Mine at Last

When I signed the preliminary contract in December, I still didn't have the financing together, though I was led to believe by various advisors that it would all work out. After a few false starts, at the end of March, I really did have my hands on the money to buy the top-top house. Cue huge sigh of relief.

Mme Bossi and I set our date for 10 April at the notaire's office. Lizzie and Nicola, who'd been there for the preliminary round, thankfully again came to support me. Our notaire introduced us to the other parties as Mme Bachem et son staff. It set a light-hearted tone for the proceedings as Mme Bossi and I signed and initialed ourselves into a frenzy. An hour later, I was the owner of not one, but two little French houses. (Abeilhan is still mine for now, though I don't mean to be greedy).

We went back to the new house, where Ali greeted us with a bottle of champagne and Mme Bossi finally solved the mystery of the missing water meter. No wonder we were stumped; it lives a block down the street, who knew? She turned the water on and we strolled back to the house, only to find that whoever had moved her dishwasher hadn't bothered to cap it off. Water was gushing everywhere. Mme B ran back down the street to turn it off (note: stopcock actually inside the house would be a nifty idea). Ali put down the champagne and ran for mops and buckets. We soaked up the flood, and then had a toast in the courtyard, my trousers still rolled up from the little baptism. O Happy Day!