Too pepper doggie in amongst all that salty old dog stuff on board.

In true French style our visit from the EF Etude arrived over thirty minutes late and when he did turn up, asked if we had been worried for him, I shrugged my shoulders in true French style and said we were used to people being late and sometimes not turning up at all so he was doing well.  The survey was not perfect as we live on wet planes and although we are on a four meter contour line putting us four meters higher than mean high water at every tide we didn’t expect to be regarded as on the Marais. Jerome took readings and measurements where our little cabins will go and decided that he could  specify a simple system as long as we only use it in the summer and don’t drive the tractor over the pipes as they will need to be very near the surface. He must have been confident and happy with his findings to let  Mike and I start a design discussion on the spot for our next garden to include a newly laid lawn that will need to be sewn when the digger has gone, and trashed a sixteen by ten meter  area where the pipes will drain the treated water from the septic tank.  We did the paper work and then Jerome left with a solid promise, and I believe him, to have the report ready for next week so we can then commence the next bureaucratic event of informing our communaute communes office with more forms filled and signed, for them to tell our Maire and then to ask the organisation called SPANK in Riems to give us a document number and for them to verify the plans. If we get the OK, we can start work, I have my doubts that we will start any time soon and Jerome even suggested not getting the digger in until the soil is good and dry and I suspect he knew a lot more than he was letting on in terms of time scales.

We drove out to see Beema to make sure she was dry and warm. We called in last week and she had pulled her pontoon cleat out and was drifting about in her given space but had knocked her nose a couple of times, and the pontoon showed signs of damage. On the way to Cherbourg we detoured to St Pierre Eglise to buy some Rotring pens that Mike had found on Le Bon Coin. Mike had seen me raking through the rotring internet sites looking for refills to the pens I already own, and wouldn’t you know it, they have been taken off the market and are no longer for sale so when I went to look to buy a  new set I was horrified at the “put this in your basket” price of  over forty quid. I  bought two second hand, good as new sets for ten euros from the very nice man in St Pierre so I can start drawing houses again using the right equipment and I am looking forward to that.  Beema was good and dry but we are becoming more and move aware that the fateful day is coming when she will have to go. We are committing our selves to a certain lifestyle here that most definitely does not include sailing, we jump into  our camper more easily and hit the road more readily than organise a sail trip with all the weather and meteo considerations and even I  must admit that Beema is no place for a HOSS the dog , he is too big, too polite to say he is not happy and just too pepper doggie in amongst all that salty old dog stuff on board.