Chilly Snowy February and French Bureaucracy

The Allier river frozen

I know you'll all think that either we've abandoned poor Ugly Betty or that I am giving up on blogging!

Neither the one nor the other!

Landscape towards our village

It is just that after a huge snowfall end january and then sub zero temperatures since, we've been having a 'forced' holiday. I did manage to finalise my 2011 accounting at least!

And it's not all - my darling O's most beautifully prepared plans in multiple copies with color charts and information on the windows etc for Ugly Betty's renovation accompanying a very simple 'demande de travaux' and not even a building permit - was rejected by the local very bureaucratic office. 

Colour chart for Ugly Betty

This means that we should not have asked this 'work authorisation' like most French people do. They just carry on and restore without asking anyone's permission. 

Probably another reason one sees such a lot of dilapidated houses in the countryside - Bureaucracy!

So the new, even simpler 'demande de travaux' has been handed in and we are waiting for the return of that and the return of warmer weather to carry on hammering away on our darling Ugly Betty.

Warm regards from a chilly Frogland