Here I am again, absolutely shattered today to be honest - think my sinuses are playing me up again, either that or someone attached an invisible vice to my head in the night and has been tightening the screws with joy throughout the day.
Anyway, apparently it is Wednesday today. The weeks certainly seem to go quick at the moment. Monday we didn't achieve alot really as weather was shite again. Mark continued work on the hen house (he really is building one I promise) and I did a bit of painting. I also plucked up the courage to drop into the local Marie to ask about the bit of land that is for sale, and to try and find out what the position was in terms of building consent. Anyway, it would appear the land is what they call 'constructible' - in other words you can build on it if you want. So I then had a little chat with the nice lady (who actually came out from behind the desk with a picture of the bit of land) and discussed our predicament in terms of needing to know whether we would be able to maybe buy just a slice of it, and make a small track to our own land. She came up with some very good advice, and suggested I contacted the Conseil Général about it - because while building a road/track might not be a problem, the siting of it would (in other words there may be issues in terms of whereabouts it is built because of sharp bends etc). So I came out with someone else to contact - not ideal, but I felt a little bit more confident in the fact that I had managed to have a reasonably technical conversation in French - not perfect French by any means, but better than what it has been of late. Monday evening I emailed the Conseil Général, and surprise surprise I am still waiting for their response. It is quite frustrating in a way, because there are things we need to get on with, but little things like this just seem to hold everything up........
Tuesday we didn't do a lot at all. Bobby cat was unwell with diarrohea, so we stayed at home - I am a very protective mother when it comes to my furry children. So to keep myself busy I painted the downstairs cloakroom - and I am not sure if I like it. But not much I can do about it, so am trying to think of ways to make it look better. Please be forthcoming with suggestions - I guess I just didn't want everywhere to look to modern, yet the cloakroom now is. How can I make it more vintage looking for not much money? Was thinking of buying a stencilling sponge and doing a paint effect of some kind. Or some stencilling itself. Hmmmm, I so wish I had an artistic streak - but it wasn't something I was blessed with unfortunately. Anyway, the good news is, Bobby is better now - my guess is he had probably been eating something he shouldn't have been eating, like a mouse head, or a bird wing, a squirrel leg. I shall spare you further details.
Which brings us to today......ah yes, that is Wednesday as I have already confirmed. Today we decided to get round to declaring ourselves to the French equivalent of the NHS. As our forms had finally arrived from the DWP, telling us that we could have up to two years healthcare courtesy of Mr Cameron, I had already spent a good hour the previous day getting all our bits and pieces together for the trip to the Caisse Primaire d'Assurance Maladie in Tulle. I had scanned every personal document I could think of, and even made copies. I had folded everything nicely and done separate piles for Mark and I. I felt quite smug at my organisational skills and confident that the trip to Tulle would be a piece of piss. So at 10.15am we left sunny La Chabanaise, documents all folded, ironed and enveloped, the kitchen sink strapped firmly to the roof bars of the car and drove the 35km to Tulle. Its a nice little town - not as big as Brive, despite being the Departmental capital of the Corrèze.
However, finding the office was difficult - we intially tried to park the car and find it on foot, but one steep hill later, and after Jane (the satnav lady) got well and truly confused and kept repeating herself to the point where she sounded like a broken record (turn left, then turn left, turn left, then turn left, turn left, then turn left), we reverted to plan A and got back in the car. Eventually we found it, and Jane forgave us - it would appear she doesn't like steep hills either. Anyway, the visit to CPAM was brief.....and not entirely successful. The lady we saw was very nice. I thought she was going to insist on translations of our birth certificates, but after I made an extremely funny joke about Mark's age (in French) she said they would do as they were. She even refused the copies I had made of them, and did them herself! But then came the bombshell - it would appear there was one important piece of information that I had forgotten (yes I know, I'm bloody perfect, how could I forget something!). I had failed to produce our 'Relevé d'identité bancaire'. *Cue Eastenders drum*. A 'Relevé d'identité bancaire', in my humble opinion, is a rather useless document. It is basically just a piece of paper with your bank details on - you can't just write your details down, oh no, you have to have the 'official' piece of paper from the bank. This is what one looks like:
I should have known better, there's no two ways about it. I failed. I should know by now that the French love their bits of paper. So we left the CPAM, no better off - just with the photocopies which the nice lady did. So we have to go back again..... (&(*^&^)*&(*^&()^*
To console ourselves we went and got some lunch - just a sandwich, a drink and a cookie. Try saying 'cookie' with a French accent. Sounds stupid doesn't it? But I did it anyway. I dread the day I have to go to Macdonalds and ask for a Double Cheeseburger.
This afternoon I had bitter sweet time in the kitchen. You'd think I would have learnt my lesson from the Lemon Meringue experience, bit no, I'm a glutton for punishment, and decided to attempt macaroons. Which meant more stiff peak experiments! But this time people, I was successful and this picture is the proof!
However things then went downhill and my macaroons just didn't get the right consistency, and as a result there is now a yellow sticky mess in the kitchen bin. It was a recipe by Lorraine Pascale that I followed, so I decided to send her a cheeky little tweet. And she replied! So I have no excuse to fail next time.
A la prochaine fois!
Alison
xx
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