Normalement, Madame, mais ........

St Laurent
Yesterday’s weather: fine but windy.

We went to the builders’ merchant yesterday afternoon to order a delivery of sand and gravel and paving for the top layer of the chalet base. Thinking it would only be a day or so before they could deliver we did, of course, leave it until the last minute. Well, we are beginning to get the hang of the 'mañana' attitude now. Unfortunately their 'mañana' attitude is more practiced than ours and they can’t deliver for another 10 days! ‘Normalement, madame’, he explained they would deliver bien sûr next week but because of the jour férié on Wednesday 15th it will be the week after.

Assumption is another of the religious holidays celebrated by this secular country! In fact there are so many from April through to the end of August that one really doesn’t have much hope of getting anything delivered, finished or sometimes even started; there always seems to be some holiday getting in the way.

Milly Méhari is now an official member of the family. We just have to get her paperwork in order. This entails a visit to the Préfecture in Cahors. Unlike the UK, in France you have to do everything in person and not by post. We have a huge packet of paperwork to take with us: the old registration document, the proof of sale from the previous owner to the garage, the proof of sale from the garage to Jon, the contrôle technique (MOT), copy of Jon’s driving licence, copy of Jon’s passport, proof of address (electricity bill) and finally a form which we completed yesterday which is just a duplication of all the information on the old registration document (carte grise).

We will have to stand in line at reception to be checked in. A nice lady will check all the paperwork before allowing us access to the office where they issue the carte grise, then another nice lady will check it all again before issuing us with a new carte grise in our own name. Then we will have to go back to the garage and give them the new registration so that they can make up the plates. This will take them a couple of days and we will then take the car back again to have the new plates fitted. As they are a funny shape to fit the car and are held on with rivets it is easier to let the garage deal with it all.

Normalement the whole process will take about an hour. In my dreams!