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Wednesday 14.8.02 | Three days until the end of the reign of the Queen of darkness, and then all shalt be calm and light. Thursday 15.8.02 Two days. And now, just to invoke some pity, is my record of trying my very best to apply for a French bank account, which I did yesterday. And my God, was it admin hell. All day, roughly 8.30-16.30: Procrastinate in as many ways as possible, including going to Harrod's with Chris, drinking multiple cups of coffee in Soho and various other crap. 16.45: Sigh. Best get on with it. Chew nails for five minutes whilst trying to locate forms. 16.50: Ah. Found forms in pile of paper. Look at rest of papers. Realise that forms have been in my scrap pile. Oops. 16.55: Read opening 'HIYA!!' letter from HSBC about their miserable minions in France. Read list of required documents. Feel blood pressure start to rise. 17.00: First form done almost completely. Don't know what my proxy number is though, so choose to ignore. 17.00: Form no. 2 presents problems. Asks for account number in France. But this is what I'm applying for. Write 'N/A' in lots of boxes. 17.02: Oh for feck's sake. Turn page and find pages of crap legal French about mortgages. Decide that, since I'm not going to be getting a mortgage - all being well - that form can be signed and forgotten about. 17.03: Resist temptation to sign self as Michael Mouse. 17.05: Resist temptation to sign self as Bugger off and die as I discover form number 4, which asks for precisely the same bloody info as 2, only declaring that I am single. 17.07: Try to understand, shitkickers, that I'm not a fecking business. 17.15: Wake up from day-dream. Realise have been contemplating window. Throwing pages out becomes seriously tempting prospect. 17.20: Perhaps Frenchies won't take too kindly if I put 'search me' as the answer to their crappy questions. Fill in form 4 as best I can. 17.30: Go down to photocopy passport. Guffaw at ludicrous photo which looks nothing like me (honest!) 17.40: Do not have a shagging utility bill to prove my address. Do not even have a sodding address in France yet, so how the feck am I going to prove it? 17.45: Decide to persuade nice people at HSBC that I will get an address as soon as possible. Yes. 17.50: Cobble everything together as best I can. Bloody admin bloody forms bloody French bloody signatures bloody bills bloody bloody bloody bloody. God this is the part of moving abroad I'm beginning to dread. Friday 16.8.02 They always say that proverbially the darkest hour is just before the dawn. Imagine my unbridled delight, then, when the Imperatrix of the Night herself turned up an hour early this morning and started on a viciously brutal cleaning regime in the office. Just as I began to despair into my coffee, she announed that I could go, and return when she was about to leave. The room filled with light and leaping lambs and all things ambrosial and bounteous. I never thought I'd look at her with love in my eyes, but as I was walking through that door... Tuesday 20.8.02 Aargh, stress. Trying to find a bloody flat in Nice, and failing rather miserably. Doesn't help by the fact that all the 'budget' (ha!) airlines want to fly me there from no less than £100 return, the bastards. Problem is further compounded by the fact that am knackered - went out on a huge shit-we're-off-to-Europe-we're-not-going-to-see-each-other-for-ages-let's-all-get-pissed-one-last-time night, which ended up with everyone trooping down to Heaven, where freak night seemed to be going on. So that was fun. Weekend was very...normal, although I *did* almost manage to pull my sink off my wall by trying to wrench the pulg out of its hole on Saturday night, having jammed it in there by mistake and then broken the chain. Last day at Waterstone's this week, thank God (oh yeah - I managed to make my entire family poor for a generation over the weekend too by buying books; not saying how much I spent as I'm still coping with the shock) and last day of madness in the office in two and a half weeks. Whew.
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