Fed up to the back teeth

Of the disrespectful French. At some point this weekend, some retard did this to my poor wee car. And naturally, they didn't leave their insurance details. Because in this forsaken country, it is not the done thing to have the slightest consideration for anyone but oneself. Now, I know probably more than most car-owners that if you have a car, it will get damaged. Yes, that sounds very pessimistic, but it's the truth. People will open their car doors into yours, they'll scrape past with supermarket trolleys or pushchairs or bikes or whatever. If you're really unlucky, other motorists will drive into you. I have owned my car for 10 years now, and every 2 and a half years, on average, somebody has driven into me. It's had 3 new front bumpers, 2 new bonnets, one new rear light cluster...

This means that I, more than many others, know full well that having a car means it will get damaged. Put it doesn't make the pill any easier to swallow. I just cannot get my innocent little mind around the concept that a person has caused damage to another person's property, and they have simply driven off, without a second thought. I wasn't brought up to behave that way. But it would appear to be the national attitude in this cursed country.

Or maybe it's something about this town. Disrespect and conceited, condescending deceitfulness are, after all, practised with skill and finesse by our town council. Local residents have only recently, and quite accidentally discovered plans to build blocks of flats just behind an existing, very small, lotissement (subdivision/estate). Now, if you or I common mortals wished to build a small extension to the kitchen, for example, we would be made to jump through many administrative hoops. Building permit application, declaration to the town hall, public announcement (ie permit application displayed on town hall notices board) followed by 3-month holding period in case any local residents wanted to lodge an objection... And of course you must pay for the privilege. But when it's the town council and their cronies who want to build 90 apartments, they can just approve the programme. No building permit applications for them, no public consultation, no planning procedures. Had this deceit not been uncovered, the first most residents would've know about the whole shambles would've been the morning the bulldozers turned up.

So possibly, the fine example set to inhabitants by the mayor and his cohorts is what leads to the sort of "petty" crime that saw my car door severely bent and nobody to own up to their misdeeds. Or maybe this town just has a higher than usual population of arseholes?

I know, I know. France doesn't have a monopoly on arseholes. But it is indeed strange that I have so many friends and acquaintances in other countries whose cars are never driven into. And even if they did, I am quite sure they would be able to report the crime to their local polis on any day of the week. Whereas, in third world countries, one can only report crimes from Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Eh? I wonder if I can ask to only pay my taxes for Monday to Friday, and deduct Saturday and Sunday.

And on top of all this, Doggy has a lump in her abdomen. Operation tomorrow to remove it and the vet has promised a biopsy if it looks remotely iffy. I know this has nothing to do with leaving in French France, but it's not helping maintain healthy, happy serotonin levels in my wee head.

Paid assassins?

It would seem that, recently, the locals' bad driving has turned into something more sinister. I am wondering if the motorists round these parts have mutated from being just crap drivers into motorised assassins. Only the other day, my decision to pop home at lunchtime almost had dire consequences. Twice in the space of ten minutes, the car's brakes and seatbelt locking were given a thorough testing.

To the monsieur at the wheel of a silver 307 (or whatever those things are): I was on the roundabout and my lane positioning (yes, I know, difficult concept for you French numpties) and use of indicators made it perfectly clear that I would be remaining on the roundabout and not exiting down the road you were approaching on. So why, please explain to me, did you think it was OK to come steaming onto the roundabout and cut off my right of way? Good thing my brakes work well, isn't it? Because you thought my car was going to hit yours, didn't you? I deduced that from the panicked swerve you executed, and the way you instinctively raised your arms to your face to shield yourself. Next time you pull that trick, the car already on the roundabout will almost certainly broadside you. That will learn you a lesson. You prick.

To the female in the dark-coloured Audi A3: being blonde, driving a car worth more than mine, talking on your mobile whilst driving.... None of these things dispense you from giving way to oncoming cars at an intersection. Just as a reminder, when the light is green for cars coming towards you, you must wait (the highway code talks about "giving way", an interesting concept you may want to learn more about) until all the cars coming towards you have cleared the junction, and then you may turn across the road and continue your journey. You may not turn into the priority traffic and cause the drivers to have to do another emergency stop. One of those drivers was me. I had already tested my brakes and my seatbelt locking system just 8 minutes previously. They, and my reactions, were in perfect working order. I didn't need or want to test them again. You witless fanny.

I am starting to wonder if they are out to get me, specifically. I mean, having to execute emergency avoidance manoeuvres is to be expected on occasion. But every time I get behind the wheel? Surely no. It's worrying. Luck has been on my side up until now. But my reactions can only be so good for so long... If something happens to me, you'll know. It was the assassin motorists.

Time to get this party started

Right! The fellow who will be assessing my career/choices/skills/strengths/entire life with me just called and my first appointment is on Wednesday. Are you excited too?

In other news:

Back at work today. Let's not talk about that.

Baltic in Scotland, Baltic here in France too. Still, no snow in our part of France which is a relief for 2 reasons: 1/ I can't be doing with any more snow; 2/ The French are quite crap at salting/ploughing/gritting and generally keeping the roads clear. I thought it was just me who held this view, having grown up in Scotland were car bodywork lifetime is severely compromised from all the salt the cooncils sling on the roads every winter, but French people would appear to agree that there is "un problème". As my father-in-law said yesterday, the weather forecasters foretell snow, the whole nation knows snow is coming, and the highways people awaken in the morning, open their curtains, and say "oh, it's been snowing!".

