WELL THAT’S IT FOR ANOTHER YEAR….THANK GOODNESS.

This is the tasty starter we had at a restaurant called “At’able” in Chinon.  

Oeufs en cocotte.  

This was the delicious dessert.

A version of isles flotante.

With our lunch we had a glass of red wine, a Saumur Champigny.

It came from a vineyard called “Château Yvonne” in Parnay.

In honour of our cat Yvonne we felt compelled to fine the vineyard.

The wine was quite pricey so we only bought three bottles to be saved for special occasions.  She's a classy cat and she's worth it.

After a month of showery weather the sun has finally returned. 

At a local producers’ market in Barrou we got some nice local veg.

And so, off we went to the Préfecture in Tours for our appointments to collect our cartes de séjour.  What a shambles that was.

We arrived in good time not expecting a queue now that people are collecting by appointment.  How wrong we were.  There was a disorganised rabble of people without appointments, hassling the security guard who was giving them short shrift.  We waved our printed appointment letters at him but he waved us to the back of the queue.  Time was ticking by and we didn't want to miss our slot and risk coming away empty handed.

Being in a crowd of frustrated and confused people all shouting at once was intimidating and uncomfortable.  It felt like being in a third world country.  At a suitable opportunity Nick took his chance, stepped forward and slipped in front of a tall man who was gesticulating angrily.  He shoved our letters under the nose of the guard who glanced at them and passed us on to his colleague who was hiding round the corner.  He demanded to see our passports, crossed our names off his list and gruffly told us to deposit all our belongings on a scanner.  After that we were in!

There was no queue at the kiosk dealing with the issue of the cards which was staffed by two pleasant young women.  The cards were ready and waiting for us, our fingerprints were checked, our timbres fiscal scanned and away we went.  We fought our way back out through the crowd at the door and emerged into the street in glorious sunshine two minutes before our appointment time was due.

I couldn't help wondering if these two ladies had any idea of the mayhem going on at the front of the building.

We now have this year's cards, three months after the old ones expired and six months before we have to start the process all over again.  We have to do this twice more before we get a ten year visa and some respite from having to go through this.  This is the third time and each one has been chaotic.  It would be easy to give up and throw in the towel.  A few photos of good times helps to remind us why we put ourselves through this aggravation, year after year.

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To explain to anyone who might not understand the process:

When the UK was in the EU British people had the right to live, work and study in France or any EU country without having to get a visa.  Brexit took all of that away.

British people who were already living in France before the Brexit deadline could get a ten year carte de séjour (CDS) at any time.  Others were able to get a five year "withdrawal agreement" CDS at the last minute, months before the UK left the EU, and although they have a right to stay in France under the WA, assuming they meet certain conditions, those cards are now expiring, and the Préfectures are overwhelmed with extra work.  We were not one of those people and applied post Brexit.  We have to apply every year for five years, at a cost of 225€ each, and go through this chaotic and stressful process until we qualify for a ten year CDS.  (We have friends whose WA CDS expired months ago, who have had no response to their renewal applications, no reply to their emails and there are no appointments available on the Préfecture website to be able to discuss their status with a real person.)  

Préfectures are like UK local councils, each one is different and administers the process of immigration in their own way.  Some do it much better than others and ours is especially shambolic.  The lack of information (combined with the amount of misinformation from other organisations) the inability to engage with them, and being treated like a second class person is ridiculous, immensely stressful and not becoming of a civilised country.  If it hadn't been for a completely chance conversation with someone who knew that the process had been changed, we would still be waiting for a text message that was never going to arrive, waiting for a reply to our emails telling us what to do, getting more and more anxious as the weeks went by.  There's no wonder people are frustrated and angry.  

UNBELIEVABLE (if we were not in France)

The weather has turned showery after weeks of dry weather.  This has brought out zillions of snails.  This handsome little chap was on the voie verte, the cycle/walking track that we use for walking Hugo in wet weather as it’s less muddy underfoot.  And of course he loves it.

There has been a development on the residence card front.

It is exactly two months since we received our “décision favorable “, confirmation that our applications to renew our CDS was accepted.  On the document it says we would be contacted by the préfecture about when to collect the actual cards.  This is usually by SMS a couple of weeks later.

After a month we emailed the préfecture to ask very politely if they could send another SMS as so far we hadn’t received it.  We got no reply.  

Two weeks later we sent an email to the Ministère de l'Intérieur, the organisation that issues the "décision favorable", to say if they knew if our cards were ready and what we could do to get them.  They replied immediately to say yes they were and that we would be notified when to collect them by our préfecture in Tours, and to contact the préfecture if we hadn't heard anything in another couple of weeks.  

We emailed the préfecture again saying we understood that the cards were ready and could they PLEASE send an SMS so that we could collect them and, of course, pay the damned fee of 225€ each.  

We have so far had no reply to either of our emails.

Yesterday, I happened to have a conversation with a very nice lady who helps British people with all kinds of French matters, from tax forms to hospital visits.  We rarely need her advice these days and the conversation was on behalf of someone else about something completely different but at the end of the call she asked me how we were getting on with our CDS applications.  I mentioned that we had had our "décision favorable" two months ago but still not received an SMS.  

She told us we won't.  The préfecture has changed their procedure and they no longer send text messages (because it's too expensive, apparently)...................WHAT ???!!!

Instead we have to go online and book an appointment for "retrait de titre de séjour" to collect them from the préfecture.  If we were not accepted for an appointment, it would mean the cards were not ready yet.

How long would it be before someone at the préfecture replied to our emails to tell us that text messages were no longer used and we should apply online for a rendezvous instead?!

Unbelievable.  The whole system is in the dark ages and moves slower than Mr Snail.

However, the story doesn't end there as finding the right website on which to book the appointment was in itself also a challenge.  Nothing to do with French bureaucracy is ever easy!

We have appointments for 21st May, nearly three months after our existing cards expired (and nearly seven months since we applied to renew them).  The champagne is in the fridge already!!

A FALSE ALARM!

In an unexpected turn of events we seemed to have received a text from the Prefecture to say our cartes de séjours are available to collect.  This was even before the current ones expire!

On looking more closely, the text was from last year………we had been looking it up to check the date we received it in an attempt to second guess what might happen this year!  On hearing an alert for another completely different sender we got all excited and got it wrong…..

So, it’s back to the waiting game………