Life, butt kicking and other menial stuff

Now that I have the computer back I'm having a hard time getting used to writing each day again. I really missed not being able to write for the first four weeks of our saga, but after a while it became normal. After six weeks I started to sound like my friend Mathilde who claims with much panache that she "wouldn't know where to find the time to use a computer even if she had one." Oh dear, it was lucky we got back up and running when we did. I almost lost my verve.

Writing is like a muscle. If you don't use that muscle it gets all flabby. My writing muscle is officially flabby. I can't seem to get what I want to say on the page. I have too much to say so that might be part of the problem.

Okay so what's going on here on Lac Léman you ask. Work on the house is slow and to be honest the house is full of fleas. We have to methodically chemically bomb it each Summer. It's embarrassing but true that we are the proud owners of a flea shack *. Apparently once the walls are finished this won't be a problem, one can only hope. Meanwhile we scratch and slap and do a dance. Meanwhile the cats live outside because they can't take it.

We've moved about 20 percent of our belongings to Lyon. We're part city folk now! We rented a brand new two bedroom apartment in Villeurbanne in the eastern sector of the city. It's kind of cool living in the city but frankly and to be perfectly honest we feel really, really lost. I'm only there three days a week for the moment and I feel like I'm living in the middle of some strange reality show. maybe it's because the apartment is so empty and we haven't had time to venture out yet. Maybe it's the strange noises or the view out the window of well, the other building, or maybe it's just that we're spoiled beyond belief. We do feel like we live in paradise in spite of the fleas.

The butt kicker stuff was simply the move which surprisingly took a lot of energy and caused lots of tears. We had no electricity for two days and currently no gas, and thus no hot water! The movers were lame and forgot to move our new refrigerator, failed to show up on the right day, chose to not deliver our stuff on the same day (because of their not wanting to miss the stupid World Cup...might have let us know before Seb took half the day off!), and just caused a general mess of things. We chose Les Déménageurs Breton and they were positively horrid. They charged us ie. Seb's company 3,000 euros to move just 15 pieces of furniture two hours away...outrageous. They were completely dishonest and did all the comparison bids "themselves," sneaky bastards. Seb let them get away with it because he was too busy to find the three comparison quotes. Also let it be known that these people simply send local movers to your house, a sort of subcontracting affair. The local movers were completely unprofessional and scratched a lot of our furniture because they stacked it on top of each other. Okay now I have chair marks on my sofa table and a big gouge in our new coffee table. Now we know better than to ever use them again. We tend to move a lot so that's really saying something when you lose our account.

My friend Bea left the week of our move and then we went to do the IVF transfer. The following week we were waiting for our bank loan to come through on the house...we're still waiting. When it rains here it really pours. Hopefully the rest of the Summer will give us some breathing room. My mom arrives in two weeks and I could use a little time to just hang out and relax with mom ...no stress.

* The fleas are in our walls because the stones are mortered with straw and mud. Until we repoint all the masonry we will contine having a Summer flea revival each year. What's funny is how the fleas arrive right along with the Summer tourists.