Wednesday 13 November 2013

Renovation Project - Ooh la la, I am becoming French!!!!!!!

Renovation Project - Ooh la la, I am becoming French!!!!!!!

We have good news on the suites, also quite scary and nerve-wracking!! I received a call from a French woman, I do my normal, I’m sorry but I only speak a little bit of French blurb, when I catch the word canapés, this is the French word for sofa, she has rang me, oh fantastic, oh bugger, she doesn’t speak English (yes I know I have been here for over a year, but somehow I still assume that everyone will speak English).

I am speaking to her on the phone and I understand most of what is being said, but better still I am actually replying and she understands me!!!!!!!

OMG I am having my first French phone call, there are bits that are very difficult and I have to ask her to wait a minute while I busily type in to Google translate, but these are only little bits, I manage to arrange a time and date to view them but then disaster strikes, no matter how she says the name of her road, I cannot get it, I am also not able to spell it as I have not fully got my head around the French alphabet. Eventually I give up and ask if I can call her back when I have a friend who can speak more fluently than I can; luckily this is not a problem.

I pop to Sheila’s and of course I interrupt them just as they are putting dinner on the table, maybe I should’ve called first but I was so excited!

Sheila is as helpful as ever and makes the call, I am in between being excited about my new suite and cringing as I am stopping somebody from having dinner, I do make the offer of calling back, but I think it may not of seemed a genuine offer, can’t think why, maybe it had something to do with the fact that I was hopping around like a demented toddler with excitement?

My call had been successful and I had arranged everything correctly other than the name of the road, so we now have this and we are going to visit on Friday.

I am buoyed on by the success of my phone call and get very brave and decide to visit the Mairie with all of our completed planning permission documents (yes I even completed them myself!).

At the Mairie the receptionist speaks no English either (again why am I shocked, I don’t live in England!!!!!!!) and she says I can have an appointment next week, I try to say that it is urgent and I will be very quick, luckily the door opens and the planning officer finishes a meeting and agrees to see me once she realises I am only dropping documents off.

We go through them and the only mistake I have made is by missing one signature, I am so impressed, I am becoming French (OK I still sound like a sat nav, but at least now it is a sat nav that can be understood!).

I think after the upset of the travel fiasco, I now feel really good again, I am becoming French!!!!!!

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