prolong the French visa?

This is sort of in the realm of a record-keeping post, for posterity.

Originally when we planned this trip, we travelled to Vancouver to apply for a one-year visa at the French Embassy. It seems there's no way to get this visa except for travelling to Vancouver or Ottawa for it.

That was in 2015. Then Yarrow's father decided to make a royal mess out of everything for us, seemingly maliciously, and we got delayed until March 2016. Meanwhile, Yarrow and his father stopped having anything to do with each other (the good thing about this is, I think that Yarrow made the decision about this feeling empowered about it, so, well, best case scenario in a bad situation).

And in the meantime we lived in Banff, Alberta, which was at least an adventure but no, I don't see that "everything turns out for the best," at least, not yet. In the delay, our homeschooling plans got mangled (Still working to sort them out into organization, hoping we'll get a fresh start next year). Our van's paperwork expired while it was in storage. And our chance at the French visa expired. To re-apply, we would have had to travel to Vancouver again, and wait longer. I didn't have the energy for it. So we came to France with nothing, which as Canadians means we can stay in the whole of the Schengen area for just 3 months out of every 6 months.

I thought for sure we'd be able to prolong it when we got here. Nope. I haven't found a way to do that (went to four offices on the mainland and got laughed at in every one), so we are off to Britain in a month. The good part about this is that we will probably spend a month in Edinburgh, a place I've always wanted to spend more time. We might see Cornwall and maybe Wales, and we might spend a month on a shared holiday with Steven Payne in Yorkshire. All very exciting plans!

But we do prefer France. :) And would rather stay in Europe. Hopefully if we're meant to stay, we'll figure out a way the next three-month period.