J'habite en France

It's official. I'm here.

I am now a true resident of the commune of St Germain les Belles in the Haute Vienne. There's no going back. Actually, that's patently untrue, of course I could go back, but why would I want to?

THINGS THAT ARE BRILLIANT ABOUT LIVING IN FRANCE:

Everyone speaks French. Don't talk to me about cleaning women, talk to me about femmes de menage. Pass me that rag please? Mais non, passez-moi ce chiffon. Of course, it's not all bon appetit and merci à vous, there are times when I cry with frustration, particularly on the telephone.

My Little House. I'm still 'indoor camping' but it feels like home. Paul came and fitted my wood-burning stove this morning and is returning on Monday to do the radiators. Furthermore, he and Nikki have got a new cuisinière and are giving me their old cooker. I will have 4 rings and an oven! I've scraped nearly a third of the lino glue off the wooden floor boards downstairs. I'm about to splash white emulsion everywhere to brighten it up. Please note: I am not decorating as such. There will be no prep and I will be painting over all manner of ghastliness in terms of flaky paint and holes in the plaster, but I have ceased kidding myself that I'm going to be ready to decorate this side of next Christmas so expediency is the name of the game.

Proximity of The Tall One. Whether or not the tile section of Castorama was to blame for my gravid state, we are both incredibly excited by the mingling of our genes in a whole new person and not being able to share that except telephonically has been torture. Not to mention expensive. And anyway, baby aside, I missed HIM. Now I can listen to his disembodied voice on the phone knowing that a) it's not costing the earth and b) I'll see him in person that evening.

Mushrooms. I'm sure they have them in the countryside in England but I have never managed to actually live in the countryside since I was old enough to relish fungi for anything other than their psychotropic qualities. Today I found a huge haul of shaggy parasols. Yum. Guess what we're having for supper?

I could go on, and I probably will, in another post. Just to balance the picture, here is a taste of the more challenging aspects of living in a foreign country.

THINGS THAT MAKE ME WANT TO CRY/SHOUT/THROW STUFF

The paperwork. It's insane. Declarations and attestations are required for pretty much everything. I'm currently wading through the paperwork you need to have a baby. I'm not allowed to go into labour until I have successfully negotiated the following:

i) A carte vitale. Essential for accessing free maternity care

ii) Declaration de grosesse. This little form seems innocuous enough until you send the copies off to the relevant departments (CPAM, CAF) and then, like a bureaucratic Lernaean Hydra, it generates more and more forms and demands for documentation that all have to be dispatched separately. My only consolation is that once completed, this mountain of paperwork may actually yield some benefits. Remember those? We used to have them in the UK once upon a time...

iii) Declaration of Paternity. When I saw the midwife at the appropriately named Mother and Baby Hospital, after she'd finished berating me for my lack of paperwork, she told me that until we'd signed a declaration at the Mairie, the baby is, until the divorce is finalised, considered to be the offspring of my dear ex-husband. Bizarre, non?

Luckily, the French calculate full term pregnancy at 42 weeks rather than 41 weeks. The rate I'm going, I'm going to need that extra week.

Did I mention that everyone speaks French? Yes, the charm of communicating in a foreign language can also be a curse. Especially on the telephone. Or if you need to get something done quickly.

Fortunately, part of The Tall One's business is looking after helpless foreigners who haven't a clue. Van Den Berg Immobilier will not only sell you a lovely property, they also have people to support you whilst you take your first baby steps on this alien French-speaking planet. I of course, being stubborn and a bit of a masochist prefer to wrangle with it myself and weep buckets to baffled and incomprehensible bureaucrats on the phone for hours first, but it's good to know I'm not alone.