Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Permis de Construire
Saint Eric
We received a letter from the planning office about our Permis de Construire for the renovation of the barn into two gites. Judging from the translation it says that we will definitely receive a decision by the 23 July 2004, there is a statutory limit of 3 months for the process, and if we don't receive a decision by that date we get permission by default. Well at least that's what I think it says. Much better than the planning system in England, as that can drag on for years sometimes. It is excellent for a public body to make a commitment.
La Poste, the French post office, delivers only once a day round here and to a box at the end of the drive. I think it's very similar to the American system but we don't have a little flag. Everyone has their own little box, although in small communes you often see 4 or 6 boxes joined together, and the facteur (or facteurese?) has a master key which opens all the box fronts on one hinge. They also must have a master key for our solitary box because I'd found packages from Amazon inside that are bigger than the slot!
Caroline left at 06:45 this morning to spend the day in Jersey, part of the channel islands, with a couple of classes of children from our village school. She was the only parent that went with three other teachers. She was very honoured to be asked, even if it was mostly for her translation abilities (they speak mainly English in Jersey even though it is much closer geographically to France than England). We must be bien intégré (well integrated) into the French community, which is very pleasing.
She should be back about 21:00 local time, hot (it's 25°C again), exhausted and hungry.
Permis de Construire
