Falling towards home

Today we had the big meeting at the mairie, and it was quite a gathering - the mayor of Herbignac himself was there, along with the head of town project planning, translators, etc. I made our displeasure known from the start. Naturally, all parties involved denied any responsibility and put the blame wholly on our "depressed" buyer, but of course they would do. The crux of the problem was apparently that we live in a high visibility spot in an area very shortly to be gentrified and upgraded. Our buyer is the president of what amounts to the local Chamber of Commerce and there was some political infighting over his snatching up such a prominent bit of property in a key location for himself, to the extent that he bailed on the deal.

Of course, I care nothing about this, all we want to do is get out of here. To this end, I insisted on a signed attestation direct from the mayor certifying the limits of usage of the property, that it is open to buy for all commercial entities, and so forth, as well as the limits of modification (The original buyer wanted to do some extensive changes, but structural modifications are frozen till the gentrification project is complete next year).

Overall, it was one of the most productive meetings I think I've had during our time in France, and I didn't hit anyone (which frankly, there were odds towards). In some ways it was oh-so-typical, with everyone involved showing great concern about how terrible our situation was and stressing that, of course, it wasn't their personal fault at all. But in other ways, we did obtain some crucial info and some significant concessions.

Bottom line - The deal is still dead. We should receive at least a small payoff as compensation for their breaking of the contract, which can go towards the moving cost. And there will be a move after all - To our everlasting gratitude, a coalition of family members and friends in the states (including some pipe folks, I am told) are gathering together to help cover the cost of getting us back, and many very fine people have come forward with basic items to loan us to help out, given that we'll be arriving minus a lot of furniture and goods to trim the moving expense.

(It's odd to find myself needing things like a lawnmower and curtains again. But then, if I just leave the yard unmowed, the grass may handle the window covering problem...)

Anyone wishing to help out by donating any funds or goods should contact my parents at their work phone - (336) 884-4026, ask for Glenn or Bonnie Talbert. They're coordinating the bail-out on that end, which will include getting hold of some loaner workshop equipment that we'll need (Motors, mainly, since we have to leave everything electric behind - Thankfully our gear is mostly belt-driven). Much appreciation to all! Emily and I have been literally overwhelmed by the flood of good wishes, emails, IMs, and calls that we have received from people in the US pipe community and abroad. There are some very fine folks out there.

We'll be arriving in late April, to find out if Sharkey has chopped down the party tree back home.

The Plot Thickens

A quick update for today - The head of the realty agency has hit the ceiling over this, and we all have a meeting with the Herbignac mayor on Monday. It turns out that the office of the mairie (town hall, essentially) is behind our disaster - Our buyer himself was willing to go through with the purchase, but the mairie pressured him to back out because apparently he owns a great deal of property in this area and there were politics involved. With Herbignac booming and our shop a prime commercial spot, they feared this fellow gaining such a central location and quashed the sale. They may believe it was just any other business deal, a bit of political jockeying for power, and have no idea how much they have hurt us in the process.

Either that, or they knew how much this would hurt us, and purposefully waited until it was likely the house would be lost to foreclosure, so they could snap it up cheaply for the town government to own. I realize a lot of people may believe this too cynical or paranoid, but that's the shape of my experiences with French officialdom.

I guess we will find out something Monday in our face-to-face with the mayor. We get to spend the weekend with our lives hanging in the balance, oh joy, though truly I have absolutely no hope that this will be sorted to our advantage. That simply is not any part of our experience here. We will probably be lucky if we don't leave France in Indiana Jones style, with me clinging to the retracting wheels of our airplane as petty bureaucrats hurled sharpened pencils and attestations at us.

Catastrophe

As of this afternoon, with less than a month until our scheduled departure from France, the major contract that we were counting on to pay for the move (the sale of our French property) has just fallen through.

The news leaves us devastated on multiple levels. We have closed down our business in France, so we can no longer legally work here. Our visas are soon due to expire, and cannot be renewed without secured employment, yet we cannot restart our business in the time we have before the visas expire. All our travel reservations are already made, and of course are nonrefundable. We can leave as scheduled, or remain at most another couple of months and then pay for the travel all over again. This leaves us with nothing to pay the movers with, nothing to live on after our arrival in the US, and a gigantic lead weight of debt to crush any future we might try to build in the states.

We are probably going to fly back on schedule anyway, but this leaves our financial futures and any future for the pipemaking in serious doubt. At the least, we will almost certainly have to abandon the Ligne Bretagne stock due to inability to pay for shipping - a huge loss of both our money and a good little pipe brand. Though I must say, at this point the idea of simply leaving pipemaking for good, for a "normal" job with a paycheck, has a considerable degree of appeal. If I sound a bit disjointed, it's because I am - We are reeling, once again, from another "French disaster". The past seven years often seem like little but one long stream of knotted stomach, cold sweats, paralyzing worry, and fear of what new and worse surprise may be waiting around the next corner.

So... It is likely that we will still return to the US on schedule, but most likely penniless and unable even to pay for the shipment of most of our workshop stock. Obviously any sort of future plans regarding restarting pipemaking or attending US shows is now totally up in the air. I really can't begin to predict where we will be just a month from now.

Oh, and our buyer's reason for breaking his contract at the last minute, after we'd closed down the business and terminated all our French business and legal connections, thereby leaving us without recourse and financially devastated? He is "depressed".

He should be in this household tonight.