the tax man is on our side....who can honestly say that

Back from our night-out camp fest, and was back to work in earnest. The rain did not come to much and Wednesday was clear and beautiful again. The kids who used to live across the road were over staying with their Dad and his new family and they all worked together to make the house, sale ready and gardened all day. The boys and their new step brother and sister came over twice with buckets of gold fish. They would rather we had them to care for and enjoy than leave them in the pond which is now very short of water, so I was pleased to become the new fishes mummy , don't think Mike sees himself as Daddy fish, but he does care.. One of the fish looked decidedly fat with eggs so hopefully she will be happy to lay in our gaf rather than hers. We now had to think of a way to feed this growing shoal, the fish given to us last year are now a good size and I am guessing the more fish you have the more you need to feed. Mike and I walked around the barn and the various workshops to look for a cunning way to feed these fish without the ducks tucking in as well. Mike suggested a tractor tyre inner-tube that would, according to the internet, put us back 25 euro but I reckoned that if I explained myself badly enough I could con a second hand one from the tyre guy in town, and that is precisely what we did. I rabbited on about fish and lakes and ducks and made lots of huge hand signs until the very nice man rushed into the workshop and came out with the biggest inner tube you ever saw and said ......bon courage......half french really does get you a long way, but not so far when dealing with the French national health system.

Last week I tried to apply for a French medical insurance travel card so that when we come to the UK we get medical care through the French system, other wise, we would need to pay for all our treatment in the UK, I was astonished when I was told that we no longer had the right to medical care in France, and when I spoke to the french Customer Services I was unable to explain myself or understand why we had been struck off and as the woman on the other end was unable to get herself understood she just put the phone down on me. Fortunately there is a help line for UK expats and a very competent french young lady explained the problem and gave me all the info I needed in English. Mike and I drove over to St Lo to deliver all the paper work I had put in the post, special delivery, last year, that had not made it onto a desk for processing. Today I called the contact I had at our regional NHS head quarters who explained that there had been a document missing last year and the dossier, had been left unattended but it was now under control.....she thinks. I have to send, again, all the documentation to prove we were in France in 2006, which gave us the right to be in the system. When we moved to Brevands in 2007 the government announced that all residents that were not French nationals or over 65 had to pay for their own medical care and If we had come to France and straight here, we would have been in that category. Fortunately our time in Watten discovering we didn't want to work or be in business in France or any where else for that matter gave us the right to stay, but then, like now, it is a very dodgy situation to be in and frankly I don't like it. Good news today is that our tax bill came in and we have nothing to pay, zero, nil, rien, so we do feel that at least the tax man is on our side....who can honestly say that.

Happy 7th aniversay to Deb and Jez, be happy and content with your life.