Not quite the same old treadmill, but…

I’ve been feeling a bit miffed for the last couple of days. I came to Plazac to enjoy life in my retirement and leave the pressures of the daily grind behind, but I’ve found that apart from the odd few days, or so it feels anyway, when I’ve been able to enjoy myself just doing nothing, I still seem to be finding myself most of the time sitting indoors in front of my computer with the sun beating down outside. And not from choice either!

A couple of days ago, I put together yet another ‘to-do’ list and just about everything on it was time-sensitive. And that, of course, means stress – just how can we ever manage to escape from these things? The items, in no particular order of priority but just as they came to me when I jotted them down the night before, included

  • Go to post office, must send letters that have to be sent locally and to the UK (and that I already spent time creating anyway) …
  • Car, complete extremely complex paperwork to register it in France as one deadline already missed due to UK manufacturer only just sending paperwork required by the French authorities after several weeks, sign yet more paperwork received from the French insurer and, oh, complete and send off the paperwork to cancel the UK registration …
  • Microlight insurance, send email to possible French insurer that a friend told me about as I have upcoming plans (of which more later) and a fixed deadline now rapidly approaching …
  • French health registration, which I thought I’d done with, sort all of the papers including the ones completed by the office at Terrasson, which have been sent back to me in a wad by the health authority, get my birth certificate officially translated by a translator at the Court of Appeal of Bordeaux and send them all back again, together with the translation (yeah I know, don’t ask me 😕 ) …
  • UK Income Tax Return, fill it out and return it before the tax deadline …
  • Old business, disposed of some weeks ago, assist new owner for agreed time period …
  • Local microlight airfield, contact owner, check cost, availability etc …
  • Water company, pay latest bill before it’s overdue …

And so it seems to go on, a never-ending stream of paperwork that as fast as you get it cleared, another batch seems to find its way into your mail box. And, of course, all the more tricky to deal with because the emails and correspondence I write also have to be in French 🙂

But I guess that’s the game I signed up for when I came here and I’m only miffed really because it just seems to be never-ending. It won’t be, of course. The car and health registration will only have to be sorted out once and the microlight stuff too. The MYRO problems haven’t helped in that area either, of course. And paying water bills is something we have to do wherever we are – and at least I don’t now have the spectre of a monthly mortgage hanging over me these days, as I did before I sold my house in the UK. So on balance, although I grumble, and don’t we all, it ain’t really all bad 😉

But to finish off and show just how peeved I was, here’s a pic of me taken yesterday…

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Wochit…. who just said, ‘Miserable looking perisher…’