78: Fete Nationale, Firewood, Garden Furniture and Cocktail Coop progress

Welcome to the 78th weekly post of our Baby Boomers Move to France blog.

We are into our 50th week in France 7/13-7/19/26 having spent 3 months in Duras and then roughly a month and a half in St Germaine de Confolens before settling in Chabanais.

We have been in our home in the village of Chabanais in the Charente department of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region of France since the middle of December 2025. We are still loving it.

This week,

Work on the chicken coop (Cocktail Coop), EB volunteers at the cancer charity shop. Hopefully back to golf on Thursday. Follow up garden furniture. Firewood delivery. Fete de Nationale in Confolens.

Our home in Chabanais, France

Things on the agenda this week:

• Cocktail Coop
• Firewood delivery
• Outdoor furniture delivery
• Work on Garden

Weather forecast:

The forecast is for a cooling trend with high temps in the upper 80s and lows in the 60s with low humidity. I don’t see much rain in the forecast for the week.

Why this Blog?

Long story short, we are “Baby Boomers” that have moved from Venice, Florida to the beautiful French countryside as retirees. After a little over a year of planning and fretting we sold everything in Venice and made the move on 1 August 2025.

We publish a brief update of our adventures every Sunday to share our experiences, tips and mistakes.

If you are wondering what got into our head and inspired us to make the move, check out some of our earlier posts. Again, if you have questions about our adventure, drop your questions in the comment section below.

This Weeks Daily Update

Sunday

Paint Cocktail Coop

The big priority for Sunday is paint and stain the Cocktail Coop. We had some paint left over from the painting project EB did in the laundry room a few weeks ago. I got that set up for her and she painted the back wall of the coop. I started the staining portion. When EB finished her section, she jumped over to help me with the staining. We got it all done and looks pretty good. We will double check it tomorrow to see if an additional coat of paint/stain is needed. Next step is to install lights.

Russell dropped in

Russell just happens to be considering using the same financial advisor company that we have decided to use so he dropped by to discuss his information as he will be having a Teams meeting with his advisor this coming week. It is a big thing in France for American expats because there are tax implications that need to be sorted out as quickly as possible. It is important to have an advisor that is familiar with the laws of both countries and the implications of the tax treaty and how you position yourself. Most of us American expats in Chabanais are pretty much in the same financial boat. Modest savings and investments that need to be managed carefully to make it all last for the next 30-40 years. EB and I are not allowed to make an income in France for the first 5 years because we are here on a visitor visa. After 5 years we can apply for a different visa, but working is not why we are here. A different working visa is not really of any interest for us now. We like retirement.

Monday: Simon is back to work on a couple of handyman projects and we install lights and in the Cocktail Coop.

Garden furniture did not arrive as expected. What a bummer.

Progress on the Cocktail Coop

We spent some time installing a decorative light set up and the associated solar panel. Then hung lights to finish the main lighting for the Coop.

Slow but steady progress and it looks pretty darn good.

AC on order

Jerome came over in the morning to discuss our AC. He took measurements and said he would have a quote for us in the afternoon. Our plan is to have a compressor capable of supporting 3 mini-split systems. We would have one in the master bedroom, 1 in the guest room and 1 in the salon. We would have another separate system for the summer house. True to his word, Jerome came back with the quote in the afternoon. His quote was what we were expecting so we signed up. He will have the systems installed before the end of August and we leave for our family vacation.

Okay that is it. No more major house projects for a couple of years.

Tuesday: Early morning rain and grapes vines get trimmed

Simon completed the water spigot install and got the plumbing for it secured in place. I installed the water hose holder, and we can check the water project off of the list. This will be a big help for watering the garden and the veggie patch. Speaking of watering, there are water use restrictions in France this week; for only certain times of the day watering vegetable gardens is allowed.

Simon also fixed the shutter closure issue that we had on the salon window. All is good now.

When Russell was over, he mentioned that his neighbor had told him about having to trim the grape vines and suggested we check out a YouTube video to verify his information. EB followed up on YouTube and found a bunch of videos explaining the need to trim the grape vines in order to get the grapes to grow larger and to fully ripen. We attacked the grape vines. We might be too late, but we learned for next year.

