Sage

Rude awakening this morning (no, not that) with CarbBoy tapping on the door to tell me the bathroom light didn't work. Neither did my bedroom light, nor, turned out, any of the lights in the district... After CarbBoy wee'd by iPhone light, I searched out torches, candles, etc and found the matches to light the gas so tea and hot milk would be available for breakfast. Just after it was light outside, the electric came back on.

With Mr B hoping to buy a new car I had to pop into our insurance office to ask how all that insurance business works over here. Not brilliantly, turns out. It takes up to five days to get a quote, and you can't get cover arranged outside of normal office hours (which seem to be 10am-11.30am and 2.30pm-4.30pm Tuesday to Friday). When I asked how I would buy a car on Saturday, she said I could arrange cover in advance if the owner sent me the registration document in advance. Which rather blows your negotiating power, I think. Also, you can only do that for one car at a time which with Mr B - the family car buyer - only here at weekends means the whole process could take a very long time.

The agent also said that of course she remembered that she had to recalculate my house insurance (I think they've been doing it wrong for years) but that obviously a properly qualified insurance assessor had to come round, and they'd only just got around to appointing one. So she's coming in a few weeks (I first raised this in October, so you can understand my exasperation).

After all that, the appointment with the bank about the school's bank account was a dream - customer service does exist after all...

Some French email writing followed, along with some searching for documents that I thought were lost, but it turned out when I eventually plucked up the courage to ask Mr B if he knew where they were, had never been printed out from his email... Phew. Later, weeding the front flower beds, though cautiously as snakes live there sometimes. It's a job that I've discovered can only be done at this time of year when they are hibernating. The sage is still romping away, despite the current cold wet weather (more rain last night and today) so I'd best find something to do with it since I feel I should clip it back to leave room for this year's growth.