On the way to health insurance

The visit to the national health care people in La Rochefoucauld seems to have gone off well. In three weeks, we should have our attestations back. Then we send those back with id pictures and in another three weeks we may have our cartes vitales. Because our Dutch forms are back-dated to the first of September, the woman wrote URGENT across the top of the forms. (The Dutch forms should have said the first of November, but since we know that any interaction there takes four weeks, we decided to ignore this. We've already claimed expenses from that period on our Dutch insurances.) After we get the cartes vitales, we still need to get a "top-up" insurance. The French health care pays 70% of doctor visits and 50% of this and 100% of that; one is advised to buy separate insurance to pay for the extra bits.

Last week was time to add flooring to the dressing (walk-in closet). We had wanted to install linoleum tile, but we didn't plan ahead for getting them. It was Saturday and the shop we went to didn't carry any linoleum. Instead we got some cheap wood laminate flooring, colored blue. That's now installed in the dressing and looks quite nice, especially considering the price. The door still has to be shortened, since the subflooring was level with the mezzanine floor (an Oops from the previous owner), a threshold added, and the closet doors reinstalled. Next we'll rearrange the hanging spaces in the closet to suit us and add shelving on the walls for extra storage. 

We're having really blow-y weather. When it gets going, you can hear the clay tiles rattling on the roof! Although the temperature isn't close to freezing, this morning we had a spell of snow. Of course it didn't stick, but as it was falling, it was very pretty swirling around in the wind. The greenfinches and chaffinches looked especially colorful as the snow fell.

Friday Kaye went with Sally (who's arranged or done a lot of the work on the house) to Limoges to pick up the paint for the mezzanine. The shop was a kind of decorating and crafts shop; Sally said is was by the far the best she'd seen. There was a floor with a nice selection of regular sewing fabrics and notions, and another floor of fabrics for curtains, upholstery, etc. Lots of fun to rummage around. And nice to know of this place for the future. On the way back, we looked for a depot a vente that Sally knew of, but it seems to have closed. Instead we visited the Maison de la Porcelaine in Aixe sur Vienne. They have a factory tour on the site, so this will be interesting to see another time.

There's been so much rain of late that all the rivers and reservoirs, creeks and ditches are filled to overflowing. There's more forecast for the next few days. Our rain barrel, which is just sitting under the kitchen porch, not yet attached to the gutters, filled up. We're damp!