Over the 40 plus years we have inhabited our little slice of paradise, we have occasionally had the need for medical care.  I suppose the first time we went to the village doctor was when our daughter was about 2 years old.  She had broken out in hives, which was subsequently diagnosed as an allergy to septra medicine, which she was taking for a cold. 

When visiting your village doctor back then, you simply arrived early and sat in the waiting room until it was your turn to be called into his office.  It  was a first-come, first-served system.  I remember that the doctor was very kind, and he spoke only French.  He looked at our very blond, fair-skinned daughter and said she would be having many allergies in her life. I poohed-poohed the idea, thinking he was just basing his opinion on the fairness of her skin, compared to most of the French children, with their olive complexions, in our village.  However, he was certainly correct! 

I had occasion to visit him again shortly afterwards when I, unfortunately, had a miscarriage (une fausse-couche).   My best friend went with me that time and helped me make an appointment with a gynecologist in Perpignan for a thorough examination.  

My husband often got a build-up of wax in his ears, particularly after an overseas flight.  One year we were with our friends in Cerbere and we mentioned that he was having trouble with his ear.  Our friend sent us right over to their village doctor.  “He’s wonderful!” our friend said.  “Our son has that problem frequently, and this doctor is fabulous at getting the wax out.”  So we made our way over to the office on the next street and waited our turn to see the Cerbere doctor.  This doctor was indeed very good at clearing wax from ears.  He used the old fashioned method of a bowl of soapy water and a tube to pour it into the ear.  In no time at all, the ear was cleared and my husband could once again hear.  When a blockage occurred again several years later, we called our friends in Cerbere to ask about that wonderful doctor and found he had retired.  So we tried the doctor in our village, but ended up with a couple of assistants, who really did not do a good job at all and spent a lot of time getting nowhere.  So one never knows what one will get!  In future years, we made sure to have his ears checked by his ENT in the US before flying.

About 10 years ago, my husband was diagnosed with a blood cancer (MDS).  We knew that he would need to see a specialist while we were in France, as he was, at that time, getting blood tests every month, as well as injections.  But in order to get to a specialist, we first had to have a referral from our village doctor.  So we traipsed down to the village doctor and waited in his new waiting room until it was our turn to see him.  When we got into the office, we found a woman at the desk; we never found out if this was another doctor or an assistant.  She asked us lots of questions and said she would arrange an appointment for us up at the hospital in Perpignan.  So we paid her the nominal fee (always about 20 euros) for the visit and went home to await her call.

Several days later, having not received any call from the doctor’s office about our impending appointment at the hospital, I called my French friend and she offered to call the doctor to find out what was going on.  She found there was still no word.   Several more days went by and my friend went off on vacation for a week.  So I went back to the doctor’s office and talked with the receptionist.  “Oh yes,” she said.  “Your husband has an appointment at 2 p.m this afternoon.”  “But why didn’t you call us to let us know?!” I asked.  “Well, I called your friend and left a message,” she replied.  “But you had our phone number, right here on your paper!” I replied.   Of course, our friend, whom she had called, was on holiday for the week!  So another wild dash back up the hill and into the car to get to our appointment with the specialist by 2 p.m.

The drive up to the hospital in Perpignan usually took us about 40 minutes if the traffic was light.  Once there, we searched for a parking space in a large lot, and then had to walk quite a distance to get to the main entrance of the building.  After a few trips, I learned to drop off my husband at the main entrance plaza, then go park the car, while he sat on a bench and waited for me.   My best friend had given us her husband’s wheelchair and walker after his death, and these were also very helpful whenever we had an appointment in Perpignan.  Our doctor was located in a suite of offices just off the main lobby and we quickly learned the routine of checking in at a particular window where they would check his passport and then hand him a sheet of little stickers with his name and date of birth on them.  We were then to hand the stickers to our doctor, who would laugh and toss them aside saying we didn’t really need them—they were only for those with une carte vitale—a medical ID card that means the French government is paying for your care.  Not having une carte vitale really threw bureaucrats off their pace.  They looked at us as if we were aliens, and in a sense, we were.  After our appointment, our doctor would walk us back out to the window of the central office and then we had to go through the scene of trying to pay for our appointment.  Fees are regulated and are currently about $25 per visit, but paying out of pocket is such an odd occurrence that it always took an explanation from our doctor and from us to get the office to accept payment from us.  Forget about trying to get change!   One time our appointment ran later than 6 p.m., when the office closed, so there was no one to check us out.  The doctor just laughed and said “I guess you don’t have to pay today!”   

