14 October Tuesday 2008 – Safety first

My first walk into town for a long time. There are still lots of lizards darting about the garden. Here is a photo of one that stayed still long enough to be digitised.

The weather is glorious and as my hair is a mess (my nail varnish is chipped too), I decide to do some haircut pricing research. There are many hair salons to choose from, but I want cheap. Prices seem to range from 12 to 15 euros for a man’s cut. In one salon I could have my hair rearranged for 20 euros.
I am fed up, so I go into the first hairdressers that I passed. I get my hair washed and cut. I really just wanted it cut as I had only washed it 2 hours before. Anyway I sit very quietly in my grey open-fronted smock and rubber neck guard, while the lady snips, blows then trims away. It doesn’t take as long as it used to.
There is some debate as to how much to charge me and the shop staff settle on 10 euros (£8). There is a gents hairdresser up the stairs in the same building, so they probably don’t get many men going in.
I head towards my bank, but in the main square there is a road safety week going on. The place is heaving with gendarmes of every rank. The “Road safety village” as the large cordoned off area is called, is rammed with school children of various ages. They can put on a pair of special glasses and try and walk in and out of cones. They can go on a motorbike simulator, look at the drugs equipment and information stands, look at police motorcycles, test their reflexes etc etc. The two most interesting items were a machine that simulates what it was like to have a crash at 10kpm and another machine that simulates what it would be like in a car if it rolled over and over with you in it. Both of these of course indicating the importance of always wearing your seat belt. See the videos.

No prizes for guessing which is which :-)

I was also given a few goodies which included a one use breathalyser kit. Wait at least 15 minutes after you have been drinking and don’t smoke during the time that you are testing yourself as this could skew the results.
I collect my top up insurance credit card from the bank then head to the Casino to top up my caramel tea supply and a few other items.
S and I saw various types of “Flammekeuche” as menu options at the Irish pub last month, but we did not know what it was. Was it stir fry?
I spotted a packet marked Flammekeuche in Casino, so I bought it. It is like a pizza on thin, flat pitta bread.

Talking of bread, here is a photo of the olive bread

baked over wood that I like.

So now you know!