I'm so excited!

I just had my first article published on the internet! Here is the link, I hope you can make it work, I couldn't. By the way, who exactly is Solitaire! Anyway I recognise it so I know it's mine.

The trip to the DOLE office went well enough last Friday - once we'd found the place. Apparently it only moved a week ago and everybody we asked only knew where the old office was. That explained why the GPS didn't recognise the address. Hey-ho. Thankfully they didn't send me out of there with a list of potential employers wanting to interview me, but I do have to go to a "back to work" workshop in a week or so where they'll teach me how to write a CV - ha! You don't have to sign on any more either, just go on line and tick a few boxes. The age of technology, I remember the last time I went on the dole as a sixteen year old school leaver you had to sign a bit of paper in front of a right snotty cow after having queued all morning then a cheque for £16 came through the door the following Friday. How times have changed!

Next door gave Dear Son (14) a pair of hamsters. Two days later, one had given birth and now we have 9. Does anybody want a hamster? When will we learn not to trust the French? One new cage later 25 euros (we had to separate them!) and DS now knows that there's no such thing as a free hamster - he paid! They are cute though (scratch that, never show weakness!)

The bank have agreed in principle to extend the mortgage so we won't be evicted yet. Best I can do for good news I'm afraid. We lost the sunshine for a few days, but it's back with a vengeance now, what with that and the hot flushes, I'm never at the right temperature! We won't go there.

That's it I think, more later if I think of anything I missed!

Wish me luck - I'll need it

I've been made redundant! Don't worry, it's just a paper exercise, I'm fully employed and more, but it costs too much for DH to employ me in the French system, so I've been sacked! In a little over half an hour, I'm off to Pole-Emploi in Saintes (the French equivalent of the DOLE office) to register as unemployed. I'll only get a pittance, but it means DH doesn't have to pay OVER 600 euros a month to the government for me insurance, pensions etc. This interview is to discuss my situation (in French). That'll be interesting .... I'll let you know how I get on.

As part of my job search, I'm registered with an internet freelancer site called Get a Freelancer (original). I've been invited to quote for a job on there this morning, translating English porn videos into French! That it should come to this. They say that they're not that interested in the level of grammar - I'll bet! I don't imagine there'll be much dialogue, but they want the action described in French. What was the real insult was that they're only prepared to pay less than $1 per 45 minute video translated. I don't think I'll bother. Dole office, here I come!

Let us pray

I often think that there's enough material here to keep six blogs going, but then a lot of it is probably quite boring if you're not personally involved in it. However, I couldn't resist sending you the latest development in the non-sale of the gites.

We at this very moment have a very nice couple from Cork in Ireland staying with us. Their names are Michael and Mary and they are both chefs, she in particular is a pastry chef. They came to see the gites through an estate agent with a view to buying them earlier this year. They (like many before them) decided there and then that this was what they had been looking for to establish their long held dream of a cookery school. They cancelled all their other appointments, then went home to Cork and arranged a euro loan on some rental properties that they have in Dublin. So far, so good, so you know that there's going to be a 'but' and here it is...

Mary's father has never got over the recent death of her mother and has been going to rack and ruin ever since. The minute they got the loan agreed in principle from the bank, he went into a steep decline and ever since he's been in a hospice, weaker by the day and they're just waiting for him to be taken so they can get on with their dream cookery school.

Is God trying to tell me something? It does seem a bit harsh that somebody has to die in order to sell the gites and move on with my/our lives. I don't mean to be cruel to the old boy, but could he please get on with it? I don't want it to be painful, just quick! The banks will be on our backs any day now, and you have to admit it sounds like a pretty lame story to pass on to them. They'd laugh us out of the place. Now let us pray....