Tsk.

Here I am! Having a grouse - there's a surprise

I'm a disgrace, I said I was coming back with a ...pffft, and then I didn't.

Still, I'm here now. Popping in before I probably flit off again like a blogging butterfly. I do hope any of you who might be reading this are well and happy. No swine/type A flu I trust?

So what's the chat? Weeeellllllll. I'm thinking of retraining and becoming a goat herd. Possibly not a goat herd as one must get up early to tend to one's goats. But not doing what I currently do any more. I sort of woke up one day and it suddenly occurred to me that the every day, bread & butter part of my job bores the life out of me. Watch this space for news of goats.

The French government has, in its infinite stupidity, invented a new way to bleed our resources with taxe carbone (or carbon/green/environment tax). They patronisingly try to tell us that this levy will make us all more environmentally-friendly. Petrol will be taxed at the staggering rate of 4p extra a litre. Crikey, better sell the car! What the carbon tax is, in reality, is a money-spinner for a cash-strapped government. It will penalise people who live in rural areas where public transport is utterly non-existent and the least well-off for whom heating and fuel bills are already a huge chunk of their budget. It certainly won't change the way I use the car, because 4p more a litre is not a big enough rise to hit my budget all that hard. It is all stick and no carrot. We're being told off for not being green enough, but there is no real concerted effort to help ordinary folks to invest in more sustainable choices (roof insulation, power/heating using renewable energies). Plus nuclear power isn't getting taxed at all because apparently it's a non-polluting energy source. Riiiight.

Continuing with the France-bashing, there is much hand-wringing and consternation with September's road collision stats. 393 dead in September is over 17% more than Sept 08. When I consider the dreadful driving standards I witness on what is a very short commute (10 mins) to work and back, I'm surprised this number isn't higher. If you're in a hurry, no need to stop at the red light. Indicators and rear-view mirrors are for mummy's boys. Chavs on scooters must leave a gap of no more than 3cm with the vehicle in front (maximising their chances of running into said vehicle in the event of sudden, or even not so sudden, braking). And yoofs on bikes must pedal along with no awareness of the car that is about to squash them to death. Ah-la-la-la!!!

Staying on a motoring theme, I'm all cleaned out having forked up 200 and something euros for 4 new Michelins for the small car. Nice deep tread, ready for the winter. Jolly good thing though cos since I got them it's been sodding raining and my racing slicks just wouldn't have done the job.

And to end on a topical note, who else thinks awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to US president Barack Obama was a bit, well, ... not on. I don't have anything at all against the man, but he hasn't really done much has he? And that's hardly surprising, he's only been on the job a few months, give him a chance. I just feel it somewhat discredits the prize and past winners (worthy ones, because not all of them have been!) when it's handed out to someone on the basis of his good intentions and the promise of what they might bring.

So there.

C'est tout!

How can it be?

I just don't get it. There is no plausible, possible explanation. It beggars belief. I cannae understand it at aw'.

I must, in advance, ask for your indulgence on the nerdy nature of this post, but I really have to put this out to the floor, as it were, and see if anyone, somewhere, can help me figure it out.

As you may remember, our trip to Scotland at Christmas coincided quite fortuitously with a record low in the GBP/EUR exchange rate, so we took full advantage of being rich and spent our euro-pounds in a mad supermarket sweep at Sainsbury's. We bought paracetamol for 23p, parsnips for 50p, and Persil Small & Mighty (known as Skip in France) for about £7. And some other stuff but I can't be expected to remember it all can I? I was truly astonished at how much cheaper some "global" brand goods were in the UK. Even taking the exchange rate into account, French euro prices were looking like an utter piss-take on us put-upon consumers. Even the dog's Pedigree biscuits were cheaper!

So anyway, our bumper pack of Persil has finally run out (why is it all the bottles of laundry detergent all run out at once - bog-standard, wool-care and colour-care all empty!). So picked up some at the supermarché today. And it cost the princely sum of €7.44! I'm livid. 7 quid for 750ml. And how much is a 1.5l bottle from Asda?! FOUR pounds, my friend.

So I'm hoping someone can help me to get my (admittedly sometimes quite blonde) head around this seemingly inexplicable and rather enormous difference in price. Is there some sort of special extra VAT on laundry detergent in France that I'm unaware of? Does it cost very very very much money to print the packaging in French? Or are consumers in France just being utterly and completely ripped off?

Possibly the worst postal service in the world

Let me tell you a story. Last weekend I ordered a whole pile of Christmas gifts. I ordered them all on off the interweb, feeling smug as I went. All items but one were purchased from UK-based sites and have all since been delivered to my parents' address.

One item was ordered from fnac.com. Logically, I had it sent here to our house. I received confirmation of despatch on Monday. So today, a week later, I thought I'd have a wee look on the parcel tracking to find out what was what. And to my indignant disgust (but, tellingly, not to my surprise), I find that the useless f**king incompetent wasters at La Poste seem to think they knocked on our door on Thursday. They say we weren't in and they left a wee note to say we had a parcel. I say they are lying f**king wasters. They also claim that the parcel is now awaiting collection in "Bureau de Poste - Villeneuve d'Ascq" and that I have been advised of its presence there. I say again that they are no-good f**king shitfaces. I never received the wee note advising of a parcel. And there are 4 (count 'em) post offices in Villeneuve d'Ascq. You'd think that La Poste would know that. But clearly we are dealing with a crowd of utter morons who cannot tell their collective arse from their collective elbow, so we can't expect too much now can we?

