'S' came round to the house yesterday. He does lots of odd jobs for folks and he's a very kind and Christian man.
For instance, after it snows and without being asked, he visits several elderly folks in his neighbourhood and clears the snow to make a safe footpath. One of the people he helps is my mother. How kind is that?
He's a joiner by trade but he can turn his hand to most things and we (Jan) had lots of things for him to do, mostly associated with storage.
We're still trying to get '5 into 4', so optimizing storage space is essential and we haven't even started on the garage and garden shed yet. Both are packed to the gunnels with boxes and we can't start to empty boxes until we have somewhere to put stuff. It's proving to be an exercise in creative thinking.
The long arm of French bureaucracy continues to haunt me. I noticed a withdrawal from our French bank account yesterday. It was a payment for our mutuelle insurance so I got onto the broker to ask what was happening. This despite already notifying him that we had moved and that he should cancel all insurances.
'Ah,' he said, 'I need a formal letter from you asking me to cancel the insurance together with proof that you have sold the house.' He knows all this stuff because I've already told him and now I have to prove that I'm telling the truth! I know it must be something to do with age but I find this sort of pedantic behaviour more and more irritating. Rules is rules mes braves.
At the time of writing we still have outstanding several issues from our stay in France.
1 We still haven't been able to cancel Jan's phone contract with SFR.
2 We still await the Certificate of Conformity from Chrysler France (without it I can't register the car in England).
3 We still haven't received reimbursement from two French savings accounts, and no doubt other things that I haven't thought of and have yet to bite me in the bum. I don't really mind administrative stuff but when obstacles are put in your way and companies don't listen or respond it really pisses me off.
The CoC shouldn't take long - 2 weeks at the most. What excuse are they giving you?
ReplyDeleteI never did get the €33 left in our French bank account after all the closing bills were paid despite closing it formally and writing several letters telling them where to transfer it. They win!