A few years later, the hospital changed the check-in system, so we had to go to a central area of the lobby and take a number, then wait on benches until our number was called.  The first few times going through this process, they accepted my payment at the check-in desk, but then one day we got a woman who threw up her hands in despair of having to deal with a paying customer and said, “Just wait for the bill to come in the mail!  I can’t take any money here.”   So that worked out well, except for one year when we returned to the US before the last bill reached us in the mail.  That bill sat in our mailbox until we returned the following year, and had incurred late fees and donning letters from the government!  It was then that I discovered a way to pay the bills online.  This worked until the year of the pandemic.  Then we could not return to France for over two years.  When we finally arrived, I found two very moldy bills in the letter box and found I could not check on the status of these statements online, I suppose because they were two years old!

This connection with the hematologist in Perpignan was the best thing to happen to us.  The hematologist was so gentle and caring and willing to work with us and with our doctor in the US.  He not only cared for my husband’s oncology needs, but also wrote him prescriptions for all his regular medications (whose total cost was much less  in France than our co-pay in the US), and prescribed medications when my husband arrived one year with a terrible cold   We developed such a good relationship with this doctor that I could email him with our arrival date and he would respond with a date for our first appointment and then mail my husband’s blood test orders and injection  and other medication prescriptions directly to our apartment, so it was waiting for me when we arrived.

In France, there is not a nurse in the doctor offices, at least not where we are.  Nurses have a separate office in the village.  I think there are two or three such offices in our village.   Our first year with the specialist, we learned that we had to purchase his injection syringe at the pharmacy and then take it to the nurses’ office to have it injected.  For the blood tests, we would go down to the lab on the street below our apartment.  There we sat until it was his turn to have blood drawn.  We called that lady with the needle, “the vampire,” as she was quite brutal with her needle!  Then I would return the next day to get the results (anywhere from 17 euros to 85 euros).   If the results indicated he needed an injection, then I would purchase one at the pharmacy and take it and my husband to the nurses’ office to have it administered (another 5 euros).

However, we soon learned that we could have a nurse come directly to our apartment and draw his blood there.  No need to go sit in the lab in a long line of other people.  And, since the nurses in his US oncology office had taught me how to give him his injection, no need to go anywhere else to have that administered!  So then we could have a favorite nurse all lined up for our arrival.  She came every two weeks, drew his blood and took it to the lab.   

The cost was just 8 euros  and 60 cents, which I always tried to have in exact change (they refused to take a cent more).  Then I just walked down  to the lab the next day and picked up the results and paid the lab.  Every month we drove up to the hospital for an appointment with the specialist.  That became a smooth and easy system for us.

We then explored the possibility of getting a handicapped sticker/card for the car.  We had gotten one for the US and that was quite easy–only two pages of information to supply and the card would be good for 5 years.

The French system, of course, was full of red tape and a 10-page form to be completed by us and by his doctor in Perpignan.  After it was all mailed in, we were told that it might take 2 months for processing and then he might be called in for an interview.  By the time all this had happened, we were back in the States!  The following year, we arrived to find three letters from the handicap office waiting in our mailbox.  They were so confusing that I had to have my best friend translate them for me.  Apparently, they needed another photo of my husband, which I quickly sent to them.  Eventually, we received the handicap card to be displayed on the front right windshield of our car.  Since we have a different lease car every year, I simply tape it to the window, instead of using the provided plastic sleeve that is supposed to be adhered to the windshield.  The best part of this story?  It’s good for life!  No expiration.

The cost of doctor’s office visits continues to be about 23 euros per consultation, which is so very much less expensive than in the US.  The medicine and lab tests are also very inexpensive.  The nurse who comes to our apartment to draw blood charges about 7 euros per visit ($8).  The injection syringes full of the medicine are 10% of the price in the US.  However, none of these charges are covered by our medical insurance, so, although they are so much cheaper than in the US, we do have to pay the charges out of pocket, with no reimbursement on the US side.  When we are in the US, our insurance pays for everything, except prescription drug co-pays.  The foreign medical insurance we have included in our US policy covers only in-patient hospital visits in a foreign country.  So far, that has not been a necessity, thank goodness!

Pharmacies are also a great source of medical assistance.  Many years ago, we drove up to the lovely big white sand beach in Canet.  As I entered the water, I stepped on something that stung my foot!.  I was in terrible pain, but eventually managed to get up to the street and made my way to the “green cross,” which indicates a pharmacy.  They knew instantly that I had stepped on a fish called a “vive” which had stung me in the foot.  They applied a large bundle of cloth soaked in something, which took away the pain right away.  No charge.

