Having had a somewhat dry last trip well no it wasn't too bad, the lack of water meant I had to drink beer instead, which was quite OK.
Back on the ferry for the second trip out, another trip another issue.
Into house, windows open - check, gas on,- check. power on..... Power on....
Now herein lies another saga, like many other parts of the world EDF have been ditching mechanical meters for electronic ones that can be remotly monitored. This is a good thing if you live somewhere far away. Previously we would have to arrange to be there for a meter reader or submit a photo of the meter that showed the reading plus the serial number.
As covid bit, the letters from EDF got more and more insistent we let them install a Linky electronic meter. Not an easy thing to do when we were in Wales and the house is in Brittany!! On top of this we had been paying estimated bills, for electricity we had used while the house was empty and the supply switched off.
So, with us not enabling them to change the meter, someone at EDF had thrown their rattle out of the pram and turned the supply off.
This was much simpler than the water, straight to the new mobile phones international streaming and find the helpline number. The call handler was incredibly focussed and quickly identified the issue. Apologised that he could turn the service back on instantly because of course, it was not a Linky.
So anyway, 24h later these two techie sorts turned up in a van and switched the power back on, ripping out the old clockwork meter and installing a linky, or so we thought.
Doing a final reading on the old meter revealed, what a suprise that they owed us a deal of money. I told EDF I was cool with this, it would just mean our account was in credit for about forever.
This was not of course good enough, they said they had to issue me with a cheque to be paid into the French bank account I no longer had, at that point.
Then bills started arriving based on more estimated bills, the linky they had installed would not actually talk to their computer system!
With sense of humour failiure approaching, I said I would send them cheques for all the future bills, drawn on my UK account....
Watch this space.....
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