then my head exploded

[freckles_and_doubt]

Last night I did a final, anal-retentive pass through the folder full of documents which the Non-Euclidian French Bureaucracy requires in order to let me into France. I've done this approximately twice a day for the last two weeks, with mounting nervousness as this morning's appointment at the embassy approaches. It's all been rather reassuring to see the documents pile up; the arrival of the medical insurance certificate and two utterly dreadful ID photos yesterday should have completed the tally. Last night, however, as I cycled nervously through the pile there was suddenly a horrible, inexplicable gap where there should have been an attestation d'accueil, the important orange document signed by the mayor of my dad's village. It's been there for two weeks, but there it wasn't. It bloody vanished.

I draw a veil over the increasingly hysterical next two and a half hours. They entailed turning my study upside down, turning my bedroom upside down, passing through the entire house in a storm of cursing, whirling into the car and raging up to campus in order to toss my campus office... nothing. Gone.

At about 10.30pm I finally found it, down between the computer and the desk, where it had clearly slipped in a moment of over-zealous checking. I sat down in my office chair and sobbed hysterically for ten minutes. Then I had a hot bath and went to bed. Having deliberately slept late and bunked work before my 10.30am appointment I feel better now, but still in need of soothing, so once more I shall fall back upon gardens.

I now have four planters, planted with a wild array of Stuff including giant cauliflowers, bok choy, baby marrows and butter lettuce, which is my favourite of all lettuces. It still being Unnaturally And Obscenely Hot, the night before last I had pasta salad for supper, with chorizo and caramelised red onions together with chilli, basil and bunches of baby tomatoes from my own garden. This causes me a quiet satisfaction not unakin to unholy glee. Look!



All my own work! Well, plus aforementioned African sun and, I have to say, a medium to large spadeful of sheer beginner's luck. Even better than compost.



Tomatoes going mad.



Giant self-seeded squash runner making a break for it. If it climbs in my window at night I'm going to be a bit peeved, those things are hairy. (Those two empty planters are now, incidentally, full.)

In other news, schoolgirl bops psychopomp in gut. He deserved it. I'm really enjoying Gunnerkrigg Court.

Last Night I Dreamed: I was at a gathering in a sort of ballroom/parlour thingy where the room was slowly and inexorably rotating until the ceiling became the floor. There was lot of dashing around trying to find the optimum spot where the sliding/falling furniture wouldn't squash me. I later discovered the whole thing was set off by a pair of kick-butt special agent women dressed in Victorian gear, who'd done it in order to steal priceless historical artefacts from the bad guy. They had hitched the palace to a rhinoceros.

Comments

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Gawsh, I'd forgotten you were all official commissioner-of-oaths and stuff. Thank you, but in fact one submits the originals and a photocopy to the consulate and they do the necessary. In this case, sending me round the corner to make incredibly expensive extra copies of documents I'd forgotten to copy, at the next door hotel. R3 per page. Daylight robbery.