There are times when France is just superb, and there are times when you
wonder why everybody has not just packed up and left. Today is the latter for
us. It is small wonder that France has been overrun in the last few World Wars.
The problem would have been that they were so busy filling in forms, waiting for
other people to do something, and hanging around their homes waiting for
deliveries of bullets and guns, that the Germans would have been in Paris before
they had a chance to say “Non”.
We had actually moved ahead yesterday, as the bench installation helper
turned up more or less on time, and by lunchtime our lovely new beech bench was
screwed and glued in place. It looks superb, and it is so good having a really
generous amount of bench space versus almost none. The new induction hob looks
perfect too. We are most pleased.
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Well today we’ve been screwed (but not glued). It promised well. The internet
man was due to turn up between 9 and 11 for what we naively imagined would be
the last time. At 10 he arrived, and fluffed about for most of an hour before
declaring that the problem was within the building, and that wasn’t his
responsibility, so he wasn’t going to do any more, and we’d have to get
technician number 4 along to actually sort things out. How totally incompetent
has this all been? Four technicians to fix what will no doubt be a simple
connection problem with the wiring, and already 11 weeks to get it sorted. It
isn’t necessarily because we went with a cheaper provider, as 2 of the 3 techies
were with Orange, and the guy from Free was the most clued-up of the 3.
So we will be another who-knows-how-many weeks without internet… again.
Next we went off to the mairie to do the car registration. We
carried a fair selection of the necessary bits of paperwork - ID, proof of
residence, two forms saying the previous owner has sold it, new form for
immatriculation, CT (MoT/WoF), a copy of the carte grise (rego
papers), change of underwear and a clean hanky each. However we didn’t have the
original carte grise. This appeared to be a showstopper. We have been
told by our car saleswoman that it’s been posted (we have rung three times), but
it hasn’t arrived. We suspect it has never been sent. Apparently, without the
original carte grise we can’t get new rego papers issued, despite the
fact we have a photocopy of it, and the whole point of the exercise is to create
a new carte grise and make the old one redundant. To compound things,
the dealer is away, and the car yard has shut down totally until Monday. On
Monday 23rd, we have to stop using the car altogether on the old registration.
Aaaaarrrrrgggggghhhh! We have a fortnight’s trip north to Provence planned from
around 18th Sept so things are looking pretty dicey.
So now we will likely have no internet, and no car. And French beer is
awful.
Right now we feel like tossing the whole France thing in, except that would
no doubt be very complicated, require 34 duplicate forms, and probably be even
worse than staying on and getting over these hassles. Why does it have to be
like this? We certainly will not be attempting to move on with the roof terrace
as we are not prepared to fight the mindless bureaucracy.
I needed all that off my chest.
On the brighter side, we had a lovely dinner out last night in Laroque with
our French friends and a French Cérétane couple they had invited. We talked away
madly over a delicious meal until nearly midnight, about 50/50 in French and
English. Speaking French with French people is really the best way to improve.
Pascale had organised a special birthday cake for us - how nice was that?
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We can’t believe the change in the weather. It is bitter today. Grey sky, and
only 20°, which when you have come off weeks of 30° feels bleak indeed. We’ve
put longs on and a second layer on top. It’s been a very sudden change which has
taken us a bit by surprise. Hopefully that isn’t the end of the hot days, but it
is looking that way.
