So after so many months, I am at last connected to the National Grid.

I originally asked the local suppliers EDF in July 2016 (15 months ago) to come and connect up the electricity supply. Nothing can be achieved without some form of power, and although a generator helped out temporarily, no major work could start.

I really lost count how many times I had to phone EDF to try and get them to come out. The whole problem stems from the idiotic system they have in place for supplying their power – it’s all sub-contracted out. This means naturally that any information you pass on is lost or misplaced between offices. They couldn’t even decide what my particular case was called – was it a ‘raccordement’ or an ’embranchement’ or even a ‘mise en service’? Nobody really knew. It would have taken one guy to come a have a look and all would have been sorted, but no, this is France and they’ll do it their way. ‘Stuff the customer’ is the impression I have had from the very start.

Mind you, in June they did arrive to connect up a temporary supply, but didn’t have the correct equipment to get to the overhead lines! The whole saga was a complete and utter shambles from start to finish. They even had the audacity to charge me nearly 500€ for ‘meter standing charges’ and ‘estimated electricity used’ for the last 3 months – even though the meter is mine and I couldn’t even plug in a phone charger.

If I had had to create a story that put EDF in a bad light in the eyes of a customer, I simply could not have invented something as bad as I’ve been through. In this day and age with computerised systems it’s been a complete disgrace.

And worse of all, it took them precisely 7 minutes from start to finish to complete the work. That really rubbed salt in the wound after they’d quoted 380€.

How times have changed in the 9 years since I’ve lived here.
Back then I’d phoned them on the Monday, they’d connected on the Friday and I was charged 90€!