If there were a competition to see which nation could come up with the most senselessly complicated bureaucracy, I think the French would win hands down.

It’s so bad that in recent years a new department has been created; France Services, which exists for the sole purpose of helping people with their paperwork. I think the people who work for France services are specially chosen; I’ve now met quite a few of them, not one of them has been the typical “fonctionnaire”, beloved of those who want something to moan about, and with a reputation for being as unhelpful as possible. No, the people working for France services are, in my experience, charming, patient, knowledgeable and extremely helpful.

I knew I had to change my address with several bureaucratic bodies, so I set out to find the local France services office, which in St Paul turns out to be a mini bus every Thursday morning, in the marketplace. It doesn’t seem to matter how early I get there, there’s always a queue, but it’s a chance to chat to people as we wait our turn in the sunshine or the rain.

When we tried to change my address on the income tax site, it wasn’t working (a remarkably common problem here); never mind, said Marie (yes, I’ve been there so often now, we’re on first name terms!), we’ll do that when we do your tax form.

Then came my carte de séjour ( proof of residence). Even though it’s only in my name, it transpires that I have to declare Nick’s death as well as changing my address. I’d taken all sorts of papers with me, but not a death certificate, so was sent home for that. On my return the site crashed. The following week I knew what papers were required and , fingers crossed, it seemed to work. I don’t know how long I have to wait for a new carte, but one day I’m (nearly) sure, it’ll arrive.

Then there’s the carte grise, which proves ownership of a vehicle. As my name was with Nick’s on the original, I hadn’t done anything about it, but it seems this was illegal and had I been stopped, I’d have been in bother. But I wasn’t stopped, so I asked Marie to have it put into my name as well as changing my address. The first week the site wasn’t working; she could only change part of the address, so having spent over an hour trying, she gave up and I came home. Week 2 she managed to change the address and send off all the necessary documents, or so it seemed. Midweek I received an email to say that there were documents missing; I know we sent everything on the list, but went back again a third time and she re-sent them all . Last week I had another email to say there was another name on the proof of residence, so again I went to the bus; the French continue to use a woman’s maiden name for certain things after her marriage, so we thought that as my proof of residence is in my married name and the carte grise people have my maiden name, that must be the problem. We sent off a copy of my carte de séjour, which is in both names. So this afternoon, when I got an email from them, saying that my proof of residence was in the name of Sylvie Lataste, I thought I’d explode!

I’ve watched Marie put stuff into this website so often now that I felt quite confident to have a go myself; I downloaded my proof of residence and put it in the box, along with a note saying that I have no idea who Sylvie Lataste is, or how her proof of residence (at a different address, presumably) got into my dossier.

Now I’ll just have to wait and see…….

I’m writing this a few days later, having received two emails from ANTS, the carte grise people; one thanked me for my application and said that I had nothing more to do, the other said that there were documents missing. I guess I’d better have another look…….

I did, eventually, open the email attachment; they wanted payment – why couldn’t they have just said so!? I paid and a couple of days later, another pair of emails arrived; again the first told me I had nothing to do, the second contradicted this. On opening the second email attachment, however, it was to say that my application had been completed. When I got home, my new carte grise was in my letter box.

I’ve heard nothing about my carte de séjour, however; maybe I’d better go back to France services and ask them how I chase it up…….