What a shock!

I had a doctor's appointment at 9 am. Because my doctor is still the one we had when we first came to France, way over in the suburb we haven't lived in for 12 years now, that means reserving a car and hitting the rocade. How that word strikes fear into my heart! Still, instead of joining the rocade at sortie 13, near our home, I scuttle through the university campus and join at sortie 16. I need to come off at 18, so even if there is a hold up, at least I'm not in it for long.

This morning the traffic was fluid, so I arrived at 8:40. Oh well. 10 minutes of music in the car, then into the waiting room.

Doctors here are very good, but you do tend to go in late because they spend more time with people than they allow for. Once you understand this it's OK. You just take a book to read and all is well.

This morning I was out of the surgery at 9:20 with a contented doctor and the comment to keep doing whatever I'm doing. We also chatted about Pat and the kids in that time. "We were not made to run", she said, referring to Pat's problem with her heel, "horses were made to run because of the structure of their leg."

So home, then off to meet our baptism candidates at Horace café. I was in one room at Horace talking baptism while Pat was in another room talking with someone else.

"Vous savez que votre mari est à l'intérieur avec deux autres femmes?" said the waitress. "Ah bon!", exclaimed Patricia, who knew very well indeed.

Then to another café, OvenHeaven, to say goodbye to the splendid Oliver, who is returning to Blighty having fallen in love with Bordeaux.

Then off to Peixotto to meet the friend who is loaning us their car for the weekend. Yay! Swift passage to choir and back this evening!

Then home. Meanwhile.

You know sometimes people say the French are inefficient? Don't you believe it! As part of our flat hunting we decided to register for a logement social, a council flat. The French very sensibly have housing associations that run logements sociaux and some of their flats are just awesome. There are some in the very centre of Bordeaux. Anyway, I started filling in the website but it required the figures from our 2018 tax return, which I have not yet completed. So I left it.

So this morning we received a letter telling us our request for a logement social has been noted and giving us our unique number and stuff. It may not lead to anything, and we have found a flat anyway, but it's an impressive piece of French efficiency.

Now then, where's the figures I collected to do my tax return?


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