La pose du poêle

Well on Wednesday I got a call from the Centre Matériaux (building materials department) of Leroy Merlin to ask me please to visit the Service Pose (installation service) with the documentation for the woodstove.

I thought to myself that of course it couldn't have been as simple to place the order as it had seemed. Everything in France seems to require multiple visits with ever increasing amounts of documentation.

So I took my envelope and scuttled off the the Service Pose - which was closed.

Nobody there.

"Il faut téléphoner pour un rendezvous", said the lady at customer service, between giving innumerable vouchers for tins of paint returned unopened.

OK - we were out on Thursday so it would have to wait a little. Then on Friday (today) my day got taken up with other more pressing things (and no, I don't mean the ironing).

But not until I had had an important phone call ... from M Lussac, the man who will fit the stove.

"When will they deliver the stuff?" he asked.

"Not before 6 September", quoth I.

"OK", he said, "I'll come to install it on 1 October. Ask them to deliver everything on Friday 28 September. It's no good having it delivered too early."

Crackerjack ! So I'll phone the Service Pose on Monday and scuttle round there when I can get a rendezvous.

Oh yes - and I saw a spanking woodshed today. Two pieces of corrugated iron balanced on top of a pile of wood to make a roof. Now where can I find two pieces of corrugated iron... ?

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