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!