After our showers we drove over to Confolens to attend the Fete Nationale (Bastille Day). It is a French national holiday celebrating the French revolution. I mentioned this holiday in an earlier post. We were a little concerned about finding parking in Confolens so we drove over a little early and they were still setting up for the fete (party). No problem we drove over to the “Speak Easy” in St Germain de Confolens. The Speak Easy is a totally outdoors place serving simple food and drinks right on the banks of the Vienne River. We decided to wait out the fete set up and have a beer. Rosie came along with us and as usual was a perfect princess.

Back in Confolens we decided to park on the other side of the river and walk over the ancient pedestrian bridge and catch up with the rest of the party in the city center. Below photos of the bridge and approach to side of the river where we parked as we walked back to the car after the event.

The venue is in the square in front of the Hotel de Ville (City Hall) and the Salle de Fete. It is a perfect spot and pretty well shaded when the sun was on the downslope. EB brought along her hand fan that we got at the Bertico winery last week and she put it to good use.

Clair’s mom had reserved something like 15 seats at the fete for the family, “the boys”, Eb and I, and Angelique and her 3 grown children. Good food, good wine, and great socializing. The city had set up all of these outdoor tables and chairs, a jumbo screen TV, and food booths. The pompiers (fire fighters) did all of the cooking and selling of drinks from the booths. Normally there is a big fireworks display but this year because of the wildfire danger the display was cancelled. The jumbo screen TV was tuned to the World Cup match. France was in the semi-finals against Spain. Unfortunately, France lost the match, and Spain advances to the championship match. EB took these photos as we were leaving so a lot of sets were already empty.

Elizabeth and I are already looking forward to the Fete Nationale next year. Confolens also hosts another big festival in August that we are anticipating we will attend.

Wednesday: Rain all morning, but work on the garden progresses

The rain was pretty light for the most part although we did have a few minutes of a pretty intense showers and lightening.

French class was really good. The group seems to be getting more comfortable with speaking French. Of course, we lapse into English a lot but little by little I see improvement. We met Diane and Joel after class at the Cafe des Sport for a beer and a little more French. Diane introduced us to one of her friends that also lives in Chabanais and has been here for 22 years.

Thursday: Cooler morning then warmed up but we still played golf

Elizabeth and I took our coffee out to the little patio and enjoyed the cooler weather. Rosie enjoys it too.

EB walked down to the Farmers’ market and picked up some veggies and a baguette.

We weren’t expecting it today, but we had another partial delivery of our garden furniture. We received box 2 of 3 and box 3 of 3. Hopefully box 1 of 3 will arrive soon.

Golf today. Back in the swing of things. Allen joined us and as usual the golf was fun. We got into a discussion about beers. Ron mentioned a 50/50 mix of lemonade and beer that is popular in England. He mentioned the name of the mixture, but of course, I have already forgotten it. I do want to try it though.

EB came over and so did Allen’s wife Deb. The six of us sat in the salon for a drink and chat. The ladies had been in the “donkey room”, but a sudden severe storm popped up, and Michelle suggested that everyone should move into the salon. There was a mention of golf ball size hail in some parts of France. Fortunately, we did not experience it in our part of the Charente, but in nearby cities they have destructive hail and there ended up to be about 50,000 people without power. Thankfully, we were not affected.

Friday: Overnight thunder, lightning and rain, but a beautiful morning and work on the garden resumes.

We expect a firewood delvery.

We gave up on the wood delivery today as I had a call from the supplier that our scheduled delivery would not make it today. Around 4 o’clock EB had me open a bottle of prosecco. Wouldn’t you know it, just as we started to get comfortable with our prosecco the wood shows up. I ordered the wood from TotalEnergies this time and will do it again. The driver showed up with a pallet of firewood on a forklift. He was able to place the pallet on the sidewalk just outside the door of our cave. It was perfect for us.

The first time we got a firewood delivery (February I think) I thought we might have an accident claim because the pallet jack the driver had could barely handle the load and he had to drag the pallet out onto the lift gate. It was very sketchy. Luckily it worked out. This time it was so easy and without drama. I will definitely order from TotalEnergies again.

