not too long now we hope.

This is just a guess, but would you say that we are making a  habit of celebrating around big tables. It is, I must confess my most favourite way to celebrate and this lunch, in honour of Peter’s 70^th birthday ticked all the boxes and marked the day for him. Sarah cooked a wonderful meal for us with the most delicious peaches in a sauce which promised to be at least one thousand calories a spoonful so I ate with relish knowing I would need to starve for the next two days to make up for this treat.  I am always amazed on these occasions when we arrive at midday, have a welcoming drink, sit down, eat, drink and be merry and the next thing you know five hours has passed by and it is time to go. I am always up for carrying on but the art of not outstaying your welcome is a fine balance and one to nurture unlike my neighbour who came in for aperitifs at seven one evening and stayed until eleven thirty by which time the thought of dinner had rolled over and put itself to bed.

We have both been in a bit of an upset and frustrated over the outcome of the electric validation process for the mobile homes and have spent hours thinking through our next move.  We did go out and buy the fuse box and Mike did start to put it together to make a plug and socket arrangement but came in very upset and said that connecting these vans up on plugs and sockets goes against all the learning and good practice procedures he has accomplished throughout his working life.

We decided to call the consuel again and ask for a re-test because we felt that the inspector was adopting the sloppy shoulder technique. We had to wait until Monday to make that call as the country was closed down on Thursday to mark Bastille day and then the country was closed down on Friday because it was Friday and the consuel had also decided to take “le pont” which means the bridge and have a nice long weekend. It therefore took me all morning to get a reply on Monday as the whole world were trying to contact them as well. I did get through, and I did speak to somebody who sounded competent but came away with absolutely no progress. It appears that the European regulation NF C15-100 does not specify mobile homes so they cannot be tested like a normal electrical installation and that is why you have to pug them in. We were still not convinced, so I called an electrical consultant and he confirmed the horror of this situation. Over a few glasses of good red wine our friend Michael said, “roll over Mike, and do as they are asking”. So we have, and we are, and we did. In the mean time we have received a form from the hospital in St Lo which needed filling in before Mike could even ask for an appointment for an MRI scan on his knee and medical talk is as weird as electrical talk so out came the dictionary and yet more hours of decipher and guess work.  Finally I had to  call them to check the true meaning of some of the questions. The problem with this form, in the end was that all the answers had to be  “No”  but in order to get you to say no they asked the question in the most obscure tense and turn of phrase. Anyway, the next few days will be full of people and fun with my sister Mim coming tomorrow and my mate Mia coming on Wednesday, Gill comes on the 9^th Aug and my Mum and Mr and Mrs Field are coming on the 26^th Aug and now you can see why we soooo want our mobile homes working ….not too long now, we hope.