The team of pharmacists and clerks at our local pharmacy are so very welcoming.  Since I have been purchasing my husband’s injections there for many years, they know us well and are always pleased to see our return to the village.   Of course they still automatically ask me for my carte vitale, and I get a look of amazement when I inform them I have to pay for this very expensive medicine myself! One year I managed to get my husband down to the village for a short walk to the main plaza.  Walking past the pharmacy, I noticed that the clerks had seen us and were lined up at the window to wave at him and give him encouragement.  So sweet!  During the pandemic, we tried to think of ways to help the merchants in our village.  One thing I did was to call one of the village florists and order bouquets of flowers for all the female clerks in our pharmacy (about ten) for St. Valentine’s Day.  They were so surprised and thrilled!  When we finally returned to Banyuls, they continued to thank me for the flowers each time I went into the pharmacy.  This connection with the local pharmacy also came in very handy when we needed the French health passes that proved we’d been vaccinated against COVID-19.  It took about a month, and the connection with a pharmacist in Le Boulou to get these done, but the gals learned how to do it and we had our passes before leaving the US!  We traveled with French passes, Spanish passes, US certificates (from the CDC) and certificates from our county health agency.   When American friends finally managed to return to their home in the next village that same Fall, I sent them to our pharmacy, as the pharmacies in their village refused to give them French health passes.  They were delighted that, within an hour, our pharmacy gals handed them their official “passes sanitaires”!

When we returned to France the following spring, we had gotten our boosters by then, so sent off all our information once again to our pharmacy and they sent us new health passes.  But shortly after our arrival, restrictions began to be dropped, so we needed the passes only for entering the hospital for my husband’s appointment with his hematologist.  General mask mandates also were dropped that spring, but continued to be required for all medical facilities.

About one month into our visit that spring, a spot of cancer began to grow on my husband’s wrist.  It grew so fast and was also painful, that he began to get quite worried about it.  I checked with friends about a dermatologist nearby, but they informed me that getting an appointment with a dermatologist in France takes at least 3 months.  So I sent a photo and email to our dermatologist in the US, who knew immediately what it was and said he would take care of it when we returned in mid-summer.  But it was a worry for my husband, so we sent a photo and email off to our village doctor, who replied that he was very experienced with these cancers and could take care of it the following week.  Unfortunately, he then cancelled the appointment at the last minute because of an emergency!  So then we had another week of stress and anxiety until we could get scheduled again.  The following week, we met my French friend at a nearby parking lot; she helped my husband into the wheelchair, and then she helped me push him around the block to the doctor’s office.  We were about half an hour early, as one never knows what will be the parking availability in the center of town.  At just about our appointment time, we were called into the office.  The doctor explained what the cancer was and that it was not a “bad one.”  Then he wheeled my husband into the exam room, put his arm on the exam table, gave him a numbing shot, and sliced off the growth.  Blood went everywhere!   But he and his student assistant quickly began to stitch up the incision, and then they more stitches….and then more stitches, so that I wondered if they would ever be done!   They were “very thorough,” as my husband remarked.  Then a general clean-up of all the blood and lots of bandages were applied.   It was quite a large growth, shaped like a volcano, and it was sent off to a lab for analysis.  We returned to his office where he wrote out orders for special cream and special bandages for me to redress the wound every two days, and an order for the nurse to remove the stitches in 10-12 days.  

Then he asked for our Carte Vitale.  “No, monsieur, we have to pay you.”  Oh the fuss!  Oh the trouble we caused!  He and his assistant had to find the guide book for charges and then figure out what the charts meant.  Finally they gave me a bill for 88 euros 56 cents. (about $95), which I gladly paid.  They have no clue that to just walk into a doctor’s office in the US often costs $120, although insurance pays for that.  Surgery for only $95 — imagine!

Over the next week, I redressed his stitches every two days, as instructed.  Ten days later, the nurse arrived for my husband’s usual blood test, and she decided that his stitches were ready to be removed.  Afterwards, she left me the stitch-removal kit she’d used, as it was only useable for one patient—a very cute thing to have in my medical supplies!  The next day, his arm was all red around the wound, and he couldn’t decide if he was too hot or too cold.  Areas of pus began to appear and the village doctor agreed to come to our apartment to look at the wrist.  He decided it was an infection and prescribed an antibiotic and a cream for five days.  It continued to be swollen with lots of drainage.   Even after we finished the antibiotic, there was pus erupting from an area beside the healed incision.  This was quite a mystery to us, and to our nurse as well!  It wasn’t until a month after surgery when we had returned to the US, that we learned from our US dermatologist that such an eruption of pus can sometimes occur due to an “aggressively overactive healing process.”  Eventually it was healed and that medical issue was resolved.

