One of lessons I am learning since moving across the pond is to be patient. Pretty much everything is a waiting game so I was over the moon when I got an appointment at the local prefecture for my Carte Sejour or Residence card last Monday. Having given all the necessary paperwork online at the beginning of the year, I had almost forgotten about it such is the speed of bureaucracy in France. Nevertheless, a short drive into Carcassonne and a 5 minute ‘fingerprints here/ photos there’ interview and I was officially allowed to live here. As I walked back to the car, I did wonder if passersby looked at me differently – just another local girl strolling along.
Whilst the Carte Sejour appointment came relatively quickly, any thoughts of getting my French driving licence or Carte Vitale (the health card which means you don’t have to pay extortionate fees for private medical insurance) are still many moons away. These I’m reliably informed can take years so it was with a little reluctance that I succumbed to having a blood test. My tum had been a little under the weather for a couple of weeks so the doctor booked me in for one. Apparently it’s quite normal to have a pint or two taken out of your arm to test for various lurgies. 48 hours later, I received an email with the results. By law here, you get to see what the doc sees. Naturally I couldn’t understand any of it but, regardless of my lack of medical lingo en Francais, I did note that my cholesterol was a little high, quite possibly due to the volume of Brie I consume on a daily basis. Still, the tum seems to have settled down and I have switched the fromage for salad.
Aside from the ups and downs of blood letting and digit stamping, life in Rouffiac continues albeit at a snail’s pace. Having bought most of the stuff for the pool, we now have to wait for the delivery and the digger. Christian assures me he will be here in a couple of weeks or so to excavate the plot so thumb-twiddling me has had to find other things to occupy my time. I decided that the covered area of the vast balcony needed something to fill it so what would be better than a bar table so drinkers could sip and survey the front garden? Now, what you think you can make out of a few bits of wood and what you actually achieve are two very different things. No matter how much you measure, the legs are still wonky and any unsuspecting guests are bound to get stabbed by a protruding screw or two. Callum, bless him, has promised to rectify his mother’s pathetic attempt at putting a few planks together. Still, it’s perfectly usable as long as you know where to stick your limbs.
Alice turns 4 today and she is beginning to resemble a guitar with her growing belly. With this in mind, the twice-weekly run through the nearby hills has meant leaving her behind and taking Arry on his own. I do miss having her by my side as I wheeze my way through the vines especially as Arry has taken to disappearing after wildlife at every opportunity. Yesterday he decided to chase a couple of cats across a field and then throw himself in a bog to cool down. I spent several minutes de-ponging and cleaning out the shower afterwards, you can understand why the pool will be fully fenced once it’s finished….
“You can’t do anything unless you do it yourself. And usually you can’t do it yourself very well” (E.W. Howe)
Widow plus woofs 