An unexpected arrival

Tags

birth, Coral Bay, grandparents, premature, RFDS

While we were enjoying our week in Provence, our oldest daughter and her fiance were enjoying a break away of their own in WA. They had packed up the car & joined a couple of friends & driven up to Coral Bay, a massive 13hr drive north from Perth. This is a pretty normal thing to do for a young couple in WA, but unfortunately she is seven months pregnant and by the time they arrived her feet had swollen up “like balloons”. Perhaps the first sign that things weren’t going to be all calm.

They spent the first couple of days relaxing, snorkelling and photographing the beautiful scenery.

The long road to Coral Bay

Sunset at Coral Bay

Of course things didn’t stay calm as during their third night her waters broke and she went into labour. This, of course, started panic all over the world! For those who don’t know Coral Bay, it is a small settlement up north on the coast of WA. They were to be taken by ambulance from there to the nearest hospital at Exmouth (over an hour’s drive) but apparently there were too many kangaroos on the roads (night time in country WA, of course) and the ambulance team didn’t want to risk the drive. So the Royal Flying Doctor Service were called in. She was to be flown to the larger regional hospital at South Hedland, but when the plane arrived they decided to fly straight to Perth (about a 2.5 hr flight), where they were sent into King Edward Memorial Hospital – thankfully the specialist hospital for premature births. Apparently the plan was changing all the time while they worked out what to do!

Once in KEMH (by this time around 7.30 on Sunday morning), they slowed down the labour, gave steroid injections for baby’s lung development, scanned her thoroughly & pronounced that he was of a good weight, no other complications found and they then let the labour proceed. After two days of stress & very little sleep for them, worry & holding our breath for the rest of us, phone calls and texts flying across the globe, they were about to become parents, making us brand new grandparents in the process.

So, just before midnight on Tuesday 28th February, our beautiful grandson Logan entered the world weighing in at 2.1kg and 45cm long.

Our gorgeous grandson Logan

Baby Logan is now doing well, he’s been breathing on his own since day 1, is now gaining weight and by all reports is a very good baby who is alert, stays calm & doesn’t cry much. For a 7.5 week premature baby, he is doing everything they want him to do. Hopefully it won’t be long before he is allowed home from hospital and the new grandma will fly back to Perth to meet him.

Buying a car in France.

Today we bought a car, a pug (Puegeot) 406. It is 12 years old with around 200 000km on the clock (which is typical of French cars). It cost us 1800 Euro ($2300) after car purchase, transfer fees and third party insurance. We had budgeted up to $10000 on cars/ hire cars, so this was a real bonus. When we arrived in town we mentioned to our local contact that we were going to buy a car. He said he knew of an ex-pat Pom (Theresa) who had one for sale. Theresa had just bought a new car and was trying to sell her old one. She also had wifi problems, which meant that we may be of mutual benefit to each other.

Buying a car in France is a bit more complex than in Australia. You need to prove your identity (passport), need to be a French resident (visa), proof of address (rental contract) and then sign about a dozen forms, organise insurance and roadside assistance. Luckily Theresa was there to help us through all that.

Not our car, but same colour and model.

We have met a number of poms and aussies in town who knew of Theresa and her car and confirmed that it would be a good buy. So we set up a time with Theresa to meet her at the local Peogeot garage (where the car was being sold on consignment). Indeed it was a good car. A lot of kms but it ran smoothly, straight and plenty of power. Body wise it was in excellent condition, with obvious signs of being well looked after.

We took it for a test spin with the local garage owner. He was a pleasant guy who tried his best to communicate with us. Surprisingly we got the gist of what he was saying. He had a bit of a panic attack when I held the steering wheel by one hand. “non, non” he said while raising both his hands.

We got back to the garage and said “Nous voudrons l’achater”. – We would like to buy it!  He understood that, and also when the topic of “l’argent” (the money) came up. Theresa was with us and guided us through the process, which can be quite convoluted if you cannot speak the lingo. Theresea is English but speaks reasonably fluent French. An Australian couple we met in town (doing the same thing as us) spent over three months trying to finalise their paperwork for their car purchase. We took one afternoon. Theresa then took us down to the local AXA office and organised the compulsory third party insurance. We then went back to her place and had celebratory drinks (as you do in France) and then fixed her wifi. It seems everyone in this village has the same wifi /internet provider, who gives them a hexadecimal wifi password of 30 characters long, but doesn’t actually tell them what it is. They don’t know how to log into their routers and find out what it is or how to change it. Could be a lucrative sideline here.

Anyway, we went left the car at the garage when we went to Theresa’s for drinks. When we got back to the garage, we tried to start the car, but it had a flat battery! Merde! We left the car and will go back in the morning to get it going.

We now have a set of wheels for the year. Next step is to get a bike carrier and then bikes. We had booked a hire car for three weeks, but know we can take it back two weeks early, saving us around $400! Now all that is left is for Paige to re-learn how to drive a manual car on the right hand side of the road!!.

