Apologies to all of my Moisy’s French adventure readers for the lack of postings,  it is safe to say it has been a bad week!

I have been busy, blogging on my other blog   (phew two blogs are hard to keep up, and maintaining your social media presence is even harder!) and also preparing some new stock for a Christmas Fayre I am attending on Saturday the 15th. So I have been trying out some new designs and making little angels..

With wooden christmas trees on stands to follow, and of course my signature stars (still a work in progress folks) I also have some unicorns to finish and it is all very time consuming.

But this is not why it has been a crappy week, a week that started off badly and then got worse – although is starting to look a bit brigher now the weekend is on the way. Let me explain:

On Monday I had to go to the bank, and do some errands. We were up early and there was a slight drizzle in the air when I left; but as I drove to our post office it started to actually rain. I arrived at the post office only to find that it was shut! Now I don’t like the post office at the next town of Gorron, I find the woman in there to be a sour faced cow! She never smiles, barks at you and is just generally rude  (think the cliche of a rude French person and that is her, she really lets the side down.) But I had to post a parcel so needs must, and  I knew I would have to go there as I was going into Gorron anyway.

Off I set and as I drove through the grey French winter countryside the heavens opened and it poured down. When I arrived at the post office there were no spaces in the car park so I had to park and walk a couple of minutes  in torrential rain. I looked like a drowned rat. I gave the parcel to ‘les miserables’ and weirdly it cost me ten euros more than a larger and heavier parcel I had posted the week before in the post office at Ambrieres. How I longed to be able to go there with the lovely, friendly French lady; but, alas it was not to be.

Out I came and hurried back to my car, still in the torrential rain; in fact by now I could hardly see there was so much water on my glasses. I then drove on to the bank which was shut, as was expected, but I knew that I could still access the foyer to pay my money in  (banks are shut in France on a Monday, hence the term bank holiday) But to do that I needed a rib which I did not have with me, so I got a rib from the cashpoint (still in the pouring rain) and went inside. But oh no! This was the day when nothing was going to be simple! The bank had no pens to complete the deposit envelope! I went back out to my car (in the pouring rain) in the  hope that there would be a pen there, but of course there wasn’t so off I went to the tabac (in the pouring rain) to buy a pen; then back to the bank (in the pouring rain) to deposit the money. I had experienced enough, so I then went home and sod whatever else we needed!

However the morning from hell was not over; as I entered our kitchen there was rain pouring in down the wall from our roof. The roof we have only just had replaced! Now this is another story that I will tell in the future – once the issue has been resolved, but all I will say is that I will write about it and, despite a thinly veiled threat from someone, the story will be told. I pay for this blog, and I will write what I want!

Having said that there are some people who don’t warrant the word space so the story will be what actually happens and not about people who are so insignificant that they don’t need to be included. There is an important part here though: For those living in France it is worth taking out legal cover with your house insurance, they will then deal with issues like this for you, whilst getting your roof repaired.

Anyhow….. The rain poured in and we had buckets and bowls everywhere which meant tht we had to try and resolve things with odious people which you might have guessed we were unable to resolve.

What a day! I think I will start the week again tomorrow I thought; but I should have known better than to think that it couldn’t get any worse! On Tuesday I broke my tooth, and it was so sharp that it cut my tongue open. I now have a very sore tongue, am still trying to resolve our healthcare cover and cannot afford to go to the dentist! So I did what any self respecting person would do who is in pain and I filed the sharp bits of my tooth myself! Hopefully this will resolve it!

It is funny how some people can bring so much darkness into your lives when you let them in; and I knew that the problems we experienced this week with the roof was one of these occasions and that the only way to stop it was to stop interacting them. But even so it can sometimes still bring you down. I have documented many times the awful people that there are out here, but I am also a positive person normally and I do try and see the good; despite this  I was starting to lose that ability. I was in immense pain with my tongue, and couldn’t speak properly; but despite the pain I was in hubby, as ever, managed to make me laugh when he went off to get some bits from the shop with the list of things I had told him to get: Cat litter, bottle of wine, and potatoe wedges. Here is what he wrote (whilst giggling all the time):

As always I perservered and I got my things done for the craft fair (well some anyway) but I could not shake the feeling of being pissed off: pissed off with people’s shitty attitude; with the pain in my mouth, with French bloody bureaucracy, with people telling you there is an English speaking line and then nobody there speaks English! Pissed off with my mouth really hurting because I have to keep speaking French to people (which is not easy when you have to roll nearly every syllable!) Pissed off with feeling as if I am getting nowhere when nobody rings me back! Pissed off with feeling like I am getting nowhere generally. I had actually started looking at the possibility of moving to Ireland! At least I would have family there and they speak English (well not for Rich, he struggles to understand them, so he said he may as well move to Germany!).

By Wednesday evening I did not want to put my Christmas tree up, I did not want to go the craft fayre, I was in agony and could have cried. So on Thursday morning I messaged a person who I think it is fair to say is (along with my dear friend Mary) one of the kindest people I have met. I just asked if she was up for a chat because I felt pissed off. Now she knows, as you all know, that this is not like me; I am, generally, a positive person but I was struggling and she knew it. She rang me within ten minutes invited me over and helped me with contacting who I needed to about the roof – who were really helpful and prompt (I can say no more at this time) she chased the French bureaucrats with regard to our health cover and they are sending a form to Rich to get it sorted (yey!) and she gave me a hug. That was all I needed. When I came home hubby was worried about me – I am normally the one who keeps him buoyant, so he sat on the sofa and did something so simple – he tickled my leg! My sister called me to see how I was, nagged me to rinse my mouth in salt water, because I know that she worries about me; and I knew that I am blessed to have people who care.

Then I looked out of the window and I saw this….

I remembered what Marty (a lovely man who reads this blog) always says about how blessed we are; and I know that we cannot have it all. By last night I had started to cheer up; I just hope my tongue gets better now!

Like I always say in my other blog it is the small things that count, and they make up the good things. Big hugs to those who helped me this week, big hugs.

http://makingthisbetter.com

Moisy