Our First Visit to a Tabac

Week 8 in France 9/21-9/27/2025

Welcome to the 36th weekly post of our Baby Boomers Move to France blog.

As you know our offer on the house in Chabanais was accepted and the paperwork is flowing. We drove to Ruffec to meet with the notaire and had some of our questions answered.

The weather most of this week has been cool in the morning and warms up to the 50s and 60s over the course of the day. The cool morning air has the hint of the scent of wood burning in the fireplaces and stoves nearby. You know that I love the smell of a wood fire.

We did drive through bit of rain on the 2+ hour drive to Ruffec, but it wasn’t horrible.

Things on the agenda this week:

• Meet with notaire
• Gather Paperwork
• Bank accounts for Proof of funds
• Proof that funds are not a “money laundering” scheme
• Meet with Sean regarding investments and funding the house purchase
• Follow up driving experience history paperwork in hopes of reducing our car insurance premiums. I’m not complaining our premium for 1 year including excellent coverage was something like 910 euros ($1058).

Why a Blog?

If this is your first visit to our blog, we will try to keep the story of our move to France interesting enough to bring you back each week. Long story short, we are a couple of “Baby Boomers” moving from Venice, Florida and starting a new chapter of our life in the French countryside as retired expats.

As we shared our move plans with friends and family, we were asked questions about who, what, why, when and where, so we figured that there is enough interest to share the experience. So, we started this blog. Our plan is to publish a brief update on our life in France every Sunday. Hopefully we answer some of those questions and keep answering more as we work our way to our new life. We will also include thoughts on the lifestyle and culture of our new home.

After a little over a year of planning and fretting we moved to France on 1 August 2025.

This Week in General

The Drive to Ruffec

As I mentioned, we drove to Ruffec on Monday morning. We left early, around 10:00AM, stopped at the local station and filled the car with gas then got going so that we would have time to grab lunch before our 2:00 meeting. I think it was around a 2-1/2 hour drive. With the rain and recent grass trimming along the side of the road I was concerned that the road was a little slick.

Speaking of the drive, one thing we noticed on the route to the northern part of the Charente department and Ruffec is something worth noting: those big, beautiful wind turbines along the way. I think they are rather elegant as those huge propeller blades slowly turn in the breeze. To me they are amazing. I guess the area around Duras, which is in the Lot et Garonne department, doesn’t get the steady wind that they get in the Charente department. You don’t see the wind turbines here.

We took a drive on Sunday. EB wanted to practice driving the manual shift transmission. She did great. She took us out to the country, and we saw lots of cows and horses in the fields between the grape vines. I hadn’t noticed this many before. It was a little rainy but a nice drive.

Our First visit to a Tabac and the E.Leclerc store

We found a Tabac in Ruffec that served food where we had a hardy lunch of chicken with a generous helping of rice and beans. We added a beer and an espresso to top lunch off and we were set for the rest of the day. All pretty tasty. This was our first experience in a Tabac.

After lunch we met up with Teddy, our agent, and had a brief chat before heading in for our meeting with the notaire. Our notaire Geoffroy, is a character and we felt at ease talking with him. We had some questions about inheritance laws and about the diagnostic report. He was able to set our minds at ease regarding the inheritance laws, and we agreed to have him prepare a French will for us. This will be done once the house is settled. We will get a more detailed explanation of the report the next time we are in Ruffec.

We had our first experience in the department store, E.Leclerc this week too. This store is about a 20-minute drive away from Duras in Pineuilh. (Don’t feel bad, I don’t know how to pronounce Pineuilh either.) This E.Leclerc store is in a large, by French standards, shopping center. The store is very modern, with light & airy wide aisles, is very clean and well stocked. We found our coffee maker there. We wanted a drip brewer that has an insulated carafe. That store has just about everything from rental cars to appliances to groceries!

If you need covered parking, a large part of the parking lot at E.Leclerc is covered by solar panels that provides protection from sun and rain as well as power.

