And more of the same!

While last week was another crappy week I keep hoping that the more I plough on through, the easier things will get. It's got to, right? My electrician is coming by tomorrow to finish one final thing (28 days and counting) so I got his bills sorted out and went to make a final payment last week. At this point I owed him €6,421 but when I went to make the payment a notice popped up from my bank to say that I was limited to payments of maximum €3,000 per day. Not a problem, I'll just make the payments over the next couple of days!!! So on 5 March I went to send €3,000 but my bank blocked me at €2,000, so while it was frustrating I simply went back every 24 hours for three days to make another payment - only to find out that none of them were going through, despite there being sufficient funds in the account and my authorizing these payments via an app on my phone! So I contacted the bank to see what was going on and while one payment went through the others didn't, so they told me to try again. So I try again and yet again my payments aren't going through and I'm starting to pull my hair out! Anyway on Friday I went into town to get two new keys cut for sewing club and the place that does the key cutting had a sign on the door saying "cash only" (hmm, nice little number you've got going on there buddy), so I paid cash and then went to the bank to deposit a sewing club cheque back into my account. While I was there I thought I'd try to find out what was going on so booked an appointment on the spot and sat in the waiting room to wait for the young man to call me over. While I was there I noticed a horrendous smell of alcohol which was obviously coming from the old man the employee was dealing with at that moment, but when he straightened up I realized it was Stephan, who I knew from when Stan had his little bar in the village! While Stephan was filling out some forms, the employee called me over but I asked him to step outside and turned my back to Stephan, indicating that I didn't want him to see me. The last two times I've seen Stephan in town he's asked me for money (he has plenty, he obviously just pours it down his throat), but at least I was finally able to get the remaining amount transferred to my electrician, despite both of us holding our noses because the smell coming off of Stephan was horrendous. I guess he's fallen off the wagon again then!

On Tuesday a technician from my phone carrier (SFR) showed up to get me hooked up with fibre but once he opened up the concrete trap near my neighbour's garden he was a cussin' and a swearin' like nobody's business. Whoever had worked on the phone lines before had obviously "done a terrible job" and how was he supposed to get this sorted. He had a strange gait whereby his right leg kinda swung out a bit and the madder he got the more that leg swung and I thought if he keeps going like this he's going to end up spinning himself into the ground like some kind of donar kebab! What I hadn't realized was that he had actually dropped the concrete trap into the hole and broken more wires than he fixed so now all three of our houses were cut off from the internet. Thankfully my neighbour Isabelle was there because he was trying to tell her to get somebody in to fix it but she stood her ground and said no, everything was working until you showed up, now it's up to you to fix it (spin, spin, cuss, cuss)! Eventually I got my mobile and wifi back up and running but my landline and therefore my security cameras are still not working so they have to come back again. Piss up and brewery really springs to mind with this one! And that was when my favourite neighbour came round to say that she didn't have wifi anywhere in the house either (she's also with SFR), so after much huffing and puffing I managed to get her hooked up to my own wifi, which is fine, but obviously she needs to have her own network restored! I can't believe next week will be a year since her husband died and it's amazing how much she has progressed from the beaten down timid little woman to a woman who, while not exactly ready to take on Everest, is now smiling again and I've even gotten putting her appointments into her telephone calendar "all on her own like a big girl" (her words, not mine)!

The saga with my solar panels is still ongoing, with the young woman I spoke to last time telling me that "of course your panels are hooked up to the grid" and me pointing out to her that "of course I've never received any of this paperwork because you've got my email address wrong" (honey, I may speak with an accent but I don't think with one)!!! Anyway, on Friday I called again and a rather sweet older gent explained to me that he was just the accountant but he took my number and a very nice older lady called back so I got to explain my situation to her from start to finish. And she agreed with me that my panels couldn't possibly be hooked up because I didn't have a "BTA number" from EDF. Thank god someone is finally talking to me like I'm not stupid! She gave me enough information that I was able to get in touch with EDF to get the aforementioned BTA number and has promised to get back to me tomorrow. We'll see if she does but somehow I think she will. Turns out she's the wife of the company owner and I just wish she could give her snotty employee lessons on how not to talk to people!

In other news, I was checking my lottery numbers the other week and much to my surprise I found I'd won €351!!! Oh I realize over the years I've given them much more than that but it was a nice surprise anyway, and since Jordan had the week off to take care of the kids, I met him at the supermarket and paid for their groceries (plus Charlie got a nice lego set)! 

