??? forgot my fitness tracker on my run today
Today was eventful: we are officially the owners of the communist offices downstairs! This process started back in 2014, when we had just moved into our building. We noticed that the floor underneath us was vacant and wondered who owned it.
I remember some young men in their 20s going into the apartment around 4 am one night...I was a bit freaked out thinking they were breaking in. But in retrospect, they probably were part of the Jeunes Communistes as they had keys to the door.
Anyway Eric did "les démarches administratives" to figure out who owned the apartment, going to various city offices until he found the Cadastre, which records property owners in Nice. He found out it belonged to les Jeune Communistes, affiliated with the Communist Party of Nice.
So about twice a year, Eric would stop by the CP office and ask about the status of the apartment. It had been vacant for at least 10-15 years back when we moved here. The woman at the desk kept saying, "Yes, we're trying to sell it, but we're working on getting all the papers together."
Eric probably went by more than 10-12 times in the past 6 years. Depending on who he talked to at the office, some people told him that it was impossible (so typically French!). It's impossible, totally unthinkable, never going to happen...until it isn't.
Anyway, out of the blue we got a call 10 months ago from the person in charge of all the CP properties. He said, "We're selling the apartment. Do you want to make an offer?"
Yes!
An investor had already made an offer, but the CP representative wanted to sell it to a family, not to someone who was just there to make money. So he said, "I'll tell you what: make me an offer at X price (which was much lower than the investor's!) and I'll sell it to you. And I'll tell the investor sorry but it's taken." The rest is history. This is also typically French: if you know the right person, then miracles can happen.
So what else did we do today? We spent most of the day outside at the coulée verte. Our friends held a "goûter de Noël" and we all brought some kind of treats to share. One of them even made a piñata! Eric invented a new game that I call "volleyfoot."
Ivy had a hard day. At lunch, she ate a few slices of ham and soon after started vomiting. We suspect the ham was bad as Eric and Zari both had a little and they either thought it tasted off or felt a bit icky.
Dinner was sausages and fennel roasted in red wine....so good. It's a recipe from Mimi Thorrison's cookbook. Here's what I did:
12 saucisses de Toulouse (or other good pork sausages, around 1.5 kg)
2 Tbsp dijon mustard (we use the "fine et forte" kind...very powerful!)
4 Tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, sliced
1 large fennel bulb, sliced
1 cup red wine
2 Tbsp butter
Mix together the olive oil & mustard. The recipe said to roast the sausages for 20 minutes before adding the vegetables, but I think it's best to put the veggies in along with the sausages. Put the onions & fennel on the bottom of a large baking dish, drizzle with some of the oil/mustard sauce and stir a bit to make sure it's evenly coated. Sprinkle on some salt. Then put the rest of the mustard sauce on the sausages and place them on top of the vegetables.
Roast for at least 40 minutes at 200C, until the vegetables are nicely done. You want them to be very tender and starting to caramelize.
Add red wine & butter to the dish and roast for about 10 more minutes.
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