Wednesday 11 March 2009

Rolling out the red carpet

Yesterday morning was a shopping day. We drove to Pamiers to have a look in the big Conforama store. We arrived at 9.30am to discover that their opening hours are 10am – noon and 2 til 7pm. The sun was shining so we strolled around to see what other outlets were nearby.The only one open before 10am was a decorating and furnishings place. I now know where to go if I want to buy wall paper, especially in shades of orange.
Conforama duly opened and we looked at the rugs for some time. Late last week we bought an off cut of thin grey carpet for 6 euros, which I cut in two and stick together side by side to make a carpet square. This was placed on the living room floor, as below.
















There were some rug bargains and I hummed and hawed about an especially large rug which was reduced by 100 euros to 99 euros. It had a herd of elephants, and a herd of zebras on it, as well as other more tribal designs. Reluctantly I decided against it. I wouldn’t want anyone thinking that I had gone to Africa on safari!
I may have mentioned in the past that here in France it takes my kettle at least 4 minutes to boil. Drinking an average of six cups, that means wasting 24 minutes per day. Enter Tefal with a gizmo that filters the water then dispenses it as instant very hot water on demand.









In reviews, tea afficianados hate it. Amusingly it makes a sound like a small pneumatic drill whilst operational. Still it will give me back 20 minutes per day……
Next stop was across the road at Mr Bricolage to look at electric wall heaters. Just inside the door was a rug promo. There were very few large rugs left, but we whizzed in and grabbed the biggest red one, which was on sale for 69 euros. I like to think that it was very similar to one they had in stock for 230 euros. I was rolling it up ready to take to the till when an English bloke came along. He was saying something about only having been away for two minutes, so I think I had got the one he had his eye on. The trouble with small cars is that it is difficult to fit in large or long objects. It was a struggle but we got it in. That left us with about 20 minutes to look around before noon, when the store shut for lunch……

Then to miss the lunch rush traffic, we walked across to Carrefour and bought some mussels, cheap white wine and a few other essentials.
Home for lunch, then out again for my French lesson. What an exhausting day! Not that it was over as the rug had to be deployed in place of the grey off-cut (much thicker)







and the new water boiler washed and tested…..
"Traditional kettles are notorious energy guzzlers, representing around 27 percent of all electricity used in domestic cooking. The Quick Cup consumes 68 % less energy than a traditional kettle as it only heats the amount of water actually needed. Over a 12 month period, the energy saved by using the Quick Cup instead of a kettle would be enough to light your home for more than three months, based upon a home with ten light points using 100 watt bulbs"
How green am I!?

3 comments:

  1. Extremely green, it seems! I think I need one of those. I spend half my life waiting for the kettle to boil (well, it feels like that).

    yay you, stealing the bargain from under that other bloke's nose. That'll teach him to hesitate.

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  2. I think it is hilarious you'd search to redeem 20 minutes. those moments could be little respites during the day. for reading. or blogging. or dreaming.

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  3. Ah how little you know of my life. I have already made the time for such respites throughout the day as you suggest by saving time in other ways. Going to bed fully dressed, velcro fastenings for shoes instead of having to wast time tying laces, taking the stairs 3 at a time, never using 5 words when 4 will do etc. I could go on, but then no one would buy my forthcoming self-help book. "Rigsby's time machine tips - a potpourric plethora of pertinent pointers pertaining to the perplexity of prevarication and prevention du temps perdu" I'll let you translate it for the French edition :-)

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