Setting Up Home

We spent the last couple of days doing tasks that LissaLou (rightly!) classes as boring things! Boring, but vital nevertheless!

Rather than the NHS, here we have Sécurité Sociale. In order to get any treatment etc, you need to have a number, then you pay and you get reimbursed the appropriate amount afterwards. I still think the NHS is simpler, though Bertie was arguing it out with me on the basis of the quality offered! As you can imagine (we are in the midst of French bureaucrocy, and laid-back West Indies on top of that!), getting a number is quite a lengthy process, which my laid-back husband hasn't yet got round to doing...So it was a with great joy that he discovered a gentleman he sat chatting to most of Sunday afternoon at church turned out to work in the very section of the Sécu that we need! We have handed in our European Insurance cards (formerly known as E111) and just need to hand in bank details, then hey presto!

Re the bank, Bertie decided to open a new account at La Poste. Would you believe, he went along to do so and the lady who opens accounts is on holiday for the month of August!! I love it! In any case, he needed an attestation de résidence so he got his mum to write one out and took it to the police station where he met a former schoolfriend who did it immediately for him. It's all about who you know here...! And apparently I don't need a carte de séjour here which is good.

We are still waiting our cooker. Bertie phones every few days and they say it will be ready for collcetion in a few days and so on... Perhaps they are making it?

In the meantime we keep checking Paruvendudom which is the Loot of Guadeloupe, with extra items included. Still no car, but we saw a possible fridge which we checked out yesterday. It was clean, it worked, we paid! (The fridges we have seen previously have been pretty horrible, including at the place for troquer, where people leave items with a price to haggle and the store takes a fee too.) As a bonus, he was selling a nice kitchen cupboard too! We just need to arrange a trip with Bertie's sister's huge car to get it home, then no more traipsing up and down the stairs or having items mysteriously disappear!

Our neighbours go back to France on Sunday so I am planning how we will spread ourselves over the top floor. My own bedroom beckons! Though we will have Baby JoJo with us for the meantime. It is funny starting from almost scratch again, we have been buying tea towels, measuring jugs, chopping board etc etc.

On the job front, Bertie is applying for the position of English Assistant which is 12 hours a week. Again, a lady at the church on Sunday gave him the details of who to contact, all very helpful!