Our return to Blois was fairly uneventful; we handed over the paperwork (including the Quittus Fiscal!) and were rewarded by being instructed to go to the cashier to pay €211 (€6 for the paperwork, and €205 for Regional Taxes).
Still, I suppose we shouldn’t complain; there are currently no annual road taxes in France, unlike Britain, and the MOT only needs to be done every 2 years, not annually as in Britain. Speaking of MOT’s, here there are specific centres that do MOT’s (called Controle Technique). That is all they do, so unlike garages in Britain which offer an MOT service, there’s no incentive to find things wrong so you can be charged an arm and a leg to fix them. (I’m not saying that all UK MOT garages are like this, but the last one we went to in Reading told us that the lights were not working, which was really strange as I had checked them all myself just before driving to the MOT test.) Draw your own conclusions.
On the way home, with LSS happily clutching her temporary Carte Gris, we stopped and had three new number plates made (1 extra for the future trailer).
I spent the afternoon cutting up some fallen branches at the aged FIL’s house, whilst LSS drove the tractor around, cutting more grass.
Oh yes, and I also received a parcel today; the 1500W rotary hammer which I had purchased from an Ebay seller in Belgium on Sunday. Now that’s what I call rapid service. It was not only cheaper to buy it from Belgium, but quicker to get! Now installing the next windows should be a lot easier.
Wildlife diary: The heron returned to the pond this evening, and after stalking up and down for a few minutes, pounced. We watched it catch a carp about 20cm long. It flew off into the adjacent field to enjoy its dinner. (The heron, not the carp. The carp was dinner).