It is nice to be able to pop over to the baker’s across the road of a morning and buy some fresh croissants. Regrettably, it is nice in theory but we do not have much need for bread, unless we have guests. I can take or leave it and Ellie has developed a gluten intolerance so, although she loves bread, she has to go without.

Just up the road, perhaps 50 metres at the most, is a bar, which we have used but rarely. The gassy beer does not agree with me, hence my love of real ale, which regrettably they do not sell over here. I tried a glass of their best red wine and it tasted like fruity battery acid.

So to the outsider, it would seem an ideal location, close to a baker’s and a bar. We do however frequent the two businesses that stand between them: the post office (open afternoons and Saturday mornings only) and the bank, Credit Agricole.

I have already written at length about the services in France that lack something to be desired. They are the telephone system (particularly for mobile phones); the electricity, which goes off if there is a storm or heavy rain, and the banks.

France is well known for its love of bureaucracy and if you make a change to your banking or even a small alteration, there are endless forms to sign. I should really add another “dislike” to my list of French establishments, particularly after our experience with AXA.

Such is the love of bureaucracy there would appear to be at least two departments in every accounting office and they do not liaise. Perhaps it is not their intended policy but there is just too much paperwork. When we moved to The Tarn, we informed one insurance company and their agents of a change of address. Then we informed them of our change of bank. This second blow to their system prompted an avalanche of forms being sent to us to sign.

Three months later, the agents phoned us to say they had been unable to make the monthly withdrawal because it had been refused at the bank. It transpired they had tried to take the money out of the old bank account, long since closed. Checking our claim, they discovered they had the signed details of the new bank and subsequently I noted they were then making withdrawals from our new account.

There was another call a couple of months after that because they claimed they did not have the details of the new bank account and payments had been refused. I pointed out that we had gone through this before and that they must have some 20 copies of my bank details piled up in their accounts department.

Yes, they understood that, but could they have details of the new account so they could collect the outstanding premiums. I declined on the basis that they were withdrawing the premiums from out account, so obviously some rogue section of their department was still trying to duplicate by doing so with our old account.

Eventually that particular problem was solved but there is a law of procedure in France when you attempt to change your insurance. You have to notify the company within a certain period. In this case, the bank took it upon themselves to inform the companies involved in our insurance, explaining to them we were switching insurance.

This one company, Allianz, who had experienced so much trouble handling our change of address and then bank account, were on the phone quickly, asking us why we were changing. We explained that we were very satisfied with their handling of one claim (when we had a few items stolen by a South American gang on the motorway) but after four more years, we were putting all our insurance under one roof in the Tarn, as opposed to back in Limousin.

One can only imagine the accounts department at that company was internally haemorrhaging.

Subsequently they sent us a revised schedule of payments; followed by a letter demanding to know why we were no long paying them and a couple of other items. We replied to all of them, reminding them that the insurance had been cancelled. They accepted that, apologised but then the rogue element came back, telling us off for not paying the premiums and kindly offering us a reschedule of payments to wipe off the backlog.

Exasperated, Ellie headed for the bank across the road because they had handled this transfer. Ellie returned on a sunny afternoon to inform me that she had to go back the next day as Laura, who handles out insurance and only speaks French, was not there.

So we got back to work and I gingerly submerged myself up to the belly button in our fishpond and Ellie passed me the interlinked plastic sheets, which she had purchased for my birthday. These are aesthetically far nicer than netting. They float just below the surface and are effective at dissuading herons and kingfishers from helping themselves to a fish dish.

The front door bell rang and at the same time, the telephone too. Standing in over a metre of water, I was in no position to answer either. Ellie fielded the telephone and informed me the electrician was dropping in first thing in the morning. Then a female figure came through the back gate with some papers.

It transpired it was Laura who had popped over from the bank and, after ringing the front door bell, had made her way round to the garden and duly took charge of the Allianz papers. It was not the first time she had called round at the house for us to sign papers or be handed a cover note.

As an example of the endemic bureaucracy, the bank required the envelope in which the demand from the insurance company had arrived. Ellie picked up her extended claw, which she had used for picking up items from the floor after recovering from a hip operation and headed for the communal dustbin and retrieved the envelope.

With a brief wave in my direction, Laura took the envelope and papers and headed back to the bank, while we considered the merits of take-away banking, as we returned to the job in hand and finished placing the fish protectors.

“An every day story of retired folk,” Ellie suggested.

Yes, it is hectic, but we are just about keeping up with the pace of it.