Carte grise...or should that be grease?

We had to visit the prefecture in Tours last week, which is our link at local level to the country's national government offices. This is where you have to go for residency papers, vehicle registration (carte grise), driving licences and more here in France  We had to renew our 'carte grise', now called 'certificat d'immatriculation', as we had left it in the glove compartment of our car with a couple of large candles. Not that that in itself is a reason to change it but with the very hot weather the result was that the candles melted and coated our certificate making it instead a 'carte grease'!

The lady behind the counter was not in the least put out by this - must be a common occurrence! The only thing was that a new numbering system is being introduced and they took this opportunity to change it on our car which meant a new set of number plates were required. I like the fact that some enterprising chap has a shop for just this service two minutes along the road from the prefecture. To renew the certificate only costs €2.50 but they only give you a temporary one on the day and post out the official one a few days later.