After three months of on and off rain, which is not at all normal for Nice (usually the late spring-early summer rains only last about a month), the sun has finally started to heat up the city.

As I’d hoped, the technician was able to coax my refrigerator back into behaving this morning. There was oil blocking the coolant from circulating properly; he didn’t really know why, though it could be simply because it’s new. I hadn’t turned it on right after delivery (you’re supposed to let it sit for a few hours, but in any case I had no electricity), so something else must have caused a hiccup.

My clover plant is very much into flowering now. The blossoms don’t stay open all the time — I’ve noticed they open in the morning, then close for a few hours and reopen in the early afternoon, but only briefly. There’s also a picture with a furry clover leaf (kitty likes to browse my plants) and a photo of lavender flowers.

This is my cat. As you can see, he may pretend to be sweet and snuggly and sleepy and all that most of the time, but in reality, he’s a stealer of souls and strikes when you least expect it.

Today I had to phone about my refrigerator, which, bizarrely enough, decided it no longer wanted to keep things cold three days ago, the same day we had public transport strikes. Naturally, I first tried to explain to it that it’s not a tram, nor a bus, nor a train. Then after trying different thermostat settings to no success, and checking the back for damage (it has plenty of room on the sides, behind and above it), I gave in and called technical assistance today. One of the things they asked was the temperature inside my place. Keep in mind that in this part of the world, Celsius is used. I answered “75″, which is only 25 degrees from boiling water in centigrade. The technician went “QUOI ?!” (“WHAT?!”) Realizing my mistake, I laughed and said I was American, so had read the Fahrenheit side of my thermometer without thinking. In Celsius it was 24. The tech had a good laugh. Someone’s coming tomorrow; perhaps they can talk my refrigerator back into behaving.

Not so weird, but surprising to me, one of my four-leaf clover plants is now flowering.

My new terrace, finally clean! And this photo only shows two thirds of it (doesn’t show my windows, on the right, nor the part behind me). My privacy blinds are more for show than actual effectiveness, apparently, but they do help a bit. It doesn’t matter much since I have just one neighbor across the way, and she keeps to herself. The bougainvillea looks happy in its new home, alongside the peony. Tired of constantly having to bend over to cut my herbs, I put them all on the garden table, along with the lavender plant. It’s right in front of my living room window, so that I can smell the lavender and basil with the window open.

I really love this terrace. It’s immensely gratifying and relaxing to have this quiet, cool space all to myself. The courtyard is completely enclosed by buildings, so there’s no one but the single neighbor across from me sharing the space. Other neighbors have effectively closed themselves in, using solid gating. I’m glad the previous owners of my place chose otherwise.

I also did a tiny bit of DIY, putting a rod into the entry “cupboard”. Here’s the before photo, and here it is now! I’ve never had a coat closet before; it’s great to finally have one, modest as it may be. I’m also really happy to have somewhere closed-off to put all my shoes. The coat area is doubling as a closet for my long dresses at the time, since my bedroom closet doesn’t yet have an area tall enough. (That’s to come eventually.) Also to come in the future, I’m going to replace the thin little shelves in the entry closet and put in more of them, so that all my shoes can be put on shelves.

My “new” oak table in its new home. Due to the dark, light-absorbing patina it’s hard to photograph well. When I purchased it, the description did say it had an extension, but I didn’t really look for it, since the secondhand store in question has a habit of keeping extensions separate from the items displayed on the floor. The table was also a good size for me as is, able to seat four very comfortably, and six cozily, so an extension was merely an extra.

Imagine my surprise when the table was delivered in not two, but three different pieces. I was even more astonished to see just how the extensions work. After all, the table has no straight edges, so where would any extensions go? The answer is one I’d never seen before: the extensions are curved. Look carefully at the photo above: there are three grooves in the table edge. The middle “groove” is actually the space between the table top and an extension. When the extensions are pulled out, there’s only a single groove. The inner edge of the extensions have ridges that fit into the central table’s grooved edge! This photo shows the fine fit, as well as the patterns on the wood. I love the craftsmanship on this table.

As mentioned previously, it does have some minor damage, but all of it can be buffed out with a sander, which is a project I’ll take on another month.

EDF, the main French electricity supplier, finally hooked me up yesterday (Monday), meaning Malo and I fully moved in just then. All of my things had been moved two weeks earlier; luckily I’d kept essentials — and Malo — at my old place just in case any unforeseen problems arose. A simple yet big one did just that: I realized that I have a macerator on my toilet. Toilets hooked up to macerators do not work without electricity…! For the last three weeks I’ve been going back and forth between furniture and appliance deliveries, work, moving smaller things to and fro, watering plants at both places, and chasing after EDF trying to get the electricity turned on.