I shall be visiting my wrath upon La Poste tomorrow. I shall visit my wrath upon them by telephone first, in the vain hope that if I give their complaints department (I hope they have plenty staff, probably very busy in this department) the tracking number, they'll be able to identify which bureau de poste has my parcel.

Maybe this is what has happened to the other 3 parcels we've been waiting for since the beginning of November? The brainless shitbags probably buggered up delivering them also.

And what pisses me off even more is that, while the lobotomised dimwits have been fannying around with *my* stuff, they somehow managed to get their collective finger out and safely deliver a massive parcel to Hubby. I see, national preference is it?

I'm sick of living in a third world country. Harrumph.

What do you mean when you say?

One of my bug-bears with the French, or more with common French expressions, is the (mis)use of the words "next" and "last" in a temporal context.

That sounds confusing. Let me explain... In English, or at least British English, we use next and last as follows:

"There's a great film on TV next Friday"
Said on Saturday or Sunday, means Friday in six days' time
Said on any other day, means Friday the following week. If it's Monday and you want to say there's a great film on TV in four days, say "this Friday".

"There was a great film on TV on Friday"
Let's say Friday was the 1st day of the month. This statement works until Saturday the 9th tops. Thereafter, you have to swap "on" for "last".

When the French tell you there's a great film on TV next Friday, they will probably mean Friday this week. Seriously. Today is Wednesday. A French person could say "next Friday" today, and actually mean the day after tomorrow. Weird!

I could concede that, taking the meanings of "next" and "last" at their most pure, the French use is correct. But I'm not letting that get in the way of a good semantics argument.

I had the perfect opportunity to grouse about this linguistic stupidity this very morning. I caught the end of the weather forecast (read "vague guess") and the bimbo presenter (French weather bulletins not presented by actual real live meteorologists) announced that we'd be in for some jolly cold weather next weekend. Bloody amazing!, I thought. Météo France are frequently unable to accurately predict what the weather will be doing in 24 hours' time, and now here they are forecasting a whole ten days ahead! Stunning.

;)

Any other expats out there want to let off steam about the linguistic idiosyncrasies of their host country?

Nobody does it better

Dear Zhu in Canada recently posted a wee list of French activities/customs/products that the Canadians have just never adopted and maybe never will. I did smile on seeing "demos" at the top of the list, Zhu!

Prompted by this, here is a wee list of my own. These maybe aren't the things I miss the most from Blighty, but I do think there's little chance of the spreading to France any time soon!

Cheap, industrial chocolate
I know, I know. It's full of vegetable fat and hardly any cocoa solids, but I'm a true Brit and I love my Cadbury's Dairy Milk (and Fruit & Nut, and Twirls, and Crunchies, and …). The French all like dark chocolate, consumed mostly in the form of tiny miniatures that come with the espresso (or express as the French say) coffee taken after a meal. Yuck. Double yuck in fact. Dark chocolate and coffee. Yuck yuck.


Cheap paperbacks (and hardbacks, for that matter)
I love books and I love to read. My favourite bookseller in the UK is Waterstones. I want to know when Waterstones shops will start providing trolleys so I can really shop! I especially love their ubiquitous 3 for 2 offers. A very clever marketing tool, as you always end up with four books you want, so you shop around for another 2, naturally. When you consider all the offers, probably the average cost per book works out at around £4-5 for a nice paperback, or £10-12 for a lovely hardback. (Aside: who else loves the smell of a brand new hardback? Ooooh, new book smell.)

In France, there is actually a law forbidding retailers to sell books below cost. They can sell them net of VAT (one of the best known bookselling chains, Fnac, does just this), but not below cost. It's something to do with protecting the cultural literary linguistic heritage. Or maybe it's more to do with lining publishers' pockets. Whatever. I reckon your average "nice" paperback (equivalent to a UK paperback, not those scratty poche books) will set you back around €8-9, and a hardback (they call them broché - basically a paperback printed in big typeface and bound with slightly stiffer card-like paper) comes in at about €21. That's nearly £18!

Yes, you do have to wonder at the long-term logic of stores like Tesco selling the latest chicklit paperback for £1.50 (though maybe a lot of these chicklit things are only worth a quid). But I don't care about long-term logic. I just need the books, man. Gimme the books. I couldn't give a stuff about any literary cultural claptrap. I just want cheap books to feed my habit.

Chips from the chippy. With salt & vinegar
What do you crave most when you have consumed maybe slightly more booze than you should have over the course of an evening? What must you have, immediately and right now? It can't wait until you get home can't this craving. You must have thick-cut, fatty chips. Hot from the bubbling oil, nestling in their paper wrapping (which the steam and fat eventually weaken so much that it rips and you risk losing your precious chips). A bag of chips from the chippy. Oh yes. The Scots like them with salt n' saus (salt and sauce to you, pal). The English prefer salt and vinegar. I have to say my English lineage dominates on this matter. But whatever, we're talking artery-encrusting quantities of sat fats plus blood pressure-rocketing volumes of salt.

Now that I'm past-it and mortgaged, I don't much go out on the razz any more. So I don't have these slightly inebriated cravings. But I do miss chippies.

