Just a short post me thinks as am feeling somewhat knackered.......and Masterchef is on soon. :o)
I know many people will think that I have absolutely no reason to be knackered, because let's face it, I don't have to get up early every morning or have a nine to five job But rest assured that as lovely and exciting it can be moving to a new country, it can also be quite stressful and tiring at times. Doing seemingly simple things can be quite onerous and difficult, and quite honestly would often test the patience of a saint. And anyone that knows me, knows that I am no saint. :o)
French paperwork and bureaucracy has been a big feature in our life over the past week. To start off we had an email from our car insurance company asking for an extra €100 as we had failed to tell them Mark had made a claim on his insurance nearly three years ago. This isn't entirely true - what actually happened was that we had a winscreen chip repaired. This doesn't count against your no claims bonus in England, but according to this woman at the insurance agency over here, it does. After a bit of research, and after speaking to my friend who also lives in France, it would appear this is not entirely true. This really got my back up and started to stress me out big time - it is hard enough coming over to a foreign country to start with, but to then have people try and take advantage of your new residency status, and your nationality, really takes the piss. And the stubborn part of me just couldn't let this pass by - probably not wise in some senses, as I think the stress it caused was probably not worth it! But I did tackle it head on and after many tears and tantrums we actually have ended up with a much cheaper (albeit identical) policy for much less money. Result!
We have also been dabbling in the healthcare system again - or rather trying to get ourselves covered after two previous unsuccessful trips to the local social security office. This time we went armed with translations of our birth certificates, and every other possible document you could think of (including recent shopping receipt, instructions to the hand blender, and a post-it note with curtain measurements). And we had success! Or rather, the gentleman took them off us, and said they would write to us in the next month to tell us what they think. Is that good or bad? I guess we will find out soon enough.
My car has also now been officially initiated into French society, and now sports a treble nationality. First of all it had its French MOT, which it passed with flying tricolore colours, despite having to have three parts of the test twice because the mechanic messed up the paperwork - but the good news is I did learn a new phrase while witnessing his frustration - "Quelle journée de merde". I am hoping to not have to use this one too often. After passing his test, we then had to make the journey to the tax office in Brive, where I had to obtain a 'certificat fiscale' - basically a bit of paper saying that I had paid for the car in England. After this we then had to drive to Tulle to the Préfecture where we paid just over €200 for the French equivalent of a tax disc, and a registration number. The good news is, we won't have to pay this again. Hurrah! So now all that is left to do is to get some brand spanking new number plates made up. Looks like that is what I will be doing tomorrow.
On a more exciting note we have received some initial architectural plans for converting the old farmhouse into gites, so at last things seem to be moving on that front. We also need to make an appt to see the Chamber of Agriculture to discuss campsite regulations and how we go about getting things started - I sense an awful lot of red tape ahead of us but I guess we knew that!
The weather here has been somewhat changeable over the past week - some sunshine and warmth, but also a fair bit of rain. But the good news is the plants are growing, and we have even managed to get some seed potatoes in the ground. Weather is due to get even better in next few days with high of 24 degrees celsius forecast for Sunday. Needless to say we are looking forward to that. Mark has been busy preparing the raised beds for the polytunnel and has even been seen wielding his chainsaw at poor unsuspecting trees.......he really is in his element.
As for Bobby and Ember - well they continue to plod along and take each days as it comes. When it rains they sleep, when the sun shines they like to go exploring and spending time with us at the vegetable plot. The life of a cat is never dull I don't think!
And anyway, thats the news from here. Longer post than I expected, and rather boring, but then if I had left it any longer, you would have had an even longer, more boring post to read. Think yourself lucky and look at some pretty pictures to make yourself feel better.