That was our last season together in our tiny village of Banyuls sur Mer, as my beloved husband lost his battle against MDS and age the following spring.  The response of care and  kind messages I received, after news of his death reached the other side of the pond, from his hematologist at the hospital, the gals at our pharmacy, his nurse, the village merchants, and our many friends has been overwhelming  We spent 40 years making this village our second home, and it has repaid us time and again with its care and kindness.

After two years and two months of pandemic seclusion in the US, we were finally permitted to return to our home in Banyuls sur Mer.  I had packed our suitcases a year and half before and they had sat in our home office, waiting for restrictions to be lifted.  Those suitcases got repacked several times as we reevaluated was would be most important, given the chances of my husband’s health.  Meanwhile my best friend’s health had taken a turn for the worse as she had been fighting cancer while confined in her tiny apartment in Perpignan.  We were very anxious to get back to France to try to help her recover.  Booking our flight was a chore as the company we had been using for many years had only credited us for our flight when the pandemic shut down everything—the only travel arrangement which did not reimburse our money—and now they were insisting on charging a large rebooking fee.  In frustration, I went directly to Delta to book our flight over.  The return two months later would be easy as that was a cruise back from Barcelona.  

After I made the flight reservation, I called the car lease company to book our usual Peugeot, only to find that Peugeot factories had shut down during the pandemic and now there was a shortage of cars!  I was finally able to order a Renault, but it would only be available 4 days after our arrival.  So I went back to Delta and changed our flight (I didn’t want to fly on 9-11 anyway!), to line-up with our car pick-up.  But several weeks later, we heard from Delta that our flight was changed and that there would now be a connection through JFK!  That was simply not possible for my husband, who had been failing for the past year.  So I called Delta yet again and was able to change the flight back to a direct flight, one day earlier.  Then I booked our usual hotel near the airport for the one night before we could pick up the car.  It wasn’t possible to change the pick-up date of the car as that would mean we’d have to wait another two weeks for a car!

Finally all seemed to be in place and I was busily working on getting us French health passes.  We also registered for Spanish health passes as that was all set up for us by the airline.  We registered with the French government for passes but only got a response saying that they were overwhelmed with requests and we would have to wait.  No further response ever came.  I then contacted our pharmacists in Banyuls who tried, but were unable to get through the computer red-tape of government regulations.

Meanwhile, I contacted another couple in our state who also have a home near Banyuls.  They were returning to their French home the same Fall and also needed French passes sanitaires.  They’d gotten the same response from the government, so had contacted a UK friend In their French village, who took all their information to a pharmacy in Le Boulou.  There he found a pharmacist who was also a bit of a computer geek and who was able to massage the computer system to allow Americans to get a French passe sanitaire.    I passed on his name and phone number to our pharmacy in Banyuls, and lo and behold, a week later we received our official passes by email from our friends at our pharmacy!  About this time, another couple we knew from many years ago who also had a French home near us for many years, had arrived in France and none of the pharmacies in their village were at all helpful in getting passes for them.  I sent them to our pharmacy in Banyuls and within an hour, they had their official passes!  Later they returned to our pharmacy and brought the gals a nice box of chocolates as a thank you.

It was about then that we heard that our hotel in Barcelona had closed temporarily because of COVID-19.  The hotel booking service had transferred our payment to another nearby hotel, one we’d used and liked many years ago.  I had trouble getting a response from the booking service to confirm this transfer, so ended up calling the hotel directly and was told that all was taken care of and we could get into our room as early at 10 a.m.

Then there was the limousine debacle!   When I contacted our local limousine service to drive us the three hours to our US airport of departure, I discovered that the couple who ran it had retired.  So I then explored other options, but most companies I called were charging twice the price of our former service.  Finally a friend recommended that I call a man who was always advertising his car transport service in a local publication.  That seemed to work, although the man seemed never to have driven to the airport and quoted me a price that was half of what we used to pay, so I was a bit leery of this arrangement.  Then I started getting calls from one of the other companies I’d called for quotes, who were trying to confirm a reservation for me!  I had quite a time with that as they didn’t seem to understand that I’d not made a reservation at all; I’d just asked for a quote.  Even as late as four days before our departure , they were still trying to confirm our pick-up!  