Here in the Nord the locals love chips (is it the proximity to Belgium maybe? Or because main-crop potatoes are one of the main crops grown round here?). And I mean proper chips. Not those silly, skinny French fries. Chips. Thick slices of deep-fried potato. They even have chippies! They are often in the form of little outside catering vans (you know the sort that sell burgers outside football grounds?). But they still look at you funny when you ask for vinegar.

Queuing
The Brits love to queue. We adore standing in line. We also love automated queuing systems. You'll notice these in post offices, and in some supermarkets (M&S food) or stores (Boots). Everyone stands in the same line, and an LED number board (sometimes accompanied by a disembodied voice) flashes up the number of the free cashier or till. And the corresponding till also has an LED number, which also flashes. So each customer is served in turn. There are also more sophisticated automated queuing systems in places like railway ticketing offices (you will wait for hours in these places, so the queuing process has to be adapted). A machine distributes numbered tickets to all comers, and you can sit (you'll need to sit) and wait for your number to come up. The older, basic systems just gave you a number. More recent evolutions offer a choice of which service you want (buy a ticket, change a ticket, make a journey enquiry), and you are placed in the appropriate queue accordingly.

And best of all are bus queues. People may sometimes loiter around the bus stop in no particular structured queue. But when the bus comes, there is no desperate surge forward. If there was no orderly line to begin with, the passengers all stand around looking at each other, wondering who was there first, and motioning "no, after you".

The French don't know how to queue. It's an internationally accepted truth. At bus stops, in subway stations and on railway platforms they, too, loiter in a disorganised group. Yet when the bus or train arrives, they form a ruck around the doors, jostling for position and trying desperately to be the first on. It's not so bad on the buses, as most of them have at least two sets of doors. You must get on the bus at the front, so passengers alighting can do so at the other doors and avoid the scrum.

The train is another matter altogether. Especially the TGV. One of the reasons the TGV timetables are so (reasonably) reliable is the strict station stopping times. Before the train arrives in the station, the guard announces how long it will stop for. And you can bet if they said 2 minutes, it's 2 minutes and not 2 minutes 03 seconds! The result is passengers scrambling to get off the train, and more passengers scrambling to get on. Sometimes they don't even let you descend before trying to push on. It's stressful!

The French also like to stand right up close behind you while you conduct your business at the post office, or at the supermarket checkout. I mean close. I mean boyfriend and girlfriend, husband and wife close. Now, in most banks and post offices, there is a red line on the floor, and customers are asked to wait behind it until a teller is free. This is a step in the right direction.

Tea
As well as loving books, I also love a nice cup of tea. Like most Brits, I like a simple cuppa: black tea, made with boiling water. I take mine quite strong and milky. You can pretty much get a decent cup of tea anywhere in Britain. I mean, it's hardly rocket science is it? Boil some water. Pour it over a a teabag. Leave to brew. Fish teabag out of cup. Add milk and sugar to taste. Use a teapot if you can be bothered.

The French drink coffee. Some of them drink tea. But they like poncy, arty-farty tea like green tea and white tea and herb tea. Made with tepid warm water. When plain old black tea is on offer it's more often than not something called Lipton Yellow Label. I think that this is some sort of phoney tea brand sold the world over as British tea. The world over, that is, apart from in Britain (where we aren't fobbed off by this pale imitation). When I first came to France this stuff made tea that looked like dishwater (and tasted like one would imagine dishwater to taste). Foul. I think it is now a bit of a stronger blend, but still. It's really hard to find satisfying tea in France. I always stock up on plenty fairtrade teabags when back in Scotland. I just wish I could import some nice, soft Scottish water to make it with ;)

I, too, have in mind a couple of expats I'd be interested to hear from one this one:

• Confused Vicky: life in Switzerland for a confused Brit.
• Sugar: another Brit in France, but I bet she'll do a good list
  

It's a sin

Grrr. My day got off to a pretty bad start today when my mobile chirped "beep-beep". A text :) From the bank :( Something along the lines of "Dear Lis of the North. Did you know you're overdrawn by nearly a grand?". Wtf?!!

Let's now rewind to four weeks ago. I went to the bank and instructed them to cash in part of my life insurance policy. I wanted the money to pay for our bathroom (nearly done). And some other stuff. That's not the point. So the guy typed away at his keyboard and presented me with a thing to sign, which I signed, and that was that. Job done.

Having concluded this life insurance business, I then proceeded with withdrawals from my current account, calculating that I had X amount salary less Y amount mortgage + various bills plus Z amount life insurance. Loadsa money. You can imagine my surprise and growing horror when I got that text this morning. I even feared for a terrible moment that someone had somehow got access to my account and was cleaning me out (wouldn't take long).

But no. I checked internet banking and the useless crowd of wasters still haven't carried out the instruction I gave them four weeks ago to transfer three pots of gold from my life insurance to my current account. So I rang the call centre, reminding myself to try not to be rude to the customer advisor. And apparently "it's perfectly normal, madam". Is it?! "Didn't the bank teller mention that it can take up to 30 days for the instruction to go through?" Er, no. And why the hell does it take up to 30 days? I know it's the credit crunch and all that, but surely the bank doesn't need my miserly few euros to shore up its capital?

I'm part annoyed with myself because really I should have checked my account before now. But more to the point the half-brained oik at the branch should have told me it would take a whole month before I got my readies. And it shouldn't take a whole month for me to get my readies.

This is the third time the incompetents have messed up transactions on my account this year. Had enough. Will be opening an account with a proper bank providing proper customer service* very shortly. I figure that, given that I have no choice in paying bank charges (yes, here in the third world "free banking" is a completely unknown concept - a bit like "lane discipline"), I may as well get my money's worth.

