We began the day well enough, with a coffee at the newish roastery. Their coffees are better than the normal cafes, though that's not a high bar to beat. We are very much looking forward tp Antipodean coffee again - not much over a week away.
Much of the morning was spent at home, changing over the still-damp pillows in the dryer. They really need the movement of the dryer to fluff them up again.
I was still receiving countless message about the car. Until we actually received the money we felt it wise to keep it live on Le Bon Coin, just in case. This had the downside of my phone constantly going off with unknown French numbers, both calls and texts, and a few more messages direct from the website.
A bit after midday we headed off to two very good friends a bit under half an hour away. On arrival we found their road was being torn up, but with a bit of assistance from the contractors we were able to park outside their gates. What a lovely time we had, though very much tempered by having to tell them we'd sold up and were unlikely to be coming back. They were quite upset, as who knows when and if we will meet again. Lunch was delicious again, and we talked and talked, finally only leaving at 6pm when we were due to hand over the car back in Ceret. It's funny how closely we have connected, though it has only been a few times each year. Maybe we will visit them in St Martin in the Caribbean, or maybe they will do the trip to the South Seas that they had planned before Covid.
Next morning I thought I'd tackle the transfer of the car, something that has to be done online on the ANTS website. First problem was logging in. I had a name and password that let me log in to FranceConnect, but despite that working, it wouldn't let me get onto the ANTS system. No big problem, I had another login just for ANTS. That got me in, but for some reason getting from the entry page to the actual sold-a-car form took another 3 new browser tabs. I then needed a passcode that had apparently been sent to us 10 years ago when we bought the car! I didn't expect to be able to find that so applied for a new code. It seemed to work, but nothing happened. So I did it again, and again, getting very frustrated in the process. Any normal site will send a response straight away, but not ANTS. I gave up before I became a gibbering wreck.
Next test was to close down our fibre wifi account at SFR. It was meant to be simple online, but could I find where to "resilier" our box? No. A good quarter of an hour later I did manage to find the link, well-hidden, and was able to close our account. The alternative was to send them an actual physical registered letter - a system that is quite common here. As always, signing on is relatively simple, signing off is made very difficult, possibly deliberately or possibly nobody cares how hard it is.
At this point nearly the whole morning had gone, so we wandered off to our favourite baker for a baguette, only to find it closed for 5 days with a "fermeture exceptionnelle" sign in the window. Talk about frustrating. An hour later a couple of codes did get emailed from ANTS (should have been 3 codes but who knows). I was finally able to get the car sale process finished. What a relief and a trial.
After lunch we went down to AXA to cancel the car insurance. Not possible, yet another fermeture exceptionnelle. No explanation or apology, just a locked door. And on the way back I got another message on my phone to say there was a voice message. I connected up and the only message was that there were no messages.
France is great. We've had such a good time over the last dozen years. The cheese, bread and pastries are exceptional. The sights we've seen have been magnificent. The people we've dealt with, bureaucrats included, have almost all been super polite and helpful, and the friends we've made have been lovely. But in this last few weeks of our 12 years we've struck an awful lot of unnecessary and enormously frustrating difficulties that have made the process far more unpleasant than it need be. We will be oh so glad to be leaving that behind.
Our friends got quite teary-eyed when we told them that we were leaving Céret. They immediately offered the use of their apartment downstairs and told us we HAD to visit them at their winter home in St Martin. The latter is in a stunning location, and their apartment (currently being finished) will have an outdoor swimming pool. It's pretty tempting. However, they aren't prepared to let us leave Céret yet. They want to meet up again next week for a final farewell. We get on so well together and can (and do) chat for hours each time we meet up.
We had another dining invitation booked for the evening. An older English couple, who we have got to know well over the years here, and who visited NZ and stayed with us a while ago, invited us for a farewell meal at their place. They are in their 80s and 90s but are determined to keep up their thrice-yearly visits to Ceret for as long as they can.
It was very nice of them to go to the trouble of preparing a three-course meal for us. We had a lovely evening with them. Like us, they love travelling places and they've seen a fair part of the world. They both love NZ and have fond memories of staying with us in Nelson.
