Another year (and a half)
This is our eighteenth month at number 42. It’s very little time, but the town seems to be changing already. Businesses are opening left and right. There’s a whole new commercial centre with an excellent bakery, a fantastic greengrocer and a Picard. Last month the town also got a sushi place with an Asian mini-market attached to it.
They’re building some sort of new factory in the industrial area and a massive new home improvement store. In a Europe where we hear of doom and gloom all the time, Mazamet seems determined to defy both. Excellent. This is all accompanied by a bump in asking prices for both homes and rents (which I follow closely for obvious reasons.)
When we were buying number 42 and the apartment blocks, people were looking at us as if we were insane. How unsavvy to buy in such an unstable market, why don’t you wait? 🙂 Except, of course, buying in a serious slump can be a great move if one is patient. And even though one isn’t actually patient, various life expectancy calculators (I’ve tried) insist I’m still going to be alive for a rather considerable amount of time. Perhaps more years than I’ve already lived.
I have to admit I find that profoundly disturbing. The idea of another 38 years exhausts me. Utterly.
AND WILL LARISSA N. TAKAHASSI PLEASE STOP FOLLOWING THIS BLOG EVERY DAY! IT’S OBVIOUS YOU’RE JUST TRYING TO PROMOTE YOURSELF BY FOLLOWING PEOPLE.
My Mazamet 
You two have chosen your new hometown most wisely, it seems, in being ahead of the curve, so to speak. Btw, ‘My Lovely Sushi’ looks so much like a ‘private shop’, I’d be reluctant to nibble on your Makizushi, Pink. 😉
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LOL. I’ve walked by the door and it all looks kosher 🙂 well, not exactly kosher 🙂
As for the curve… I still haven’t decided if we’ve done well or not. My plan was to choose a place that was peaceful and isolated and beautiful- and that would *in the future* be developed. The future has arrived rather quickly.
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“The future” ALWAYS arrives sooner than we think it will.
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You’re sounding like Woody Allen, Cara. 🙂
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”I have to admit I find that profoundly disturbing. The idea of another 38 years exhausts me. Utterly.”
Puts a whole new twist on the phrase …. Dead Tired. 🙂
Hang in there Pink, my man. Lots more fun around the corner …. no need to go around the bend.
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It seems I don’t have a choice. Dignitas has blacklisted me. They won’t even take my calls anymore 😀
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I am sure there are a few rather special bottles of wine and cognac you might consider before taking that route!
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They say that life begins at 40, then again at 50 and it only gets better etc etc., personally I don’t buy into all of that, but that’s another story! It’s great that things are booming in your corner of France, things are looking good here in the SW too, it’s been a very busy summer, the tourists came as usual, everything was booming, long may it continue.
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We’re a bit more South than you, but technically we’re also SW 🙂 Halfway between Toulouse and Beziers.
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-grin- Enjoy life’s ups Pinky. You and Mike chose well and the proof is in the growth of Mazamet. If the town becomes too bustling you could always buy a vineyard as a weekender. I could see you treading the grapes….goodnight!
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And where do you, Mr. Merveilleux, think all that investment capital is coming from?
Did you know that the EU central banks are now allowing Europe’s biggest corporations to print their own money?
It used to be that only governments could print their own money to mask and delay economic devastation.
The plan now is for the Ruling Class to milk every last euro out of the global economy before it collapses.
That way you folks stay filthy rich and the rest of us have to beg for bread.
“Les Deplorables,” a new musical written by Hillary Clinton is one the Ruling Class should take to heart.
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Your ignorance & paranoia never cease to astound me. The businesses that are being opened here, and are creating jobs here, belong to people who live here. They strengthen the local economy.
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Mr. Merveilleux,
This may seem strange, but capital doesn’t happen all by itself.
It has to come from somewhere.
Businesses can’t expand nor form unless capital is available.
Explaining simple economics to you may seem to you, like paranoia and ignorance.
But that is you, not me.
In the real world, outside the phony world of the filthy rich Ruling Class, reality rules the day.
Money just doesn’t happen all by itself.
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Don’t waste my time with imbecility. Economics isn’t zero-sum-game. People work, people save, people invest. People don’t need to steal from the Deplorables imaginary fortunes.
Btw, here’s a Catholic blogger describing your class of people: https://truthandtolerence.wordpress.com/2016/09/12/the-loser-vote/
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Mr. Merveilleux,
In other words, I am one of “Les Deplorables.
Thank you once again for proving my point about how the Ruling Class looks down on the rest of humanity.
Wasn’t it another French lady who said, “Let them eat cake?”
You people are going to have more than a Brexit on your hands if you don’t wake up and smell the coffee.
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You’re deplorable because you promote ignorance and misinformation. I don’t look down on humanity, I look down on people like you who want to blame their problems on everyone else.
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Ah, Picard! Now check the menus of the restaurants roundabout you with the items on sale therein…
The owner of one chateau restaurant near us used to stock up at Picard…but not at the local branch where his customers might see his van…
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Hilarious! 😀
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Maybe they heard you moved and have all come close to make your life easy. I see no other explanation 🙂
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That must be it! 😀
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Surely it cannot be a coincidence that the area improves after you have settled there? You chose well – it would have been awful if the area had got worse.
And if I can still feel happy & ‘full of beans’ (& good old Citalopram) at 60, you should be bouncing around like Tigger.
Btw, I meant to mention that we went to the RSC & saw King Lear in August – oh my goodness, it was superb. I seem to recall you saying you both knew someone in the cast, is that right? I refused to look during the ghastly eye gouging scene – husband said it was very gory but he liked it. He nudged me when it was over, as I closed my eyes & put fingers in ears. It was very different to the last RSC production, with Greg Hicks as Lear, but that’s what I like about theatre, each version is so very different.
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Mike knew a handful of people; but I know the Fool 😀 Of course! 😀
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let’s hear it for citalopram! 🙂
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The possibility that I could be reading your blog for another thirty-eight years gives me a feeling of deep satisfaction. Carry on, my darling. The world loves you.
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😛
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