Helpful advice for anyone in France needing electricity: do not use EDF’s website. I got a grand total of one reply to my request to be hooked up, and then… nothing. I had to phone them twice to get it straightened out, because their “email service and telephone service are separate”. Meaning that a customer request via email, cannot be handled by telephone. Which makes no sense, but whatever. Just phone EDF, that way you’re sure to be hooked up. However, pay attention to the contract offered! Use their website to read up on the different offers before phoning so you know exactly what to ask for — and how to say “no, I do not want X and Y.” EDF are particular pains in the rear end when it comes to making perfectly innocent-sounding assumptions about the contract you want, never once asking you anything more than the power level you need.

A very positive note was the incredible rapidity of my internet provider (Free). They switched my line in four days! Of course, without electricity, I could’t use the modem… but on Monday it was among the very first things to be turned on. I still haven’t managed to reply to anyone’s email though!

As a result of my exhausting running around and juggling far too many things at once, I also haven’t taken very many photos yet. I’m taking a short vacation next week (to be spent chez moi), so more will come soon. In the meantime, in addition to monsieur le chat Malo perching contentedly on the bar:
o New refrigerator in its nook — omigod I am in love with my refrigerator. It’s quiet, bright, the perfect size, and I thank myself every time I open it for paying the extra for a fridge-on-top, freezer-on-bottom combination. I also love the layout of my kitchen: the refrigerator and bar shelves are right behind the stovetop, meaning everything is right within arm’s reach.
o Terrace / patio before replanting. My now-previous landlords said I could take the bougainvillea with me, which is great since it should be quite happy with room to climb. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw it and the other plants on the new patio — they filled my previous balcony, but look downright tiny at the new place!
o The terrace / patio after replanting shows the same: you can barely make out the bougainvillea in its new home.

When pulling out the old, dead trees to replant, I was surprised at how crumbly and healthy the earth felt. Then I came across an old friend I hadn’t seen in eleven years; one I saw all the time, often carousing about underground in groups, when gardening in Oregon. An earthworm! One of my new neighbors stared at me quizzically when I burst out, squiggling earthworm in hand, “mais il y a des vers de terre ! C’est super !!” (“There are earthworms! Awesome!!”)

First: thanks to everyone for your well-wishes! It’s nice to see you all! (I know my blog isn’t comment-inspiring, I myself only comment elsewhere once in a blue moon… so I understand it, but it is nice to “see” people.)

The very first thing I repaired for my new apartment was my mailbox. The lock on it had twisted right from all the key turns over the years and it no longer closed — a simple wrench to tighten the lock bolt fixed that. It’s liberating to learn basic handiwork: how to drive a nail, turn a screw, drill a hole, manage nuts and bolts, and so forth. The best way to learn is to mess around with no expectations and with things that can be ruined, since you’re guaranteed to make mistakes and encounter weird surprises at first. Once you realize through trial and error that just about everything mechanical can be repaired simply by figuring out what attaches what, where and how, and that it usually consists of screws, nuts and/or bolts, life becomes much less intimidating. You then also have a better idea of what can actually be fixed, as opposed to things that are indeed irreparably broken or that require a professional.

Today my table and chair will be delivered, as well as my brand-new refrigerator. My previous, rented apartment came furnished, with appliances as well, and the apartment I shared with my ex for four years also had appliances, apart from the washing machine I chose. Meaning this is the first time I’ve ever bought a refrigerator! Nowadays there’s an excellent choice of environmentally-friendly refrigerators. The one I bought is a well-known FrenchSwedish brand, which is an important point because unlike other refrigerators made by American and German companies, this one comes with a nice rack to hold wine bottles inclined ;-) It’s 1.5m/5 feet tall, with a 208l/55gal top refrigerator and 61l/16gal bottom freezer, and only uses 240KW/h… per year! At 11 euro-cents the kilowatt-hour, that translates to 26.40 euros/year. For comparison, smaller refrigerator-freezers used between 310-350KW/h per year, which is nonetheless an A efficiency rating (excellent), and naturally, larger ones used even more.

Somewhat related through wastefulness/efficiency, there’s an interesting thread about decluttering with lots of different experiences, all agreeing that “less is more”. I too had the unchosen yet liberating feeling of satori when I left my ex and was left with nothing but my clothes. The only things I missed were my books, plants, music and my computer. (The books were kept for me, but I couldn’t exactly do anything with them. All the furniture, and the computer I’d always used — we had two — had been out-and-out taken, based on the claim they had never been mine. Mais passons cela…) I’ve never been able to do without books. I missed them so terribly in the months following that I even dreamt about them. One of my favorite dreams three and a half years ago, when I was living in a furnished motel in Nice and despairing of ever finding landlords who would rent to a single foreigner (with no guarantor) and a freelancer, was of my brother and a dear French friend visiting. They’d brought my lost bookcase, full of books, knowing how much I wanted to see them all again. (Meaning my brother and the friend as well!) As for my computer, it was not only my livelihood at the time, being a freelancer, it was also my connection with loved ones. Thankfully, family pitched in so that I could get a laptop to bide me over until I got back on my feet.

