The French Cold

Blog Entry 03-26-08
It is now Wednesday, we have been “in country” since Friday evening, we are adjusting to The Cold day by day, hour by hour. The largess of the mansion stays at 43.5 degrees with a little rise during the day and a little drop at night, less than 2 degrees either way. The Office is our place of daytime residence, we have an oil-filled standing heater with 2 heater gizmos that keep the room at or near 60 degrees, not the warmest I've ever been but livable. The Dining Room is similarly equipped and has a similar temperature gradient. So much for the heating, the weather is cloudy, very cool and has occasional rain, sleet and hail along with snow. Nice. The trees look dead, no flowers like in California, Spring is somewhat a while off here. We ran around yesterday doing banking, telephone and power company chores along with a visit to the wonderful folks at the Tourist Board for which we would likely have packed it in and moved elsewhere if it weren't for them. We owe them, big time!
We prevailed upon Mary (of Tourist Board Fame) to help us reestablish our telephone/DSL connection with good ol' France Telecom AFTER we drove, billing papers in hand to St. Amand to get them to accept our apologies and payment to date and turn our precious communications with the world back on. Alas after several minutes of utter language confusion it was discovered that the only way we could restart the service was to send payment to the France Telecom office in Orleans. Damn. So we wandered off, back to the car and drove back home. On the way I was struck by a flash of genius! Let's get Mary to come over for lunch and she can do the calling to FT for us and all will heal itself right away. So we stopped at the Tourist Board and spoke with Mary, she agreed but only to do it after work, fine with us and away we went. Home, we puttered about, napped as is our habit and awaited the arrival of Mary. She came, she went, she came again and went again...and was successful at making the payment and reestablishing our service ON-LINE as it turns out. If we had only known we could have avoided all of this that first evening. Oh well...
The Kats: They stay near us, or on us, for the most part. Because we are warm or hang around where it is warm or like, in the case of the bed, have Ted's electric blanket ON. Else they crawl into folds of blankets or clothing and sleep their furry lives away dreaming of the California sunshine no doubt, just like us. Furry spent much of yesterday while we were out in the courtyard sniffing at dead flowers and grasses, cautiously looking around every bush and corner to see if any other denizen of the area has invaded her territory, if so she will run! No Lean has no such interest right now, heat is numero Uno for her and she stays where there is some parity towards warmth. She is smart that way.
We are sitting right now in the Office awaiting the warming of the hot water for showers, se stink I'm sure as it has been days! We brought the little hot air blower over from #10 yesterday for just this purpose. The oil-filled heater downstairs has been turned off and all other appliances of an electrical nature likewise are inert. We must turn off everything else as various combinations which we do not know WILL cause a power outage if they are on. Why? Because we are limited to some kind of power conservation scheme of EDF (our Power company) which will not allow more than some small amount of amperage to be consumed at any one time, thus the outage if we overuse...forced conservation. It will take a while for the water to heat, an hour should do fine to heat the 100 liter tank to 145 degrees F. and get the room to something warmer than it was with the little blower. Then shower, dress and turn off the hot water again and reestablish the heaters in each room for the rest of the day. Whoopee!