France 1 Ireland 0

The title of this post suggests I may care about football. It's wrong. The only reason I know who won is because of the horribly loud cheers of the French neighbours when they scored. Loud enough to drown out the 30th birthday party noise coming from the 2nd floor. This may have been a blessing in disguise as the guests decided to sing "Appy Birssday" in English to the unfortunate man. He'll be going far away to celebrate the 31st one I imagine.

It's been so long since I posted on the blog that I couldn't remember my password and had to beg Gmail for another one. They must have been as interested in my life as you are as they sent me one immediately and so here I am. Yay.

The main reason for the blog revival is to share my good news. Remember the terrible saga of the neighbours, children with toolkits, multiple showers and flooded bathrooms? Well, after a 3 year wait, the bathroom is looking new and shiny again! I've had to wait this long for the insurance company to fork out the money (or at least agree to in writing, I still haven't seen any yet...) I moved into Hotel Susan 3 weeks ago and handed my keys to a Polish decorator who promised he could have the work done within a week. Yeah right. Rule number 1. Never believe a decorator. On the Friday he phoned to tell me it wasn't quite finished and ask did I want him to do the toilet as well. I pointed out that this was on the estimate and, therefore of course, yes, I wanted the bathroom doing. To this he replied "No it's not. I don't remember talking about the toilets. If you want that doing too it will be another £250. And It's a bit annoying because if I'd known I could have prepared it earlier and now it will take me until Wednesday." This irritated me A LOT as I had a copy of the estimate where it was clearly marked what he was going to do, to me telling him to do the toilet would have been like asking him to repair the bathroom ceiling, unnecessary since that's why he was there in the first place.! Anyway, I showed him the estimate, he agreed and did it, I stayed at Hotel Susan another few days...before finally coming back to my lovely little flat on the Wednesday. In fact it was unrecognisable as mine, as everything I own was covered in a layer of plaster dust, yes, the perils of living in a one-room flat.
So, I decided that, now the bathroom was looking much better, I would have a bath. Discovery number 1. The man has dripped paint in my bathtub. Excellent. I then thought I would do some rearranging in my cupboards and throw some old stuff away. Discovery number 2. The man has painted one of my cupboards shut. Fortunately it's not one where I keep important stuff but is still annoying as I don't have a scraper and can't unstick it.
On my way out of the flat on Monday last week I saw a notice, put up in the hallway for all to see. It politely informed us that Cédric would be having a small gathering on Friday, that he wasn't sure how many people would be coming but that he preferred to warn us in advance about potential noise and that, if there was a problem, we shouldn't hesitate to go and let him know. What a nice, considerate neighbour. Alas, it seems fun is frowned upon in my building and by the time I returned home that evening, someone had scrawled "Not after Midnight!!" across his nice little note. Party poopers. (or lampshades, as my friend Maureen once called them, confusing "rabat-joie" with "abat-jour") That same evening I was cooking dinner when my doorbell rang. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of hearing it, my doorbell is louder than a fire alarm in a giant public building. Regular visitors are asked to knock rather than use it as it scares me to death, and no one else ever comes to visit me. Imagine my surprise and fear, then, at that particular moment. Armed with my wooden spoon (you can never be too prepared) I headed quietly to the hallway to peer through the spyhole and see who dared to disrupt my evening. Discovery number 3. The man had painted my spyhole shut. Grrrrr. I opened the door anyway - after all, I did have my trusty spoon, who could harm me? - and there was the famous Cédric (of potentially noisy party fame) He was doing the rounds of all the neighbours trying to discover who the rabat-joie was. I quickly assured him that it wasn't me, that I wished him a Bonne Fete and hoped he made lots of noise. He thanked me and invited me to said party. I considered it but when I got home on the night of the party, there wasn't a whisper to be heard from his flat so I was a bit suspicious and decided to stay home and watch Grey's Anatomy instead.

No notice whatsoever was given about tonight's party, which is very loud and likely to stop me from sleeping for a good few hours yet. Humph.

The End