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Every now and then, I tackle the paper work, wrestle with it for some time before surrendering, to the law of chaos which has served both my filing system and my life plans, well enough so far. But once again, the discrepancies between my various names, have cropped up - passport in one name, bankcard in another, it makes booking airline tickets a complicated experience. I am alternatively Vassal, Ring , Vassal-Ring not to mention that, the name of my ex also keeps propping up whenever I deal with anything to do with my children! I am confused, muddled, developing multiple personalities and it all started 12 years ago:
you see, 12 years ago, him indoors and I, we got married in Thailand.
It seemed like a good idea at the time, we saved our respective family and friends a few bob and the embarrassment of having to attend a rather unconventional union. So, instead of spending thousands, wining and dining people in exchange for some toasters, we would have a very selfish time, somewhere where the rain was warm.
As soon as divorce was legal in Ireland ( 8 years and a referendum) we were off to Siam, to drink Singha beer.
We got married the day after our arrival. Someone had slip a note under the bedroom door, saying "marriage tomorrow at 10 am", a week earlier than planned! So my great plan of having a wonderful Neru cream silk suit, made for the occasion, failed miserably, and I ended up wearing a blue shirt belonging to him indoors, which covered all the 3 dicta " something blue, something new and something borrowed" at once. I was sporting runners and jet lag, a look hardly redeemed by the very pink bridal bouquet, shoved in my hands before getting into the vw van/taxi. I remember queuing up amongst soldiers with machine guns before signing something in Thai (my kidneys?). And that was it!
We had our wedding dinner at Fisherman's Seafood, where you picked various strange sea creatures before choosing, out of hundreds of delicious sounding recipes, which way you wanted them cooked. We had an absolute banquet -clams, prawns, lobsters and blue clawed crabs washed down with beer and coconut juice ... total -15 £ for both of us!
Anyway...it was fast, it was fun and, after receiving some beautiful certificates, 5 to be precise, 3 in Thai and 2 in English, we felt, we knew, we were very much married...
Some months later, I had to apply to the French Embassy ( we lived in Ireland then) for a new passport, in my new name. It is then that I found out, that we were married in Thailand...Oh yes and in Ireland too , and in all the rest of the entire world, as a matter of fact ...but not in France!
To cut a long story involving embassies and consulates, short, it seems that we were never married here, at least!
So, what was a girl to do but make an honest man out of him indoors?
After living in sin for nearly 20 years (only whilst in France of course), we decided that on the anniversary of our first kiss ( he had been complaining that he couldn't handle any more anniversaries!), we would tie the knot once more...à la française this time, all legal.
Him indoors asked our daughter to be his witness. We had the date, the restaurant...so off I went to the Mairie to get the forms, encounters with the administration, are never an easy task but I felt very positive and confident. Such a happy experience, after the 4 funerals this year, this was the wedding we so needed , OURS....
A Gallic eyebrow was raised when I gave our respective birth dates, but I had been expecting that -no worries. Things started getting complicated however, when I mentioned that him indoors wasn't French.
Nice Mairie lady Irish? Has he got a permis de séjour?
Me - No, he is a member of the EEC
NML - Is he now? I'll have to check.
Eventually, after some time and much delving in big tomes of international regulations and phone calls to friends in Montauban, she found out that Ireland was indeed in Europe . Everything was going swimmingly.
Or was it?
NML- So now we need his birth certificate and an official document that states he has never been married before.
Me - Well, as a matter of fact he is married to me but we have to get married again because France won't accept our marriage. There was an embarrassed silence, I cleared my throat.
We got married in Thailand. Bangkok? Still silence. I realised that our marriage had just short circuited the well oiled bureaucratic French machine. Eventually she recovered and started phoning all sorts of secret organizations which I believe rule the French world, whilst looking at me, as if I had just announced I was about to contaminate the whole world with a deadly virus and she had 48 hours to save humanity! She took back the half filled forms, rather impatiently - you won't be needing those.
NML -You can't get married because your husband is married already.
Me -Yes, I know, he is married to me and I am not considered married here.
NML -Yes but he is married abroad...That would make him a bigamist
Me - but he is married to me!He cannot be a bigamist
The whole surreal scene lasted until lunch time, a sacred truce in France, even for the bureaucracy, especially for the bureaucracy. So there will be no wedding apparently. Yet I know that somewhere in the bowels of the French administration, 400 volumes exist, dedicated to our very problem, but until they are found
I am single here and he is not !
you see, 12 years ago, him indoors and I, we got married in Thailand.
It seemed like a good idea at the time, we saved our respective family and friends a few bob and the embarrassment of having to attend a rather unconventional union. So, instead of spending thousands, wining and dining people in exchange for some toasters, we would have a very selfish time, somewhere where the rain was warm.