A week before departure, I called the man with whom I had made our reservation, and confirmed with him; I even called the day before to make sure he would be there the next morning.  Yes, he said, he would be there to get us.  Four hours later, he called back to say sorry, his car was still in the shop and he wouldn’t be able to take us to the airport after all!  PANIC. I asked if he could rent a car to drive us and he said he didn’t have a credit card.  Well, that did it for me.  I told him to forget it, I’d get us there myself.  GROAN   A neighbor kindly took me to our small local airport where I picked up a rental car—another long process as cars were scarce, so this took over an hour.  And the next morning, I loaded the car with five suitcases and a walker, got my husband comfortably ensconced ,and we took off for the three hour drive to the airport.  I was worried about how I would handle getting from the car rental center to the airport with my husband, who would need a wheelchair, and all the luggage, but that turned out beautifully handled as our car rental company provided a driver for us who drove the car with us and all the luggage still in it from the car rental center directly to the airport at no additional cost.

Getting through the airport was a bit of a trial this year, as we patiently waited for a wheelchair and then someone to push it to get us through a long check-in line, through Security, and into the sky club.  The flight was not as comfortable as we’d hoped it to be in First Class.  We dutifully kept on our masks except when eating or drinking.  My husband decided that a glass of scotch was a good thing to order as he could keep sipping that for hours, thus avoiding the mask!  

Arriving in Barcelona seemed to go smoothly.  We had our Spanish passes scanned and were permitted into Spain.  Our wheelchair pusher took us directly to the taxis and we were soon at the lovely hotel nearby.  We decided that from now on, we will always arrange one night at the hotel so that we have a nice rest before the drive up to France.  All went well until I went to check out the next morning.  I knew that we should only be charged for the breakfast buffet and for drinks from the minibar, but the clerk said that my credit from the previous (closed) hotel had been reimbursed to my credit card, not transferred to the new hotel.  This was not what I’d been told when I called them to confirm everything.  She assured me that the refund would be on my account and proceeded to charge me for the room as well as breakfast and the minibar.  Just as I signed the receipt, she said “that was room 817, wasn’t it?”  NO. it was room 127!!  She’d just charged me for someone else’s room!  So then she realized that my credit from the other hotel had, indeed, been transferred to them and that I only owed for breakfast and the minibar.  So she had to do a reimbursement on my credit card for her error!  Thankfully, it all worked out okay.   

A taxi took us over to the car leasing office nearby and we had a small reunion with our agent there, as he was so glad to see us again, and we were delighted that he was still at work there!  No problem getting the car; they loaded the luggage for me and off we went, stopping first for gas, as the lease cars are almost empty when they are “sold” to us.  We had to drive into France via the highway this year, as our little mountain pass above our village is still closed to vehicle traffic.  Apparently there is now a political battle going on between our mayor and the Prefet of the region.  One morning the mayor ordered the cement blocks to be removed from the road at the top of the Col de Banyuls, and then in the afternoon, they were once again replaced across the road.  The prefet informed our mayor that it would be his decision when to open the road, nor our mayor’s decision!  All the other mountain passes have been opened, and when we crossed the border on the autoroute, we breezed straight through into France, with no stopping at the border, no passport control, no showing of our passes sanitaires.

When we arrived at our apartment complex, I was surprised to find that someone had turned on our electricity.  This meant that the garage door opened for us immediately, and I could quickly get my husband up to the apartment to rest, before I dealt with the rest of the utilities.

