Frosty, But No Snow, Man!

Christmas morning in Ruy and the surrounding countryside was glorious. The sun finally appeared from behind the grey freezing fog that had been hanging around for days and with the freezing temperatures, the frost really took a grip and it was a total white-out. We once again made our favourite walk up into the hills near the parents house to Etang Dardes and take some photos. Then it was back for fois gras and Christmas pudding for dinner - how more 'Franglais' would you like your Christmas!

Moving Times Again

So the big day arrived on 19 December as we signed away our lives once more and took possession of our new apartment. The day started with a trip to the bank to pick up a cheque book and we ended up being dragged into the managers office and sold this, that and whatever other financial products she could sign us up for...anyway at least I will finally have a bank account in Euros to go with the ones I already have in Sterling and Swiss Francs.

However we made it to the notaire's office on time which went very smoothly - all he does is read through the contract highlighting the key points and then make everyone involved sign every page. And then it was done - off we went to inspect the flat and we were very happy with the results (especially the parquet in the bedrooms). One or two minor teething faults but no issues of non-conformity so we took the keys.

After that is was a ride back to Geneva to pick up a rental car and bring nearly everything from the Geneva flat to Annemasse. Two trips were required (we only had a Renault Modus) before we finally scraped back to Geneva just in time to get ready for the first Christmas party that night, quite appropriately at the circus!

After yet another xmas party at a casino on the Thursday night, we woke very early Friday morning to take the final trip out of Geneva and complete our second emigration in a year. This time it was a short 10 minute train ride in darkness with only a suitcase each. Our belongings arrived from storage arrived at 9am and suddenly everything we have was back together in one place, in a home we owned and we could look forward to settling down for real at last!

So no kitchen, no TV, no phone and no furniture other than a table and chairs and a few bedroom cabinets which are standing in as kitchen cupboards and worktops. We have our George Foreman health grill and and electric ring to cook with, a balcony for a fridge and a creative positive attitude to catering - hey we even managed to do pork chops with flagolet beans for tea on Saturday, and cheese toasties made with french ham and raclette cheese go down very nicely too (especially with balcony chilled beer). We picked a new bed up on the Saturday so its nice to have at least one room looking semi normal where we can rest relax and watch DVDs on the laptop!

Christmas was spent away from the flat in Ruy so we could recharge and prepare for another busy couple of months filling up the flat with all the things its missing.

Swiss Time is Up

Greetings blog fans! Yes we are still here and I am taking probably the last spare evening I will have until we move (again!) to bring things up to date and set the scene for the next few weeks.

So our time as Swiss residents is nearly up - all being well we will close the door on our luxury company flat in the posh neighbourhood of Champel next Friday to move into our brand new apartment just over the border in France. We have all the official signing and hopefully the key handover on Wednesday.

We are excited, despite the fact the kitchen will not be installed until mid/end of January (the George Foreman grill will come to the rescue in the meantime!), we have no sofa, no TV, no car however as of today we should have a bed next Saturday. Although the concept of home delivery in France seems to be 'there's a van, take it home yourself. I'm too busy eating my baguette'. So look out on the streets of Ville la Grand next Saturday as I will try and navigate my way through French traffic to the flat in a bright yellow transit van.

We have not arranged a phone line yet so don't expect the blog updates to be any more frequent than they have been in the last few weeks. Hopefully we'll have a package sorted in the New Year - probably one of those with TV and internet thrown in.

We are not rushing into things as we are going to spend our first week in the new place not in the new place, but in Ruy to spend Christmas with Vero's family (and somehow try and get to Ikea). We'll need a rest as in between all this we both have to somehow fit working (including my commute to Lausanne on Monday and Tuesday) and two Christmas parties (one Wednesday and one Thursday) in between all the moving stuff.

So for the time being we wish you all a very happy festive season and we'll hopefully have some news and pictures of the new place in 2008.