Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

With apologies to Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr

Our departure date looms. Less than three weeks before we board an Air France flight to Bordeaux.

Of course that assumes that we finally receive our visas this week. The information vacuum since being interviewed at VFS Global has been nearly complete. The entire response when trying to find out if anything is happening is:

Your visa application ref no. FCVR/240821/0005/01 is under process at the Consulate General of France in Montreal.

Thanks VFS. That’s heartwarming.

Looking ahead we’ve still got a bit of house renovation to finish, including the entirely massive job of finishing the stairs. Thankfully (for me) Susan has tackled that thankless task. She loves her new Bosch sanders.

And of course the equally long, complex, and frustrating job of selling our dog-walking business, selling two vehicles, and selling the house. At least the renos and purging have actually bumped up the price that we can ask.

In the midst of all of this I had eye surgery, then a week a later my mother in Kelowna died. From COVID-19. In a long term care facility where only 60% of staff were vaccinated. Yes I’m angry, both at the facility’s haphazard approach to vaccination, and by the lost week of work that has pushed everything back by seven days. Eventually we decided to postpone any memorial service until after COVID so that we could avoid a deluge of mostly unvaccinated Alberta relatives descending on us.

And as for the Federal election? Honestly for the first time in my life I just don’t care.