Once my landlords found me (yes, they found me, through this very site! :) ) and I moved into my now-previous apartment, I realized how much I’d missed cooking: thus my current joy in picking out a new refrigerator that I know from experience shall be used well. Losing everything helped highlight what held the most meaning for me: my cat, dependable clothes and shoes, a well-thought-out kitchen, books, plants, music, sewing, a comfortable chair to read in and a table to create on. That, bookcases, a bed, and a place for Malo to go outside and for me to grow plants are all I need to be happy. And I do love my bike as well!

Some helpful moving-in links:
o Changement d’adresse, run by the French government, to change your address for la sécu, les impôts (taxes) and other government agencies.
o Electricité de France (EDF), which is no longer the only electricity provider in France, but I preferred to go through them — their tarif bleu, “blue rates”, are great, and I’ve always found them to be fast and trustworthy.
o There’s water to take care of too; mine is through the building and a shared expense, so I didn’t have to worry about it.

At 6:15pm, my notary phoned and said the money was in their account. That has to be one of the fastest French bank wires I’ve ever seen — which makes a few points scored by my bank’s regional office after my previous post. Since I’d taken the afternoon off already (having planned to sign), I was in Nice and able to reach the notary’s office in fifteen minutes, so they agreed to sign this evening.

At 7:30pm I finished signing the last paper (goodness there were several, and most of which I’d already seen via my real estate agent) and was given my keys. At 8pm I was in my new home! First homeowner impressions:
o “Oh my god if anything goes wrong I have to figure out how to fix it on my own.” Of course, I already knew this, and have been preparing methodically for it, so the thought didn’t actually take me by surprise. But it was the first thing I thought nonetheless!
o “Cool, the arches are neater than I remembered.” Just waiting for the electricity to be turned on in order to take photos with enough light to focus.
o “I need a ladder to open the bedroom window…” This is a small window in the “underground” part of the apartment, near the ceiling. With my height of 5’11″/1m80, standing on the tips of my toes and with my fully-extended arms only just reaching the bottom edge of the window, that’s saying a lot. High ceilings, yay!
o “The kitchen is bigger than I remembered!” It’s a really nice size and is well laid-out. I can hardly wait to start cooking in it.
o “It’s so quiet and cool… a nice breeze flows with the windows open.” It smelled a bit musty from having been closed for so long, but as soon as I opened the windows a lovely breeze aired it out in a few minutes. And it was noticeably cooler than the building entry, with loads of light from the patio.

Photos won’t be coming very soon, unfortunately, because my PC has been packed for moving tomorrow morning (I’m on my trusty old laptop) and I don’t know when internet will be set up in my new place. We’ll see!

With the signature of my apartment scheduled for this upcoming Monday, I was finally able to go back to my favorite secondhand store and see if the solid oak dining table I’ve been coveting for more than a month was still for sale. The store doesn’t hold anything for more than five days, so I couldn’t get it until I knew when I would have the keys. On entering the store I made a beeline for where the table had been… and there it was, still unsold! This photo of it was taken in-store with my mobile phone camera, which explains the graininess. This table is like few I’ve ever seen throughout the years, and I can hardly believe no one else bought it. Especially since it had been marked down from its original 300 euros to 200! That said, it has two prominent, wide scratches near one corner, a few smaller ones elsewhere, and the oak has a rich, almost black patina from age, so I’m assuming no one looked beyond that. The scratches are only on the surface, with almost no depth, so I’ll sand away them and the patina, then refinish the wood.

Frequently browsing secondhand shops, with their eclectic and oft-changing selection, is a great way to learn what attracts you and what doesn’t, which helps immensely when you eventually need or want to buy. I’ve seen hundreds of tables in this store over the years, and discovered that I love herringbone patterns, especially when they’re bordered — I don’t like herringbone-patterned dining tables without a solid, straight border as much. Oval and rectangular shapes are my favorites for tables, but I don’t like squared edges because they strike me as “sharp”. Shaped, carved and turned legs are among my favorites, again because I prefer curves to straight edges. However, I don’t like excessively ornate furniture; I’ve grown to love pieces that have what I can only describe as a quiet, calm, gentle feel to them. Furniture you can see every day and appreciate for its beauty, but that doesn’t assault your eyes with too much decoration or too stark lines. I loved this table at first sight, and being able to describe why, as well as knowing from experience how uncommon its style is, helped me justify it to myself!

In that same spirit, I made a surprise find of a gorgeously simple leather reading chair. Clean lines, inviting curves and it is so very comfortable. Plus it’s a design that will be easy to re-upholster, although I do like that shade of green and the leather is in fine condition. I got a good deal on it too, “only” 104 euros instead of the original 180. It’s missing a few buttons, is all!