*NB: may I had the caveat that this counting house only qualifies for such praise because so far I have been satisfied with its measly efforts.

No more working for a week or two

Actually that's not strictly true, as it's back to the slave-caves tomorrow as it happens. Still rewind a fortnight and it fits just nicely.

So here I am back from two blissful weeks in the Ardèche. Sunshine, kayaking, hiking, local markets, swimming and general lounging around for two weeks sounds like a decent holiday in my book. And that's what we got.

I don't know where to start or what to tell. We hired a car, hoping for a Scenic as we've had in the past, but instead Avis fobbed us off with a cheap and nasty Citroën Picasso. Disclaimer: no offence intended to Citroën owners. Now, Citroën make cheap and nasty cars made by and for people who's brains are in the wrong way round. Still, ripping the piss out of the car did pass the time in Paris traffic jams.

We stopped overnight at Hubby's Dad's. C made an absolutely lovely meal all of local produce (asparagus grown on the neighbouring farm, boar shot by JP this winter, local cheese and salad from the garden, and strawberries again from the neighbouring farm). It doesn't get much better than that! C's cooking is always a delight, even her 'just everyday' meals. Even though we were still quite full from a big lunch, we all took second helpings. I guess holidays are no time for watching your weight anyway!!

The next morning we had a walk round the farm with JP, and he showed us a foxes' den. It must not have been in use as Doggy didn't seem to pick up a scent. As JP said, if any animals had been there recently, even our "townie" dog would have noticed. It was lovely to walk round the farm and chat with JP. We were even lucky enough to spot a couple of red deer near a copse of woods.

Temperature was cold and sky was grey on arrival, but it soon got better and we enjoyed visits to local markets, mini-hikes, kayaking, swimming and lazing around in the sun. We did have one day of rain, but we managed to make that go by fairly painlessly by simply faffing around so expertly it took us all morning to leave the gîte and all afternoon to have lunch. How about that.

I love going to the Ardèche. I love the ace weather, the walks (we went on walks for wimps, as it was too hot for us to attempt the interesting-looking mountains in the distance - maybe one year we'll conquer them in October when it's cool!!), the markets, the fresh local food, the scenery... It's all jolly fab. So if you're looking for a fairly active holiday in France, go to the Ardèche. I have even added the gîtes to my links list so you already have somewhere to stay!!

Anyway I wanted to tell you all about it in great detail but I can't recall it all/be bothered to structure it all. Pics on Flickr.

Be afraid, be very afraid

There is a secondary school in our street, which was refurbished and renovated the year after we bought the house (so, six years ago then). But I only noticed the boastful sign not that long ago.

It says "The local education board is readying the future of the département here". When I contemplate the rabble that attends the school (something I try to do as little as possible), my spirits sink into my shoes ...

Some advertising

Three weeks ago we spent a weekend in the Champagne region with Hubby's family. It was most pleasant. We visited the museum of wine and vines which was most interesting, we went to a champagne capsule collectors' fair (more about that in another post), and Hubby and I supported the local economy by purchasing some of the produce of the land ;)

Anyway, the point is not that, the point is my stepmother-in-law runs gîtes (cottages, basically) at the farm. They have converted old farm workers' dwellings and stable buildings into some very charming little cottages for holiday lets. And C was telling us about the course she's been on to improve her website and how to reference it. And I said that I would add a link from the blog. Which I have duly done. And I'm sticking another one in this post for good measure.

So if you are ever looking for a quiet place to stay just south of the Loire valley, where you can enjoy walks and bicycle rides in the country, try your hand at some fishing or pick up the tourist trail to the châteaux, try the Gîtes de Courmain!

Post-op report

This picture is not of my teeth. Dr Oral Surgeon said they didn't keep mine. I suspect this is because they had to obliterate them into tiny pieces to get them out. Anyway, see the top right-hand one with the wiggly root? Imagine it with four wiggly and long roots, each wiggling in a different direction. That was my teeth. I feel quite proud of my singularly wiggly wisdom teeth roots. Indeed, Dr Oral Surgeon said they had never seen such wiggly ones.

So now I am wisdom toothless, dentally regressed back to adolescence. Thank heavens that's only a sort of figurative state, as it were. Imagine having to be a teenager again??!! Ugh. Everyone was extremely kind, even the anaesthetic nurse who stabbed me repeatedly with the needley things, and had the temerity to say she couldn't get the cannula in because of *my* wiggly veins (I dunno, wiggly teeth, wiggly veins ... should I rename the blog "attentionallwiggles"?).

Hubby goes on 20 March for the same torture. I really hope he doesn't feel as bad as I did post-op. I cried in recovery. All I could say was "mal" (sore). They said "how sore, on a scale of 1 to 10" and I held both hands up. I'm a baby. If I could have articulated more than one word, I would probably have asked for me Mum. So, they pumped me full of some nice drugs that made me feel sleepy and dribble, which was very pleasant in a strange sort of way.

And can I just say, based purely on our experience of French healthcare (and I hope none of you ever find yourselves in a situation where you need to choose), better to be in a private clinic than a public hospital because it's cleaner. Everything was clean. When Hubby was in a public hospital last year with his ankle, it was pretty grotty actually. The staff were very kind and competent, but it was dirty. And they were chronically short-staffed. The poor nurses were desperately over-stretched. Not in the private clinic. But that's one person's experience and cannot be generalised, I hasten to add.

