Wednesday 13 March 2013

Our Life in France

Our French Life - Planning a trip.

I call this country home now but it took a few years to stop saying back home referring to England, now we are planning a trip to England not home if you get my meaning.

But best laid plans and all that - Yesterday I realised that we needed a EHIC card to cover us for health insurance while we were abroad (outside France) and was told I would have to apply to Newcastle so I promptly telephoned them, after listening to a recorded voice for the longest time I finally was answered, I gave all my details and the voice said you have come through to the wrong department, I said but it is the number on your site to call! she said sorry I will transfer you, I then had to listen again to an even longer message with god knows how many options, again when finally answered and after again giving our details she said " I only deal with health insurance cards for UK residents" I said can you transfer me, she said sorry no but gave me a number - strangely the same number I originally called..I then had to redial and go through it all again only to be told I was through to the wrong number and they would transfer me..after waiting to be transferred for approx 5 minutes the line suddenly went dead with a dial tone ... I had been cut off.
I had remembered that I had seen somewhere on our CPAM on line account, that's our French health service,  something about it so went to find out, sure enough I could order it on line but every time I tried to it said " service temporarily unavailable - please try later" so I did time and time again, I then thought I would call the CPAM English speaking line but it was also unavailable, by this time I was starting to think there were forces stronger than me out there trying to tell me something but it may well have been the bad snow experienced by Northern France, this was confirmed when I call it today and the message says we are closed exceptionally.
I thought I would throw the question out to the wonderful networking site that is Survive France If you live in France and you are not already registered on here do so now it will keep you sane, it's free to join and there are an abundance of helpful posts and groups to join. check it out on the above link.

I guess we will have to wait until the snow clears or go to an office which is miles away. watch this space

I am now off to the Boulangerie to get something naughty