What a palaver!

I'm home...eventually!

As always, I...well, lets just say I wasn't as far in advance with my packing as I should have been on Friday. I ended up packing and cleaning until about 5:45 am - yes, am. I wasn't sure if it was worth going to bed but decided to get a couple of hours sleep. I woke up again at 8:30 am on Saturday to finish things off, attempt to pay in some money, and have my Etats des Lieux.
Unfortunately, as it was the Saturday after Bastille day the banks had decided to take an extra day off so I didn't manage to sort that out. I'll now need to write a letter etc to send back my card and cancel a couple of things.
Dad arrived about 45 minutes before the Etats des Lieux was scheduled and so we managed to get everything into the car and hang the net curtain back up etc. The inspection went fine. The lady didn't notice where I'd scraped the blu-tack marks off the wall (they actually tell you to scrape them off with a blade - the walls aren't painted and are pretty crumbly, but also they aren't flat and have this stupid grooved texture, a bit like an artexed ceiling). She told me that I'd have to pay for someone to come and do a bit of cleaning. I asked why and she said there were some marks. So I asked where these seeminly invisible marks were. "On the microwave and fridge", she said. "Erm, where exactly? I don't see them", I replied. She pointed out a couple of small marks in the corners (honestly it was nothing that wasn't there when I moved in) so I asked if I could just clean it there and then. She said that would be ok so the only thing I ended up paying for was to have my carpet cleaned. They give you the option of getting it done and providing the receipt or letting them do it....but if you get it done yourself and they aren't happy then they'll charge you anyway. I figured it would be easier just to let them do it so, together with the €43 I'd had to spend on dry-cleaning blankets, pillows, etc (another thing they require everyone to do), a new bog brush for 1€ (which I paid for with 2c and 5c pieces) and a new saucepan for about €6 (mine was scratched) I ended up paying about €90 JUST TO LEAVE! Plus, I was told I will get my deposit back within 2 months.
Despite how it may seem, it did go quite smoothly, and so did the journey.
Well, almost.....

We had left earlier than planned and were on track to arrive at Calais in time to catch a much earlier ferry. This would have been great as it is another 2+ hour drive from Dover to home. However, 20km from Calais we broke down. We stopped by an emergency autoroute phone and, after consulting with the RAC, attempted to contact the autoroute recovery people. Unfortunately that phone didn't work so we had to limp to the next phone. We explained what had happened and, after 30-40 minutes, a (slightly grumpy - in a french way) man turned up with a tow truck. He took us to the ferry port and we waited for the next ferry (still earlier than the one we were booked on) before we were towed onto it. All this time, Dad had been in contact with the RAC to find out what would happen once we got to Dover. They told us that there would be a tow truck waiting there when we arrived to take us back home. We confirmed what time we'd get there and all seemed to be going fine.
Once on the ferry, Dad contacted the RAC again to let confirm that we would be arriving soon and that all was going to plan. It turned out the plans had changed and we were to be towed to a compound from where we would pick up a loan car before driving ourselves home as they didn't have someone who could tow us all the way. Right, ok, that's not so bad. Unfortunately, when we arrived the lorry wasn't waiting for us and arrived over an hour later. We then had a 15 minute drive to the compound where we picked up the loan car....which had no fuel in it. We had to spend a further 20 minutes looking for a petrol station. It was about 11:30 pm (UK time) before we actually started the journey home. Remember of course that my Dad had got up at about 2 am to drive to Paris that morning and I'd only had about 2.5 hours sleep. To add insult to injury, we had to leave all my stuff in the car (except valuables) and the car didn't get delivered until Wednesday so I still haven't finished unpacking.

Anyhow, enough ranting about that. My car, the beetle, arrived back from the garage on Wednesday morning so I've been happy driving about a bit. I'm trying to get in contact with local friends but I've still not had responses from everyone. Most of them have finished uni now so I'm not sure if they're staying up there or coming back.
This weekend I'm going to LUGRadio Live 2006. Woo! Yeah!......and none of you know what that is. Well, I'll enjoy it. It's a computer-y, geek-y event with lots of speakers coming and supposedly a party in the evening but I've no idea what that will be like.

I think that's long enough for now. I'll update again soon. Hopefully I'll have a job (or at least have found some adverts for jobs) by then.