We are househunting in a laid back sort of way but sometimes, when I send off emails for more details, the advertiser doesn't bother to reply, so I was surprised to receive a call last week from a very friendly lady who wanted to answer all my queries personally.

Halfway through the conversation she suddenly said,

"Excuse me, I don't want to be rude but are you Vietnamese?"

Well, I know my accent is pretty obvious but I didn't realise that English and Vietnamese had so much in common.

However, today's call took the biscuit.

It was lunchtime and I was just finishing off the cooking when the phone went. CC answered it and quickly passed it to me, saying she would finish off the lunch.

"Can I speak to your mummy?" said the voice.

"My mother died ten years ago".

"Oh, I'm sorry. Can I speak to your daddy then?"

"Why do you want to speak to my parents?" (in irritated tone)

"Oh, are you Mrs B then?"

"Yes I am."

Oh, excuse me, I thought I was talking to a child. You do have a very young voice."

Actually, it may have been a combination of my bad French when I'm tired and fed up with cold calls at inconvenient times and the fact that I do sound like a 12 year old.

"Let me introduce myself; I'm ..... from ......"

At this I let her know that her call was most ill-timed and I did not wish to speak to her.

CC remarked that I'm getting good at stroppy French.

Whale's appointment at the hospital was at 9.15 this morning.

That meant a bit of a rush around to get everything done in time before the ambulance arrived. But at 8.20 Whale started his usual "What time should we ring them?" routine.

"You are not going to ring them. They don't like it." I insisted, but as soon as I found a minute to dash to the loo he was on the phone.

"Come quickly" he called, and I thought they had arrived but I hadn't heard the bell.

My rapid exit from the toilet revealed Whale waving the telephone and shouting there was a problem and I'd better ring them back, while at the same time an ambulance pulled up outside.

"They're not coming", he was wailing.

"They're HERE", I  shouted back as I went to open the door.

It was a different ambulance company because our usual people were stretched to the limit. That must have been the problem Whale didn't understand when he rang them.

Now there was a last minute scramble to get him ready. He had been too busy telephoning to get his things together  so we went out in a tangle of footplates, walking frame and papers. The new ambulance men coped magnificently even if they found it amusing that we took so much with us.

We were deposited in the waiting room with time to spare and, at last, we were ushered in to to see Dr. Champagne. He went through the Whale's thick file, gave him a quick prod, asking where the pain was and finally decided that he would pass him over to another specialist at the Polyclinique - a semi-private hospital.

"My secretary will help you make an appointment," he said. This may be because when my head is spinning and I have a headache my French usually gets even worse than normal.

Sure enough, the kind lady behind the desk telephoned for me.

"Did Dr. Champagne say it was urgent?" she inquired.

"No, he didn't say so,"

"Well how about 10th September?"

Crikey, if it had been urgent would they have seen him tomorrow - or even this afternoon?

I asked her if she would be kind enough to telephone the ambulance for the return trip and she smiled and picked up the phone again.

We had to wait about half an hour and then two familiar faces appeared. Our usual company had come to collect us. But, frankly, the whole visit had been a bit of a waste of time. We can but hope that the specialist at the Polyclinique will have some idea what to do about Whale's back pain.