EB and I were able to pull the wood off of the pallet and stack it very easily. I had ordered lengths of 25 centimeters, so the logs were not heavy, and they were easy for EB to stack as I handed them to her. Our stove will handle 30cm long logs, but I wanted to try 25. They are a little more expensive than the 30 though.

I’m feeling pretty confident that we will have enough wood for the winter.

Box 3 of 3 of the garden furniture arrived too.

We had all of the boxes stacked in our dining area as we waited for the entire shipment to arrive. Once that final box arrived, we moved all of the boxes out to the laundry room to store until we can assemble the furniture. We have a lot of space in the laundry room.

Saturday: EB volunteers at the cancer shop and I work on the furniture assembly.

We slept in until around 8:00 and after our coffee and fresh chunks of cantaloupe EB had to head to the cancer charity shop,

I opened up the boxes and brought the parts into the salon where I set up a fan and got on with the assembly project. The fan kept a steady flow of cool air as I worked on the furniture. The whole project took about 4 hours, and I think the furniture set will work well for us,

EB’s veggie patch is producing some pretty big cucumbers. We will have a ton of tomatoes soon too.

EB continues to experiment with pickling. Her pickles are gaining a reputation as tasting really good. She slices her cucumbers from the veggie patch and brews up some kind of pickling solution and just like magic her pickle slices are sooo good. She has shared a couple of jars with friends.

A note on our solar power system

I discussed our power consumption with our adviser, Hector. I have been thinking about increasing the size of our virtual battery because we send as much power to the grid as we actually use. It seems to me that I should be putting all of that extra power into our own virtual battery rather than giving it away. Hector agreed and I will check into it in a little more detail.

So that was our week.

Work in the garden, Celebrate the Fete Nationale in Confolens. Stacked about a ton of firewood and assembled our garden furniture. EB worked at the Charity shop and when she got home, she watered her veggie patch with water from our rain barrel. LIFE IS GOOD.

French Lifestyle and Culture

Cognac

We are thinking about taking a ride over to Cognac next week for the Fete du Cognac. That’s right, that Cognac: THE CITY FAMOUS FOR, YOU GUESSED IT, COGNAC. It is a little over an hour drive from our home and is in the same department as Chabanais, the Charente.

The thing is, I mean the point is, we are in the fete season in France, at least in southwest France. Just about every village has a fete (party or festival). There are even blogs about the fetes. Of course, all of the major holidays are good excuses for fetes, but local traditions are good excuses for annual fetes too. We know of an annual duck parade in Grenord about 6 km form our house that we hope to attend. Then there is a big one in Confolens in Augsut 10-16 that we definitely want to attend.

We (Chabanais) have been celebrating all year the 400th anniversary of Jean Baptiste de La Quintinie fete. He was born in Chabanais. He was a lawyer, gardener and agronomist who served under Louis XIV, and was named the director of the royal fruit and vegetable gardens by the king in 1670. He created the potager du roi (The Kings Vegetable Garden) for the Palace of Versailles. When you visit Paris, don’t miss the Palace of Versailles and the beautiful gardens there. Actually, Chabanais is known as the Cite de la Quintinie. Anyway, one of the events that we missed included a parade of folks dressed in period costumes and speeches and I think the parade ended at the Cafe des Sport.

The French love their parties and there are plenty to attend. I guess it makes up for when the weather turns cold and everyone hibernates!!

Next Week (la Semaine Prochaine)

• Travel to Angouleme to pick up Titre de Sejour
• Simon the handyman will be back
• More work on the garden
• Fete in Confolens

Weather forecast for next week

Sunny and warm days are forecasted for this coming week with high temps forecasted to reach the upper 80s. Overnight lows in the 50s. Humidity 40% down to 37% and a little breeze.

Signing off for the week

As always, we sign off wishing you all a good week and remind you to take care of yourselves and your family.

Keep in touch and leave questions, suggestions and comments below. We really enjoy hearing from you all.

Wishing you a good week (Bonne Semaine)

Mark and Elizabeth Beiley

Babyboomersmovetofrance.com