Waiting for custom

It may well be not till next year till all these tables are full again. The tourists have mostly gone and the short holiday season in the village is over. Life is resuming its usual rhythm and the frenetic round of activity has slowed. I spent the morning recording extracts to listen to in this afternoon's French conversation class and more fruitless attempts to get some sense out of the CPAM, the French health payments office. The paperwork is buried in an office somewhere and nothing is visible on the Customer Service screens. It rather begs the question of why you would have a Customer Service department that is incapable of giving any sensible information!