As soon as divorce was legal in Ireland ( 8 years and a referendum) we were off to Siam, to drink Singha beer.
We got married the day after our arrival. Someone had slip a note under the bedroom door, saying "marriage tomorrow at 10 am", a week earlier than planned! So my great plan of having a wonderful Neru cream silk suit, made for the occasion, failed miserably, and I ended up wearing a blue shirt belonging to him indoors, which covered all the 3 dicta " something blue, something new and something borrowed" at once. I was sporting runners and jet lag, a look hardly redeemed by the very pink bridal bouquet, shoved in my hands before getting into the vw van/taxi. I remember queuing up amongst soldiers with machine guns before signing something in Thai (my kidneys?). And that was it!
We had our wedding dinner at Fisherman's Seafood, where you picked various strange sea creatures before choosing, out of hundreds of delicious sounding recipes, which way you wanted them cooked. We had an absolute banquet -clams, prawns, lobsters and blue clawed crabs washed down with beer and coconut juice ... total -15 £ for both of us!
Anyway...it was fast, it was fun and, after receiving some beautiful certificates, 5 to be precise, 3 in Thai and 2 in English, we felt, we knew, we were very much married...
Some months later, I had to apply to the French Embassy ( we lived in Ireland then) for a new passport, in my new name. It is then that I found out, that we were married in Thailand...Oh yes and in Ireland too , and in all the rest of the entire world, as a matter of fact ...but not in France!
To cut a long story involving embassies and consulates, short, it seems that we were never married here, at least!
So, what was a girl to do but make an honest man out of him indoors?
After living in sin for nearly 20 years (only whilst in France of course), we decided that on the anniversary of our first kiss ( he had been complaining that he couldn't handle any more anniversaries!), we would tie the knot once more...à la française this time, all legal.
Him indoors asked our daughter to be his witness. We had the date, the restaurant...so off I went to the Mairie to get the forms, encounters with the administration, are never an easy task but I felt very positive and confident. Such a happy experience, after the 4 funerals this year, this was the wedding we so needed , OURS....
A Gallic eyebrow was raised when I gave our respective birth dates, but I had been expecting that -no worries. Things started getting complicated however, when I mentioned that him indoors wasn't French.
Nice Mairie lady Irish? Has he got a permis de séjour?
Me - No, he is a member of the EEC
NML - Is he now? I'll have to check.
Eventually, after some time and much delving in big tomes of international regulations and phone calls to friends in Montauban, she found out that Ireland was indeed in Europe . Everything was going swimmingly.
Or was it?
NML- So now we need his birth certificate and an official document that states he has never been married before.
Me - Well, as a matter of fact he is married to me but we have to get married again because France won't accept our marriage. There was an embarrassed silence, I cleared my throat.
We got married in Thailand. Bangkok? Still silence. I realised that our marriage had just short circuited the well oiled bureaucratic French machine. Eventually she recovered and started phoning all sorts of secret organizations which I believe rule the French world, whilst looking at me, as if I had just announced I was about to contaminate the whole world with a deadly virus and she had 48 hours to save humanity! She took back the half filled forms, rather impatiently - you won't be needing those.
NML -You can't get married because your husband is married already.
Me -Yes, I know, he is married to me and I am not considered married here.
NML -Yes but he is married abroad...That would make him a bigamist
Me - but he is married to me!He cannot be a bigamist
The whole surreal scene lasted until lunch time, a sacred truce in France, even for the bureaucracy, especially for the bureaucracy. So there will be no wedding apparently. Yet I know that somewhere in the bowels of the French administration, 400 volumes exist, dedicated to our very problem, but until they are found
I am single here and he is not !
well michele and brendan, i could feel better about my international/marital paperwork--if only i developed a taste for humiliation or aggravation...you do soothe my savage rebel, however...your intercontinental ordeals and joys sound so much more exotic than mine..
ReplyDeletewe do have a first kiss of historical proportions--a paper chase of worthy note--many consequent frustrations and assorted unnecessary travels to educate and assuage the authorities at large...luckily, now i must fill out forms which claim to be approved by the " paper reduction act of xx year..good, now it takes 4 times --more-- pages to do so than 10 years ago...i should become a technical writer to show them how to REDUCE paper--work--
bons anniversaires, my consolidated friends, nadine in the belly of the beast.
Ha! This is most definitely a case of life being stranger than fiction. If this were a movie plot, who would believe it? (Besides you and him indoors, I mean.)
ReplyDeleteWonderfully entertaining tale. Thanks for that.
Hahahaha. There's bureaucracy for you. Interesting read. :-)
ReplyDeletehttp://ficklecattle.blogspot.com/
Oh that made me laugh! The wonders of the world, the strange strange world. Well through all the bureaucratic chaos you have your love and commitment and that is what it's all about! This is a real life story of the comedy of life!
ReplyDelete