That French feeling

Driving out of a shopping centre the other day, I momentarily found myself on the wrong side of the road. Luckily the road was empty but for a few seconds I was driving as the English do. It seems that even though I have immersed myself in everything French, some of brain cells are still working out where they are. Even as I am unpacking boxes and shifting furniture, I find myself referring to everything as bits I bought from home even if I don’t think of Knollys as anything but a memory. Apart from friends and family, I don’t miss a single thing about London life but I suppose it takes a while for those old habits to die.

I’ve been in France now for five months which doesn’t sound very long at all. I speak more French now than I do English and I’ve even managed to hold a couple of phone conversations! For those who aren’t familiar with France, everyone speaks three times as fast on the phone. Aside from my driving blip, I am now confident enough to drive into town and shop without Mum interpreting. I even managed a very wet garden centre albeit with the help of Denis of course, plant names can get lost in translation and I did want very particular arboreals. If nothing else, I shall soon be fluent in all things leafy and building construction.

There are times however when understanding how another country’s bureaucracy gets frustrating. Having booked the vaccine for Mumo, I drove her to the hospital in Carcassonne for her appointment. We arrived early which was a plus as neither of us had remembered to bring the map showing where the actual clinic was within the building which meant a lot of swearing for me as I negotiated several car parking areas and one -way systems. Finally having parked up in a bay (all free in the hospital here, another first), I sat in the car doing the New York Times Spelling Bee whilst Mumo went in for her jab. Two hours later, I began to panic. What if she had had a bad reaction? Would anyone know where I was? I decided to put my best French forward and headed off to find her. Several minutes later and a new intimate knowledge of all corridors in Carcassonne hospital, I finally found here, with no jab. It seemed that what the Government had said about vaccines being available to everyone over a certain age was not entirely true. Mumo doesn’t have a social security number as she has private health insurance and the doctors required said number for track and trace. Fingers crossed, we are going to drop all her documentation off tomorrow with the Social Security office and get her a number toute suite. Apparently she isn’t the only person to have this problem, the EU has made a bit of a mess of the whole thing.

Frustrations aside and with my little abode being finally finished next week, the dogs and I are settling nicely into our life down here. I now have somewhere to sit with the arrival of my lovely new bar stools and I have manoeuvred two bookcases up the stairs. I ordered a new glass cabinet as the two I brought from Knollys are too big to fit anywhere. Arry has finally figured out that he and the others don’t need me in order to run circles around each other and the garden although this does mean I’m constantly cleaning the floor – thankfully tiles are easy to wipe and go. Trying to keep Mo out of the flowerbeds is a constant chore, her wheels don’t negotiate budding plants very well and I really need to fill in the driveway potholes as several mini-lakes have appeared during last week’s wet weather. One thing I can say about this new life, you never get bored…

“How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?” ( Charles de Gaulle)