Money, money, money

St Adelphe
Yesterday's weather: beautiful

Venus is still with us. I can see it shining brightly in the morning sky, just before the sun comes up. It is rising higher in the sky each day now and will soon be out of the view from our bedroom window. There will be a new moon tonight and we are heading for the equinox (there's a good word to get in Scrabble!) on 23 September - after that it's downhill all the way until Christmas.

We have been summoned to the bank this morning following a telephone call from Madame Prim our advisor. She is a very nice young lady but wants to control our money for us, we have to be firm with her. The reason we are going today is that the bank finally accept that we are resident in France as we have been here for more than 6 months. This will mean setting up a new account (so far we have had a 'non-resident' account and our old English address on our cheque book), new cheque cards and probably more fees! Unlike banking in the UK it is the norm here to pay a monthly 'management' fee to banks, it is less than 4 Euros a month, but it still galls me to have to pay it. We also have to pay an annual fee for the privilege of having debit cards. We haven't bothered with credit cards here because we don't want them to have any more of our money!

Barclays are upsetting the major French banks by offering a 10% interest on current accounts (if I have read the blurb correctly). However, looking into the possibility of changing banks, I see that their monthly fee is 15 Euros! We will stay with Madame Prim - for now anyway.

So I had better look out some smartish clothes this morning, I can't be going to the bank in my usual cut off jeans and tatty t-shirt now, can I? And I suppose I had better brush my hair too.

We had a surprise visitor yesterday afternoon. The grandfather of Swanne (and husband of Mrs Veranda, her of the flapping tea towel) appeared at our gate bearing a bunch of dahlias and a big bag of tomatoes. How very kind of him to take the trouble to come wandering across the valley bearing gifts, I thought. Jon thought that perhaps he just wanted to escape Mrs Veranda for half an hour or so. Cynical? Jon? Never ... ;-)