And as for the tube in my nose, I have no recollection of that at all! I think I wasn't really all that conscious when I first came round. And that will make sense to anyone whose brain works like what mine does.

Thank you everyone for your kind comments. I much appreciate your indulgence of my scaredy cat-ness!! And I hope your wisdom teeth aren't wiggly xx

Homeward bound ... I was

This year being a special birthday year for me (I am now truly in my late twenties), I had decreed that I would spend the day with Mummy and Daddy. In fact, the last time I had spent the anniversary of my birth with my parents I wasn't even at university! So it was time.

And so we piled into the super Lismobile and took to the road. I think we set a new record this time, completing Folkestone to Midlothian in 8 hours including stops. When we got home a little birdie mistook Mum and Dad's house for a suitable roosting site. Aaah. We had to evict it though.


Dad says it was a green finch. He knows these things.

Alas I have nothing entertaining to relate regarding our journey, save for the thorough and far-reaching anti-terrorist controls at the French "border" checkpoint before embarking on Eurotunnel. The procedure is as follows:

1. Have four or five vehicles stop all at once.
2. Take one of those explosive trace swab things.
3. Go from one car to the next, and wipe the swab all around the steering wheel and the driver's electric window controls. Do not change swabs between cars and do not wipe any other parts of the cars.
4. Go back to little hut thing and analyse the swab.

While I am sure that the people who work for the French interior office surely are more clued up on counter-terrorism methods than myself, I have identified a couple of weaknesses in their technique. What do they do if the swab registers positive? Get everyone in all four cars to get out and unpack? And, more to the point, if you want to smuggle explosives into the Channel Tunnel, just ensure you don't touch the steering wheel or the electric window buttons. Best to get one of the passengers to pack the semtex.

What's your point ,caller?

So what *is* my point? What is the point of this blog? Do I have anything useful to say? And why is the wifi so bleedin' slow today?

First I have long overdue blushing thanks for Mya's nomination of this blog for a glittering prize. One day hopefully quite soon I'll display it with pride. But for now I'll just say "thank you, Mya, I'm touched".

I have lots of blogs to catch up on. I lazily technorati'd this morning to check out the latest news from my "favourite" blogs. Was upset to see that the dazzling Miss D has been struggling with her demons, and indignant to read Sugar's story of her freaky date and how all men just want to bed you. And there's lots else going on in the blogosphere and look how behind I've got!

I still don't seem to be able to hold on to an idea long enough to be able to write one down. I so want to blog about just what we've been up to (braderie last weekend, it was really warm and we made about 200 euros - yay!), what we're going to be doing (visit home soon-ish), and just generally give forth on anything and everything (as I'm prone to do)... But my mind is in a big rush and won't let me take the time to make up a proper post on anything. So you're just getting a sort of stream-of-consciousness pile of nonsense. Sorry!

So we did the braderie. It was hot (in October?!). We sold champagne corks (no kidding).

Hubby had an interview in Brussels on Wednesday but we don't really know what for. That doesn't make any sense. The employer is an IT services company and the job would be as a "consultant". But no further information. The compensation package sounded very generous so it probably means they expect you to work 10 hours a day. Every day. Hmm.

On Friday, Hubby got a call from a company in the UK that had already contacted him a couple of weeks ago. They want to arrange a telephone interview. Exciting!

I made Greek stuffed tomatoes out of my Rick Stein book. Surprisingly managed not to butcher any other fingers (last week I did some amateur amputation surgery with a Sabatier paring knife on my little finger - damn sharp them knives). They were a bit fiddly to make but really pretty tasty.

I also think I've accidentally stumbled on some kind of time warp/hole/thing. In the office, we don't have Earth minutes, we have Work minutes. They must only contain about 22 Earth seconds, and probably a Work hour lasts about 13 Earth minutes. This is the only possible explanation for how quickly the days whizz by. Except there is also a sort of reverse time warp that happens when someone says "I'll send you the files in about ten minutes", and two hours later, you still haven't received them...

I opened my last pack of tea bags this morning. I only have about 42 tea bags left. We're going to Scotland in 3½ weeks. Two cups of tea a day into 42 tea bags doesn't add up to enough tea until we go. Even mathematically-challenged Lis can work that out (and I didn't even need a pen and paper to do the sums)!

I wanted to debate (well, have a one-sided rant) about the hypocrisy of being a member of Les Verts (political party not unlike The Green Party, surprisingly enough), but nevertheless driving one's child to school every morning although you only live about a fifteen minute walk away (with no busy roads to cross en route). I don't get how you can join a party that claims to fight for the environment, but pollute so wantonly and pointlessly. But there is nothing to debate. The person in question is a hypocrite. End of.

I also want to know why the eco-mental green-friendly liquid hand soap is only sold by the dispenser-load. I mean, they don't sell refills. You have to buy a whole new dispenser each time. It doesn't make any sense.

And lastly, I'd like you all to have a look at the Earth Clock. And think on. Thanks to maxxo for leading me to that. Maxxo is a clockwork bunny who likes brewing nice cups of tea. I think she sounds interesting.

Pleased but hacked off

I'm pleased because it would appear my laptop won't have to go to laptop hospital after all. A couple of weeks ago, the screen started behaving oddly. It looked like somebody had drawn on it with a fluorescent felt pen. I was getting odd vertical blocks of bright pink on the title bars of windows instead of the gentle blue-fading-to-lighter blue we Windows slaves know so well. The clouds on my desktop wallpaper picture had lost their fluffy whiteness and were becoming a garish red around the edges.