French Lifestyle and Culture

A Note About the Concert

Last week I mentioned that we went to an outdoor concert and had a great time on Saturday night. I got to thinking that a lot of the people at the concert are my age. The music was 80s so of course there was EB’s age group too. There were also a whole bunch of young people partying. Then there were the little kids that were enjoying the music and dancing and having fun. Everyone was dancing the Macarena. This little village of about 1200 people really knows how to party and it attracts folks from all the small villages all around. So just because the night markets are all done for the rest of the year and the tourists are gone doesn’t mean the locals fall asleep. They literally light up the concerts.

It hasn’t been two months yet, but we are digging this whole French vibe. There was another concert scheduled for Sunday, but EB and I had to pass as we needed to be bright eyed, and bushy tailed for our drive to Ruffec on Monday morning.

We did go to Cafe de la Paix (I love the place) for a glass of wine and to people watch then headed home for an early night. I think I have the French wording for ordering a half liter of wine down pretty good now although the servers at the cafe already know what we order so my pronunciation doesn’t have to be perfect. EB is getting pretty good at understanding what people say. Of course, we had Rosie with us and an old guy saw Rosie and started in French about how he has a cat bigger than Rosie. I missed it but EB understood. She told the guy that Rosie is 2.5 kg, and the guy had a good laugh.

Yes, I said old guy; he is probably in his 70s. LOL. Wait a minute, I’m 77 years young! That’s not old at all when I think about it. Sometimes I feel younger than old guys.

More about the Tabac

I mentioned the Tabac where we had lunch in Ruffec. In case you are wondering what a tabac is, here is a brief explanation.

According to an article by Poppy Pearce in “France Today”, “The tabac is more than a place to buy cigarettes. It is a national institution-part corner shop, part cultural relic, part social lifeline – marked by its unmistakable red diamond sign and deeply woven into the rhythms of daily life.” The sale of tobacco is highly regulated and sold only through licensed tobacconist. Poppy Pearce notes that there are over 23,000 authorized retailers. In addition to smokes and smoking paraphernalia, you can get an espresso, newspapers, a beer or cocktail, post cards, those vape thingys, postage and more. There is at least one Tabac in most villages and towns. They are typically small store fronts, but they perform an important function in French life. The one EB found even had outside tables and a little restaurant. The restaurant part has a very limited menu but seemed pretty popular with the locals. As I understand it the tabac has morphed some over the years.

I ventured into the Tabac in Duras this week. Of course, tobacco products are sold there. Also, books, games, and newspapers called “journals” in France and tons of post cards. I get a picture of the red diamond sign.

Parvis Magna

You know that Parvis Magna is one of our favorite restaurants in Duras. The ambiance is so unique, and the food, wine and service are really good. They are closing for the winter, so Elizabeth made a point of getting a reservation for us on their last Friday night. It is a good thing that she made a reservation, or we would not have had a seat except at the wine barrels. The wine barrels are fine, but not for having dinner. There was a good solo guitar playing singer when we got there and as usual the food was great. A pretty big crowd was there at the little bar area so when the rest of the band got there, they had to go through the kitchen area to bring in their instruments. The restaurant is in a courtyard surrounded by old stone walls without a roof. We left at about 9:30 and walked home and could smell the wood burning in the fireplaces of the homes in town. In the picture below the wood fired grill is where a lot of the magic is done.

Next Week (la Semaine Prochaine)

• Follow up on visa validation medical exam. We are supposed to get that done within 90 days of arriving in France. We were told that we would be notified about the appointment.
• Continue researching wood and pellet burners for heat. These tend to be more energy efficient than electric heaters but do have some maintenance cost associated with them, including annual inspections and chimney sweeps.
• I need to find a self-serve car wash too.

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. Your kind and encouraging words remind us that we can do this.

Weather forecast for next week is cloudy without much chance of rain with highs in the upper 60s and lows in the 50s and a little more sunshine midweek.

A bientot (see you soon)

Mark and Elizabeth Beiley

Babyboomersmovetofrance.com