I spoke to my sister at the weekend and she was telling me that her granddaughter was taking her O'level cookery exam on Tuesday so they'd been practicing at home. I forget what she was making for a starter but the main course was lasagne (where she had to make the lasagna sheets herself) and tiramisu for dessert! I hadn't realized that in some schools at least they've gone back to home economics lessons, and I'm delighted to hear it (and I'm sure she'll pass)!

Talking of pasta, I'd made stuffed cannelloni for Wednesday when I was to take care of Charlie in the afternoon, but Jordan sent me a message on the Tuesday evening to say that Elynn had been projectile vomiting and the emergency number Jen called told them to take her straight to the hospital as she was so little. She didn't seem to be in any pain, and didn't have diarrhoea, just the vomiting, but as they were worried it might be something to do with her intestine they kept her in overnight (Jen stayed with her of course). It was a good job I went over anyway because I was able to keep Charlie for the next 10 hours while Jordan went back to the hospital with stuff for Jen and they got him to try to give her a bottle of baby formula to see if she was allergic to that. They'd only just started trying to wean her off breast milk so potentially it could have been that, but they kept her in another night and they will get the results of her blood tests tomorrow hopefully, and can take it from there! They've all really been through the wringer lately, so I'm sure they'll be glad to know one way or the other where they go from here!

And finally, yoga started back up again on Monday and was I ever glad to be back there. We did one pose which I reckon is new to me, although the teacher says we've done it before. It's called the pigeon pose and when I commented afterwards what a great exercise that was, she said she wasn't surprised as it really works the sciatic nerve! Rather than looking like an elegant pigeon I'm pretty sure I looked like a bloated seagull hovering over a bag of chips, but ya takes the wins where ya can, right?

The pigeon pose!

Finally (hopefully?) coming up for air!

You know how sod's law dictates that when one thing goes wrong, everything else comes slamming at you like a bloody tsunami? Well the last couple of months have felt like that for me but finally/hopefully things are starting to look up. I've been absolutely exhausted for so long but I had promised to look after Charlie (school holidays) on Wednesday so duly got up at 6 a.m. to get over there by eight in order for Jen to go to work. He's a great little kid but man he wears me out. In his defence, if I had to look after him every day I'd probably have a better routine but at the moment he seems to think I'm his best friend in all the world. Mind you, if I hear just once more how his other granny doesn't colour outside the lines I may have to restrain myself!!!! I took him out to the park and into the woods for almost three hours (the weather's glorious here) in the hopes it would wear him out - which it did - but you can probably guess how I was feeling by the time I got him back home and down for a nap. Mind you, as I say, I can really only blame myself for being so tired, because as his mom walked through the door he yelled "Nanny, motorbikes" so we both dashed to our chairs (placed one in front of the other) and put our tupperware bowls on our heads (crash helmets - hygienic, right) and set off on our "motos" going vroom vroom! I swear mom thinks I'm insane, but at least Jordan is used to it!

Elynn was just getting over a nasty cough (thank you daycare) and I reckon she passed it on to me because I have been coughing enough to keep waking me up ever since. So tonight I decided I had to go through my medicine cabinet to fish out the oregano oil that worked so well last time and when I finally found it I put two drops into a very small amount of water (it's disgusting), must have coughed at the same time and promptly threw up (tmi, I know). But for the last four hours I haven't coughed once so I'm ever more convinced! Mind you, seeing the complete disaster zone that passes for a medicine cabinet, I realized right now would be a good time to start sorting it out, so if anyone needed a couple of paracetamol back in 2017, you should have just given me a call!