Hubby (on my nagging instructions) called Dell and the bloke made him go through the usual IT quick-fix of updating every possible thing there is to update. It seemed to work. But then the fluorescent felt pen came back and it was worse than before. I was deeply distressed. My laptop would have to go to laptop hospital. I was to be deprived of blogging, the interweb... And how long would it take? I mean, I can use Hubby's computer for a couple of days in an emergency but it's not nice like my laptop. What was I going to do??!!!

Hubby sent another email to the man at Dell saying we had a relapse and things were looking critical. Dell-man wrote back with a last resort repair plan to try to keep my laptop out of after-sales service hell. Plug in an external screen and see if the same problem occurs (why didn't we think of that d'oh!). Everything looked fine on the external screen. Well, it wasn't the graphics card, but it was the screen. Oh no, repair gloom loomed... But wait, one last thing to try. The other IT stalwart of "unplug it and plug it back in again". This involves open-keyboard surgery on the laptop, to get to the bit you have to unplug and plug back in again. And it was there we discovered the source of the problem. A dog hair.

"Suction, nurse," commanded Hubby as he prodded at the innards of my laptop with a screwdriver. And no, it wasn't some odd new sex-game we have going on. My laptop was infested with little white dog hairs. Now this is something you can't use a Dyson for. Too much suction. It would have sucked up all my keys. Lucky we still have the ancient cleaner with adjustable sucking speed. Cleared up the dog hairs and put the laptop back together and the felt pen has gone! Hurray!

So why am I hacked off? Well, my new toy is broke. Proper broke. I've only had it for a month. Don't buy a Sony digital camera is my advice! So it has been shipped off to after-sales service hell and won't return for at least 3 WEEKS! How long??!! And what really made me fizz was that if it had gone broke two weeks ago, they would just have replaced it pure and simple. That'll be the fantastic statutory consumer protection in France then. Grr.

Oh, bad luck France

In my post on things I'd miss about France, you may have noticed I didn't mention the nation's fine sports teams. I can't fathom why I omitted to include them in my list ...

Ah yes, France. They get done over at rugby by a great footballing nation, and done over at football by a great rugby nation. And you want to watch out, Les Bleus, getting beat by the Scots might become an embarrassing habit!

Oh I'm only mildly pleased to see two of the biggest and most irritating prats in the country brought down a peg or two (yes, I mean you, Laporte and Domenech).

Priceless French experiences

Or things the French do so much better than anyone else.

Having been tagged by Zhu who's in Canada, I have been busy thinking of ten things you can experience/see/do/eat in France that you really shouldn't miss out on. Purely from my point of view. I think there might be lots of food in this list.

1: A long French lunch. Everyone knows the French are serious about food. There must, of course, be some French people who don't care about good food and enjoying it (plenty of McDonald's here), but it's so much more fun to enjoy meals and take plenty of time over the whole eating business. The 2-hour lunch break on weekdays may be a myth, but on a Sunday the French are experts at making having lunch into an afternoon-long activity. The best occasions are family meals for birthdays, anniversaries or just for the fun of having a big family meal. It all begins with the apéro and some little nibbles for a mise en apétit. This can take half an hour easily. Then the meal itself which can take three hours at least. You have time to enjoy your food, to chat with your companions, and decent pauses between courses. You need this time to digest a bit before more food comes your way. Sometimes, it takes so long to have lunch, it's nearly dinner time before you get up from the table. Except you're too full for more food.
You don't want to have these sorts of lunches every week, of course. You'd become an enormous blob if you did and would never get anything done on a weekend ;)

2: Conduite sans frontières. This one isn't exclusively French, but it is one of the appreciable aspects of living in France, which is a signatory of the Schengen Agreement. This means you can climb in the car and drive and drive, to Denmark via Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany. And maybe even carry on to Sweden. Or to Portugal via Spain. And all this without ever having to stop at a border control and present your passport. I love Europe.

3: The choice of cheese. Everyone knows about the French love of cheese, the vast choice and variety of cheeses produced and enjoyed by the French. And there is a cheese out there for all tastes. If you like nutty and fruity, try some Comté, cow's milk cheese from the Jura mountains in the east. I like the 18-month aged one. Or maybe you prefer creamy and mild? How about some ultra-fresh Selles-sur-Cher, made using goat's milk in a handful of départements around 150 miles south of Paris, just south of the Loire river. When it's very young it's creamy and fresh, and as it ages it dries and takes on a saltier flavour with a strong aftertaste. Or how about brie? Two cheeses in one: when it's young it is quite firm and mild, but you can also buy it "runny", with the creamy pâte literally seeping out from under the rind. I cut the rind off because I don't like the flavour. French people roll their eyes at this. And my favourite, Picodon (pic). A small, round goat's cheese from the Ardèche and Drôme, in the Rhône Alpes region. It is quite delicious.

4: Buying wine directly from the vigneron. Like cheese, wine is very much associated with France, especially in the "old world". The French are rightly proud of their wine. Some of it is indeed very nice. The most fun way of buying wine is to be able to go to a wine-producing region, pick out a producer, and go directly to the exploitation where the vigneron will tell you about his wine, he might show you the vats where it's fermenting, or the oak casks where it ages. You might get to visit his cave and see dozens and dozens and dozens of bottles in gravity-defying stacking arrangements. And then the wine-grower will offer you a taste of his wine. He'll explain how you should serve it (chilled, room temperature) and suggest which foods go best with it. This is the most fun way of buying wine. And guess what, the closest wine-producing region to our house is Champagne. Oh what a shame.

