Back in Paris now with Gill visiting her parents in Carnforth who have just moved into a retirement home. She returns to Paris by train on Wednesday evening having sold the car in Kent on the way! I'll meet her at Paris Nord.

Mike Emery and I loaded our belongings into the storage facility this morning. It took 3 1/2 hours and he is now on his way home in the hired van to Coventry. A huge thankyou to Mike (and also to John Beresford and John Harvey for helping us load the van on Saturday morning before Tim and Rosie's wedding).

I had been advised by the storage people to bring with me certain documentation and I duly produced it on arrival this morning. The new man there told me I needed to give him photocopies. I said fine: he could perhaps photocopy them for me in the office. He said no. I said why. He said the machine's broken. I suggested he wrote down the relevant details. He said no. I said why. He gave an inexplicable answer. I left the office and walked half a mile to hotel Ibis where a very nice man photocopied my 2 documents for nothing. Return to storage depot. Produce copies. All smiles this time but I had to sign thirteen different documents (one of them in eleven different places) before we could proceed. Ummmmm!

I now have a French mobile phone (it is one of these modern phones that you can keep in your pocket and which can send and receive text messages in lower case, and apparently you can talk to people through it too if you know how). The number (from UK phones)is 0033 6 63 37 40 43

It's back to house hunting for me for this week. So I am inevitably in McDonalds at present having just tried to buy their cheapest item on their menu (a straw for 2 cents) to justify my using their free wifi again. That was refused so I went for ice cream!

We had an extremely frustrating morning in McDonalds last Thursday (in fact I spent 5 1/2 hours in 2 different McDs that day!) battling with internet access, public phones and non existent numbers. By lunchtime I had nearly decided that perhaps we should be trying Madrid not Paris, but that afternoon, before we left for the UK on Friday, I did manage to contact the estate agents regarding a flat near the park where we want to live and have arranged to view it on Wednesday afternoon. The lady on the phone spoke so fast and I had no pen to write down any details that it's a fair chance that I completely misunderstood her and could turn up on the wrong day at the wrong time at the wrong flat in the wrong road! It might be a bit small, but I'll try to see it anyway.

I am sorry I cannot post any photos with this blog, but the cable for my camera is in storage now buried beneath thousands of boxes.

Gordon and Kerry are due to arrive on Wednesday and William and Hannah should now be in Paris but I can't contact them at present.

That's all for now.

George