I was delighted to find that the gas heater (chaudiere) seemed to be working.  We had hot water and the gas cook top was working, but no heat!  Our gas heater company up in the city, had made an appointment for us to check out the heater the following week, so we had to wait until then to find out what was the problem.  Meanwhile, the temperatures began to drop as Fall set in.   When the technician finally arrived, he found that the pump was seized up, probably from sitting idle for over two years, and would have to be replaced.  Unfortunately this would take a devis (estimate) to arrive by email, which wouldn’t happen until the following night, and then I had to go to the bank to transfer a deposit to their account (which was faster than sending a check in the mail), and then they could order the pump.  After another week of no pump, thus no heat, my dear 90-year old husband was suffering greatly from having no heat for his old bones and was complaining constantly about the lack of service we were getting.  Numerous calls to the company netted no results.  We then decided that maybe ordering a new gas heater was the way to go and maybe this would be get installed more quickly than waiting for a new pump for the old heater, which was getting quite old.  I called the company and asked about ordering a new heater and was informed that this could take a two or three months!  So we went back to waiting for the pump.  Then the company called me back to say they had found one heater in stock and could install that in about 2 weeks.  So we cancelled the order on the pump, waited for the new devis to arrive, then off to the bank to send them more money!  Two weeks later, with a very angry husband in the background, I was continually calling them every day to find out when the heater was to be installed.  I was told that they were waiting for a missing piece to arrive!!  Another week passed.  We had now been in our lovely apartment for a month, with still no heat.  Then one morning I was told and to “give them hell.”  Well, I did what I could in French and they insisted they were still waiting for the part to arrive.  That afternoon, when the woman called me back, I was so shocked that I said “Mon Dieu!”  She laughed and told me that the missing part had arrived that morning and someone would come to install the heater in two days.  

A very nice technician arrived a little after 9 a.m. and was done by early afternoon, delaying his lunch break in order to finish. 

But there was a little hitch.  New government regulations require new gas heaters to be installed where there are TWO  air vents, one has to be high on the wall and the other has to be at the bottom of the wall. 

So while all radiators were working and the water in the tap was boiling hot, we were still expecting more work as we waited for yet another appointment with the guy who would come and knock yet another hole in a wall.  We were told this would only take an hour or so, but we knew what that meant!—-waiting around all day for someone to show up, and then, invariably more problems would arise!  This is not pessimism; it’s simply the usual French experience talking!

While all this gas heater business was going on, we were also discussing an air conditioning system with our local plumber.  He’d given us a verbal estimate several years before, but now we wanted to make a final decision.  When he heard that we had no heat this year, he suggested a dual air conditioning/heating system, as electricity is cheaper than gas in France (the opposite of the US), so heating by electricity would be more economical.  Plus if we ever again had trouble with the gas heater, at least we would still have heat through the air conditioning units.  We decided to go ahead and get the dual system and to put it in all three rooms.  This would be a large expense, but hopefully make it much nicer for us whatever time of the year we came to France.  

It took only week for all of the materials to arrive and for the plumber and his various assistants to start drilling and breaking holes in the walls of all three rooms.  Drilling a large hole through ten inches of solid cement takes two days, which seemed like two weeks!  It took a week for all  three units to be installed, plus the large machine on the balcony. 

The plumber returned alone on the final day to turn everything on and check that all was working.  The remotes controlled the doors in the units, opening them on command.  But that was all!  The machine on the balcony was not working!  After numerous calls to the manufacturer, it was decided that the circuit board was defective and would have to be replaced by a technician from the company.  So we still had no heat, as we were at this time still waiting to hear about arrival of the new gas heater.  Our plumber had loaned us a small electric heater to help keep my husband warm while we waited for either the chaudiere technicianor the air conditioning technician to arrive, and that was a saving grace for us.

A month later, just as we were leaving to return to the US, a technician arrived with our plumber and replaced the defective circuit board.  We were assured that all was now well.  It wasn’t until we returned to France the following year that we discovered that the drain lines had not been connected and that one of the pump motors was defective!  

Our third project of the year was the replacement of both large sliding glass doors in the two bedrooms and a new shutter in our bedroom.  I had ordered the windows a month before leaving the US because I knew that they typically take two months to be delivered.  But when we arrived, our local man from the window company had to come and remeasure to be sure he had the correct measurements.  It had been almost three years since his first devis so everything had to be redone.  That meant that nothing was ordered until we arrived and we planned to stay only two months this year.  In addition, there were huge delays all over France because of the pandemic;  manufacturing had simply shut down during the duration.  So it was touch and go as to whether or not we would get our windows and shutter before we departed. And in fact, they did not arrive until after our departure.  Our French friend and her husband kindly took care of supervising the window company’s work to replace the windows and shutter while we were gone.  They did the same the following year when we finally had the small door to the balcony replaced.  So now all the radiators and the windows and shutters have been replaced, the bathroom has been renovated, the toilet has been replaced, the oven and cooktop have been replaced, lights in the WC and the hall and the master bedroom have been replaced, the washer has been replaced several times, and the small refrigerator has been replaced.   

And through all these trials and tribulations, I continued to cook wonderful meals and try out interesting recipes.  The fresh food available in this area and the joy I find in my kitchen as I create new dishes keeps me alive and looking forward to the next day.