5: la Tour Eiffel. It may well be a tourist cliché but no visit to France, and certainly no visit to Paris can be complete without the famous iron tower. What more can I say? Take the stairs!


6: The braderie de Lille. The braderie is like an enormous yard sale/car boot sale/garage sale, and it happens in the centre of Lille on the first weekend of September. There are braderies all over the north of France, there's even one in our "village". You pay a few euros for a space and sell all your junk. Great fun. The Lille event is now quite removed from the amateur feel of most braderies. There are still some sections of the 200km of streets and pavements where you can find stalls selling collector's items and old furniture, but it is also quite commercial, with all city centre stores joining in, with special braderie bargains. And of course, moules-frites. Mussels steamed in white wine and served with French fries. I have no idea how many kilos of mussels are consumed, but restaurants compete with each other to have the biggest pile of shells outside. Can get a bit whiffy when it's warm...!

Now I'm going to enjoy a glass of champ' (bought from the producer!) cos it's our 1st wedding anniversary. Might finish this off tomorrow...

What I could happily live without

Continuing in the same vein, and still in the interests of fairness, let's have a look at what I wouldn't miss in France if one day we escaped from here...

• French driving. Here's a tip if you're ever driving round these parts: don't stop at the lights unless they are red. Do not stop at orange. Or, if you do, check your mirrors first. If there's a car behind you, keep going, because if you stop you'll be rear-ended. I think part of the problem is that the lights stay on orange for too long, instead of passing almost immediately to red. Many other gripes about French driving include: lane discipline (an unknown concept), indicators (too confusing), headlights (not required in town because there are street lights so you can see where you're going), and don't get me started on roundabouts...
• French TV. It is quite awful. The TV licence costs about £80, admittedly cheaper than in the UK. But in France, public service channels have commercial advertising. Lots of it. And all the programming is bought, either from the US or Germany. I suppose that's why it's cheaper than the BBC, no expensive programme-making here! And the "private" channels are like ITV on a particularly bad day.
• strikes. Especially by railway workers. They are possibly the most molly-coddled public sector workers in the world. They work for three years then retire on full salary (paid for by me!), but like to go on strike often and inconvenience lots of the people who pay for their pensions in order to claim the right to retire after just two and half years working.
• taxes. I am especially intrigued by the fact that, the salary I must declare on my tax return is actually about €720 greater than what I actually got paid. How does that work? That's a clever system, though, getting people to pay tax on money they never had. Cunning.
• diesel cars. In France, nearly everyone has a diesel. They are all driving around in their diesel cars, pumping out sulphur and black soot particles, giving us all brain cancer and asthma. Diesel cars sound like tractors, smell like something very smelly and foul, and are just generally bad. Yes yes, modern diesel cars emit less carbon than modern petrol cars. OK. But the French don't have modern diesel cars. They have ancient Peugeot 405s that have never been serviced and pump out huge clouds of black smoke at all times. I also love the myth peddled in these parts that diesel cars are cheaper. No they are not. They cost more to buy and more to service. Apparently it takes ten years (at average mileage of 12 000km a year) for the initial extra investment of buying a diesel car to start paying off in cheaper running costs. Think I'll stick to petrol.
• the Académie Française. This is a sort of old farts club that holds sway over the French language, deciding whether a word is "French" or not. Whenever a new word comes on the scene (like start-up, or e-mail, or web [as in, the interweb]), the academy sets about finding a suitably French equivalent. So we have contrived words like "courriel" or "mél" for e-mail, and the "ouaib" (I kid you not) for the interweb. Most people, naturally, speak of sending a "mail" and surfing the "web". If a language is allowed to evolve and grow, it will stay alive. If some stuffy group of academics try to keep out any "new" or (worse) "foreign" words, the language will die. Think on, academiciens.
• nuclear power. The French think they have the answer to meeting Kyoto targets and beyond in generating their electricity from nuclear power. It is hailed as a "clean" energy of the "future". Personally, I find nuclear power is a bit like crapping in a shoebox and leaving it to your grandchildren. It generates highly toxic waste, and we have no idea what to do with this. So we bury it far underground and hope it will go away. I'm sure our children's children will thank us very much for this gift to them.
• people speaking about "England" and the "English" when in fact they mean "Britain" and the "British". That really, *really* winds me up.
  

Still, it ain't all bad. I have Hubby and Doggy to help me through :)

True colours?

It would appear that some people just don't know how to cope when things don't go their way. A fair few incidents of unrest across France following the gnome's victory on Sunday. That's just not a good move on the part of the protesters. Listen children, you were given the chance, along with the rest of the electorate, to express yourselves. Turns out there were more people who disagreed with your choice than agreed with it. That does not mean you can go about burning people's cars and smashing up shops. It means you just shut up and put up with it. You will have another chance only next month to express yourselves, during legislative elections. You are lucky, because how many countries just impose a government, and how many others rig the elections, and how many others restrict suffrage to a privileged few? Feel blessed you live in France and not Zimbabwe, or Nigeria, or Turkey, or Syria to name just a few.

Also cheered to notice the unions are already threatening to throw their toys out of the pram come the autumn. Some things never change.