Selling a car can also be quite an involved process. The car has to have a roadworthy check done within 4 months of the date of sale and any defects have to be rectified before it can be sold. On a 13 year old car that may prove to be a tad expensive. I think we will just leave it at the carpark of Charles de Gaul Aeroport as when we fly out out the end of the year 🙂

Au revoir, Rod

Settling In

Arriving in St Chinian

Monday morning, up early for the train from Paris to Montpellier (7.15am departure) and we are on our way to Saint Chinian. Being winter, 7.15am is still pitch black so we were on the train for more than an hour before we enjoyed a lovely pink sunrise. The countryside is lovely & green & very picturesque. Passing through some high hills, we saw big thick grey clouds hugging the tops of the hills, but once past the sky quickly changed to a crisp clear blue, and stayed that way all the way to Montpellier.

Sunrise on the way to Montpellier

A quick stop in Montpellier to collect a hire car, lodge our visa documents at the local official office, then it was off to our new home (with the aid of preloaded maps & sat-nav using the ipad). Once again, getting used to being on the wrong side of the road takes some time and I was freaking out a bit finding myself looking down the sides of some “hills” on our way. We are not far from the Pyrenees, but just at the very beginning of the foothills really. One quick stop in a shopping centre along the way for some lunch & our first household shop, which had us completely “gobsmacked” at how cheap everything is. Rod couldn’t help himself & had to take pics of prices that just had us laughing & shaking our heads (see previous entry).

Finally arriving in our village we contacted the lovely Mike (who looks after the property for the owner) who showed us through & explained some basics to get us through the first couple of days. The house is gorgeous – 17^th century stone but renovated (with a lovely hot shower). Now to learn how to keep a house warm in winter – its not as easy as coming home & wacking on the gas heater and the room is warm in 10min – this needs an all-day plan.

The house has very thick stone walls and was originally two much smaller houses, now with doorways knocked through. Downstairs we have the lounge/dining room and kitchen/dining, upstairs to two bedrooms & a bathroom, upstairs again to a sitting room with doors out to the rooftop terrace and an extra toilet. There is no car parking, and in fact the street is too narrow (for us) to drive down, so we park around the corner, along with most other people.

Looking up the main st in Saint Chinian

A building in the main street, Saint Chinian

Learning the local ways

The first thing to understand is that all shops & businesses (except for cafes, restaurants & bars) close between about 12noon and 2pm. That means, if you want to buy anything or do any business at lunch time, you can’t. This means that a certain amount of planning is required, because you can’t always just pop into a shop to buy something. On the upside, the shops then stay open until 7pm most days (nothing opens on Sundays, except of course the cafes, restaurants & bars) which means you don’t have to rush around in the afternoons.

Being in the village means we are now eating at home more, so this means if we want a baguette with our lunch – yes, we have to go out & get it before 12 otherwise it will be leftovers, or off to a restaurant!

In some ways the French do things much simpler & more efficiently than we are used to, for example the rubbish system. After looking around our cottage, we couldn’t see where to put the rubbish until we got the explanation about the French system. Down the street, in a communal area, there are large green bins for “dirty” rubbish (food scraps etc), and then around another corner there are 3 large recycling bins (plastics, cardboard, glass). So you just walk around the corner whenever you need to, and the big bins get emptied as often as they need to… probably 2, 3 or 4 times a week. Perfect – less stops & easier for the garbos, only a short walk for the residents, and no big smelly bins at home to put out/bring in and clean.

French Sales & fashion

Now this is an interesting thing… the shops in France are only allowed to have “sales” twice a year. The January sales started today, much to my delight (and those who know me know that I don’t even like shopping much!).  Perfect timing for us though, as the next 6 weeks or so are meant to be the coldest time of the year, and we came woefully unprepared for a European winter with our Perth clothing. I scored a beautiful white down-filled long-line parka, complete with fur-edged hood for only $70 Euro (about $89 at today’s exchange rate on my visa). Not to mention all the other lovely girlie winter clothing… something I never buy in Perth as I usually just throw a jumper over my normal clothes.  Now I feel more like the glamorous French women – everyone wears leggings with boots – it doesn’t matter if they are high-heeled or flat, ankle boots, knee high or thigh-high, fur-lined, studded, trimmed, whatever… they are all worn, so now I fit in!

Trying on some of my new fashions

Ooooh.. new skirts, boots, leggings, jumpers... nice!

Rod modelling his new wool coat

Speaking the lingo

Now this is the hard one! However, the more I use it, the less stupid I feel. You know that feeling when you try to pronounce foreign words, complete with all the correct accents, and you just feel stupid, right? Well I’m discovering that everyone DOES actually have all these accents, and yes you do have to use them if you want to be understood. I have managed to order food & drinks completely in French a few times now (and got what I intended to order – success!) and today I completed several clothes purchases entirely in French. I even managed to ask if I could try on BOTH shoes in the shoe shop today (only the right shoe is ever on the shelf), I feel very proud of that one!: “Bonjour, c’est possible essayer l’autre chaussure?” to which she replied “Oh oui” and ran off to get the other shoe – Yay!!

Until next time… Paige xox