Blur

School office in the morning, briefly, with CheeseLady, then home to hide from the cold weather behind the (still broken) iron. Mr B decided to come with me to Castres to start the car process, so once all the bits of paper were accumulated and copied, off we went.

After two false starts, we were finally at the correct office. In my experience there is only one design for French government offices: you enter into a small space in front of a desk, the space will typically be 6 metres square and filled with chairs. The temperature will be approximately 40 degrees Celsius in winter and summer.

Behind the desk, a large open plan office filled with stacks of paper, with about 100 square metres of space per member of staff. These members of staff will be sitting behind a bank of filing cabinets, out of sight. Though you will be able to hear them chatting, they will not be able to hear your polite cough, nor the excessively loud conversation you have with the person in front of you in the queue.

When you do get someone's attention, the best way to assure good service is to have all the documents you're supposed to, in the right order, with copies already made. This way the nice lady will let you get away with not filling in any of the boxes on the form that you can't be bothered which.

And so we have proof that our car is worth so little that there's no tax to pay. Next, home to book the French MoT (CT) and the unexpected news that they won't fit the new headlights for me. So that'll be Friday afternoon's joyful job...