our visitors at Leeds Bradford Airport this morning we headed over to DVLA on the far side of Leeds to start the registration process for the two cars.
I must admit that I was getting a bit stressed about all the paperwork, what with finding all the information in different places and not being totally happy that I'd filled out the forms correctly.
I'd spent ages trying to find an engine number for the Jeep and even woke at 05.00 this morning thinking of new places that I could look. The support sheet said 'get it from the vehicle' so that was a clue but where. All I could find was the VIN (vehicle identification number for them as don't know) so I was getting pissed off. Finally I called Jeep this morning at 08.00 just before leaving for Leeds to be told that there isn't one.
Every engine has one said the expert at DVLA and whilst I secretly agreed with him I suggested that he fight this battle with Jeep because I'd done as much as I could and frankly couldn't be bothered to look any further. He muttered something and went away.
He never asked for the information again and the very nice lady gave me the new (the old) registration number for the Golf and it turned out that we have to wait for the registration number for the Jeep.
I've got to say that I left the place feeling quite elated.
Good guys 1 - DVLA 0.
In fact I felt so good that as soon as I got home I started on the form to change our driving licence back to UK ones and found that the form was even easier and at no cost.
Good guys 2 - DVLA 0.
Form filling and admin generally has historically never been a problem for me but maybe I'm just a bit scarred from our time in France and that's almost certainly down to a language issue.
OK, that's it. We took delivery of the final three containers of stuff from France today and we just managed to squeeze it all in.
I have to admit that all the house clearance that we've done over the last few weeks was done knowing that a load more was arriving and we were both worrying about where it was all going to go. Mind you, as I said to Jan, 'we've lived without this stuff for over six months now, so there has to be a strong argument that we should dispose of it all.' I feel an argument coming on.
By way of a little surprise, when rooting through some of the boxes, I discovered that we have three power drills. As I only use one drill, albeit very intermittently, I suspect that two will be out of the door sooner rather than later. The downside of my drills arriving is that I now can't put off all those little jobs that need doing. Damn.
I had two minor concerns about the trip. The first was getting through pet passport control with the dogs and the second was getting through the toll booths at the Dartford Tunnel crossing.
With regards the first, my concern wasn't that it might be difficult, just that we had missed or misunderstood some essential part of the process and that the dogs wouldn't be allowed in. We hadn't and they were. There was one small moment when the machine that they give you to read the microchip couldn't locate Min's. but eventually I found it. I was worried for about 20 seconds. Sorted.
With regards the Dartford Tunnel, I knew that it's quite narrow when you drive through and as I was in the left-handed Jeep I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to open the door to go round to the machine to pay. As it happens a man had shown up to help some hapless motorist (like you - Ed) about two cars in front and he stayed there until I drew level. I then handed him the toll by stretching across through the passenger window. Sorted.
The other small issue that I hadn't considered was connecting to the internet when we arrived in Ripon. B T's info said that it would be straightforward but it wasn't and B T's help desk was hopeless, advising me that I had to employ a computer specialist. I know a bit about computers and I knew that it wasn't going to be a difficult issue. Who ya gonna call? The man who I have found to be an absolute star with these kinds of things is Keith Eckstein who very quickly established that all I had to do was change my default gateway IP address. Sorted. Thanks Keith.
The vet very kindly gave us some tranquilisers for the dogs, before we left Languedoc, with dosage instructions.
We decided to give them each half the maximum amount and see what happened. Frankly I’m not sure that it made the slightest bit of difference. Max, who’s the more hyper of the two, sat upright for several hours at the start of the journey, whilst Min, the more chilled, lay down straight away.
Anyway, this morning as we were leaving the hotel we put the same dosage for each of them in two lumps of cheese. Neither of them would eat but they always eat cheese and hiding pills in it is quite an effective way of giving medicine.
So there they were both sitting in the back of the car and I gave them the cheese. Max immediately spat his out, he won’t eat when he’s upset and sitting in the car is, for Max, a major upset.
Min, who eats anything without hesitation or question, immediately pounced on Max’s cheese and scoffed that as well.
We were about to have one very chilled dog. She was taking chillin' to a whole new level!
I envisaged that when we got to our next stop, Elvey Farm, we’d have to pour her out of the car. We’ll see.
I couldn’t stop laughing and of course Jan blamed me for incompetence.
OK, so you've got to start somewhere (so what have you been doing for the last few years - Ed?) and this is it. I pick up the story as we wend our way through France, carrying our closest possessions, prior to entering the mother-ship on Tuesday.
As we journeyed along the A9, with a snow capped Mont Ventoux, majestic in the background, (ooh get you - Ed) there was a big sign over the road with the message that it was 'dangerous to walk on the motorway.' A sign that can only have been targeted at morons who haven't yet seen the light or alternatively car drivers who had had enough driving for the day and decided to walk instead. We'll never know.
The journey was largely uneventful other than the peage transponder in Jan's car giving up the ghost as we left the motorway south of Lyon. What a pain. She, and all the cars behind her, had to back out and then she had to find someone to have an argument with because whilst she had entered the motorway with the transponder she had no ticket to leave it. Such fun.
Our first stop was at the Hotel de la Foret d'Orient which, as the name implies, is a hotel in a forest. Excellent for a good nights kip and even better for letting the dogs have a good run round.
