New flat!

It's been a while since I last updated and a lot has happened.  We're finally settled in our new flat and already got the first red wine stain on the flooring!

After much hassle (again due to French strikes) we finally signed our contract last Wednesday night and despite the fact we had no gas to cook with, heat the water with or heat the flat with we moved in.  The gas man arrived promptly the next morning and connected us and we were blessed with heat.  We probably should have called up to change the electricity account over to us on the same day but we've been taking advantage of the previous occupant's (Monsieur Lorne) oversight in not cancelling his electricity and been using it until this afternoon :)

Fortunately, we all had Thursday off and spent the day getting the place sorted.  We started cleaning at the crack of dawn before the gas man came and then headed to IKEA.  Nightmare!!  First of all, the normally simple to use bus system had us getting on what felt like a million buses asking if they went to IKEA because the route was clearly designed by a moron.  Only 1 out of 4 buses on that route pass IKEA even though it's the same route, what's the point in that?  It obviously makes sense to the French.......after waiting for about 40 minutes a teacher at Emily's school volunteered to drive the three of us to IKEA herself.  After a quick trip round IKEA we had 2 trolleys of lamps, pillows, duvets, bins, mops etc and 3 beds.  The stuff itself barely fit in the car so Emily, Jen and I got the bus home and Emily's teacher drove our stuff back.  She obviously got there before us so she parked outside the flat and got a beggar on the street to help her in with the stuff!  After a bit more faffing about we settled down to build the beds only to discover that the slats weren't included and you have to buy them separately.  There was no other choice than to finally master this bus route and get back to IKEA to buy them or there was nothing to sleep on that night as I had had the bed that was already in my room removed.  Long story short, Jen and I made it back to IKEA while Emily went to the supermarket.  Finding the slats was easy, accepting the price wasn't and carrying 2 boxes back on the bus was near impossible. It said on the packaging it weighed 7kg - OUTRIGHT LIE!  We figured out that 7kg was probably the weight of a couple of average sized babies and there was no way these boxes were the same weight as that.  The next challenge was getting the boxes up the 3 flights of spiral staircase to our flat.  I believe Jen has a photo on her phone that she took during this endeavour.  I won't be publishing it.  Our plans to have our first homecooked meal in the flat with a bottle of champagne were ruined.  We spent hours building the builds and getting our stuff organised, finally ate at about 10 and then I got to bed at about half 2.  However, as much hassle and trouble as all this sounds every 5 minutes one of us would comment on how happy we were to finally be there and how we couldn't believe it had finally all come together.  Definitely worth all the hassle!

Please bear in the mind the following pictures were taken very late and after a very long and difficult day!

Other than the flat........the night before we moved out Emily and I managed to set off the fire alarm in the school making dinner.  Fortunately, as it was dinner time most of the inmates were in the canteen eating and not many of them had to evacuate their rooms. 

Smoke alarm dismantled - check



Frying pan held out the window - check



Pleased with ourselves - check!

We had an early Halloween night out on Friday but the less said about that the better.  Seeing some pictures will be much more interesting than hearing about what parts I remember so I'll still give you some nice photos.  You may spot one too many tequilas in my hand....

I have learned that pre-lashing is our equivalent of a wee carry out at home before heading out

I might possibly have further exciting stuff to tell you shortly.  The plan is to visit a couple of champagne houses over the next couple of days and maybe even the musee des beaux arts which is our next door neighbour!  Stay tuned! X