Friday was day 27 of the electrician being here (so over five weeks so far) but hopefully just one more day will be the end of it. However nice he is, I'm sure we will both be glad to see the back of each other! He asked what was going on with the Chuckle Brothers (the three Bangladeshi brothers - electrician/plumber/painter and decorator, where I had refused the electrican's quote but accepted the other two) and I told him nothing as I'd not seen hide nor hair of them since they first came over in January. So he told me to get down to the bank and block the deposit cheque (€965) as after 30 days their quote was no longer valid and it would be better to block it rather than try to get the money back. So then he asks what's going on with my solar panels (nothing, seemingly) and while I had noticed my bills hadn't gone down at all he told me to get right onto the installers and ask what the hell was going on. The woman told me that everything absolutely was up and running and sent me three different legal documents to show that they absolutely had sent the paperwork to me to get me hooked up to the grid. The only problem was that they'd gotten both my telephone number and my email address wrong, so it's no wonder I'd never received the paperwork (which I wasn't aware was coming and that I needed to sign). I sent her a copy of these mistakes so we'll see how that plays out next week! So then he points out how crap my wifi is (I know) and had me call my provider there and then to find out what was going on, given how much I was paying. The end result is my provider is coming to instal fibre on Tuesday, I've gotten a mobile wifi for €5 and both my landline and my mobile fees have gone down. It's not that I didn't know these things needed taken care of (except for the solar panels) but sometimes it all just feels overwhelming. So maybe I will miss this young man after all!

Edited to add: and of course I totally forgot about my security cameras. My service provider sent me a parcel containing batteries and asking me to call them in order for them to help me change the batteries in my internal camera. I thought "how difficult could that be?" (assuming you don't mind getting up a stepladder) and it was indeed easy. But then they kept sending me messages asking me to call them - which of course I ignored repeatedly because I'd changed the batteries. Eventually, as they wouldn't give up, I called back rather bad-temperedly but what they wanted to do was do a test run to make sure the cameras were functioning correctly (my bad)! So they had me move out of sight, activate the internal alarm, and then move into the line of the camera to set the alarm off so they could take a picture and tell me what I was wearing. Of course the alarm was so loud that my neighbour came running round, I ran to the door and all the camera guy was either a photo of my right foot or my backside à la Mr. Bean as I ran out of shot!!!! In the end it was okay as I just asked him what was hanging over my banister (he correctly answered a white sweater) so another thing sorted. Of course it was no big deal but all these things came hammering at me like a battering ram and to say I wasn't necessarily "gracious" (at least in my own mind) would be an understatement!

In other news, last Saturday was our latest board game evening and I was asking the host, Philippe, how his mom was coping since his 62 year old sister had died suddenly just before Christmas. It turns out his mom had died about 10 days later! I felt bad as I obviously had no idea, but he reckons his mom just gave up after his sister died. Even so, that's a hard blow for anyone to bear in such a short space of time!

The lady from sewing club who had me buy stuff from Amazon for her sent me a message today asking if I could get something else for her urgently as it was needed for a grandchild's birthday on Friday!!! I ignored her for a while but in the end I looked it up and the smaller version that she wanted was not available, and the bigger one wouldn't ship until 20th March, so I suggested she try one of the other sites where she'd found the photo. And can you believe it - she asked me if I had accounts with these other sites!!! I told her no, I only felt comfortable putting my credit card information on Amazon as I trust them and said she might want to ask one of her own children! Can you believe the nerve of some people!

What with not sleeping and then being constantly on the go, I really have been tired these past few weeks, so yesterday I decided I had to get myself down to Passy for a walk and then again off out into the woods today to try to blow these cobwebs away. While I was walking I picked back up listening to Traitor King and I have to admit that by the time she gets to Chapter 8 it starts to get much more interesting, so yeah, if you have the patience to get through the first few chapters it's another book I would recommend. And again, Edward comes over as a weak, pompous and very entitled alpha wimp who, Churchill knew, was flapping his jaws to the Nazis, either via Wallis and one of her many lovers (von Ribbentrop, who was Nazi Germany's Foreign Affairs Minister) or just generally around any dinner table where, given the time, would have been comprised 50% of foreign spies!

And finally, I did end up taking the kids' friend, Julien, up to Avoriaz for his dog-sledding outing. He was sooooo nervous as (according to him) he's always been a wimp. He went yadda, yadda, yadda the entire 60 km drive up to Avoriaz until in the end I just looked at him and said "you do realize I'm not listening to a word you're saying don't you"? He bought me lunch and I stood outside to watch them getting the dogs ready and filmed him as he set off (he did pretty darn well "for a wimp"). And he loved it so I'm so glad I made the effort!

Avoriaz

The intrepid Julien!

So hopefully things are starting to calm down a little here. This weekend was the start of the Venetian carnaval in Annecy but as I knew you wouldn't be able to get anywhere near Annecy right now, I'll just have to wait until they come back to La Roche again!