I'm not going to say 'The Lord' on account of not personally having any belief in Him, but someone is definately having a laugh at my expense these days me thinks.
I had been getting quite pleased with the way things have been going for us of late. We're not in the money yet (not even out of debt), but things having been looking a bit more positive. We recently took two separate weeks bookings for next year already and two more weeks for this year at the end of the month. I won a discount card at the supermarket for €3,00 which said on the back 'use once or many times, valid until 31 Jan 2010' and I found a load of cut down oak at the side of the road at the weekend - the council have been trimming the roadside trees and hedges, most of it is little branches and leafy stuff - but this was good chunks of oak tree, so Adrian and Dad went and cut it up a bit and collected in the trailor the other day - free wood for burning on the fire! Can't use it for a couple of years, but even so, free fuel is free fuel. Also, one of the two massive council bills arrived and it was down about €500,00 on last year! And we're starting to organise ourselves (well I am) and sell some stuff we don't need. Some is in small ads and some (the bigger furniture stuff) I thought we sell through the local 'depot vente' (a place where you can sell your stuff. They take a bit of commission, but they're popular and it's like walking round a shop, but it's not like cash converters, you get your money after it's sold).
So, with all these good things happening, I started to think that maybe things were looking up for us....
Went to the supermarket today, handed over discount card at the till, which was applied to my bill and then the cashier threw it away! I was not a happy bunny. After slight argument with the cashier it turns out that the phrase 'use once or many times' means 'you can use it many times so long as you haven't used up the total credit shown on the card'. ie you can buy three things for €1,00 on three separate occasions, but once you've used your €3,00, that's it, there is no more. Too good to be true, eh? I'm sure in the uk I could have sued under the trades misdiscription act or something (well worth it for three euros), but they've not heard of that over here, they say what they want, they do what they want, they charge what they want and 'what's this EU law you keep telling me about? Never heard of it, don't know what you're talking about. This is FRANCE madam'.
Then we got one of our personal tax bills in for €645,00. Then yesterday morning found out that since Georgia turned three the other day our child benefit has now dropped by €177,00 per month!! That's €2124,00 per year of income gone!
After the succesful supermarket trip this morning, I thought I'd pop along to the depot vente and ask them about selling our stuff. They are closing down, not taking on any more stuff. Couple of sofa's anyone? Two children's cot/toddler beds, one electric reclining granny chair (pleasant shade of dusky pink)?
However, this evening at school I was introduced to another parent who is looking for a gite for christmas for her relatives, so hopefully that might come to something, even though it's only three nights. And then later on this evening we had an email from some lovely folk who stayed here last year and they're coming back next year - two weeks in middle of August!! Am very pleased, they are a really nice family, so looking forward to seeing them again.
But I am just wondering how long will it be until it all goes bad again......
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