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!?

Bumbles, bees, bugs and birds

The weather has taken another turn and once again it is almost summer-like. I was pottering in the garden picking up other peoples rubbish, and spotted these little beetles. I don’t know if they will show up big enough for you to see on screen. Initially I thought they were squashed flat ladybirds mating, but a search on the internet suggests that they might be
Pyrrhocoris apterus.

Apart from that I am none the wiser. The only other insects were a bee and a bumble bee.

I saw my first lizards of the year, about 2 weeks ago.
My crocuses are now in bloom and my tulips continue their green progress skywards. Right that’s the bees and bugs out of the way, now for the birds.

Entertainment wise, things may be beginning to hot up. There was this going on at a nightclub in a neighbouring town.

photo from club website

Having looked at the photos of the event on their web site (purely for research purposes), the “young” lady managed to lose all her clothes and those of some poor gentleman from the audience. Coming soon to the club

13 March

Night of luck, come and scratch!!!! Ah they do things differently here

photo from club web site

Richardson would be twizzling in his grave. His virtuous pamela held out for marriage and I cannot remember any mention of whipped cream in the novel, although she may have done a bit of cooking.

Do they still have strippers in the UK? It took me back to my first few student days in the late 70’s, when I went to the student union to see two ladies who will “dance and sing for you”. By the following year I think the feminist protest groups had caused so much trouble outside and inside such events that the Student entertainments committee stopped having strippers.
Do women or men protest outside shows put on by the Chippendales? Perhaps that is classed as art.
Note to self – Is this a possible career path? Remember to ask mobilisation vers emploi counsellor tomorrow. Pps also rememberto wear clean posing pouch and white ankle socks to the meeting.

Parking wars

Once again I feel moved to rant about the effing reading / parking habits of the French.
I have parking prive signs up in my parking area in front of my house. Admittedly there are only about 4 of them, but they are obviously too small for the average French motorist to see.
Usually it is people looking for the new medical centre. This has now finally got a sign up identifying its location, so most people drive past the sign and do a 3 point turn in my parking area or that of the flats opposite. Some just park on my land and walk to the centre.
Visitors to the flats opposite also sometimes park in my parking area. If I catch them, I explain that they are parked in my garden and that the space is for my rent boys and girls.
It could be a full time job.
Here are just two examples from the end of this week.
Lady going to view either an apartment across the road, or the vacant office unit located there.

Second one is a lady who lives across the road in the flats, being dropped off in my garden, before crossing the road and putting stuff in her boot.

On both occasions there was lots of space for them to park at the flats.
I now have 2 signs red background with white lettering which say “Propriete Privee” which I will deploy at my entrance today. I will relocate my “Parking prive” signs to make a nice row of them, on the wall facing the road so that there can be no risk of not seeing them, should lodger's vehicles be legally parked on my land.

If nothing else, it will be an interesting social experiment, which will enable me to give an astonished “Vous ne pouvez pas lire?” with follow up, head shaking bewilderment as they tell me that they did not see the signs.
Yes I have 2 power tools, and I am not afraid to use them!

Underneath the arches

On Friday morning I braved the cold and wet to seek out the education lady to discuss the possibility of me doing a tourism course. French signage is not very good, as you will quickly find should you ever visit the country.
I see a sign at the bottom of some steps near me with the right organisation name, there is another big sign with even more writing on a few hundred yards further on. I go up the steps. French fonctionaires like their offices and work spaces kept warm, not for them the penny pinching world of library council nimbyness. If the weather is cold, you have heat plus some extra.

Digression alert: The town’s prefecture central heating system was on its last legs, so a few months ago it was replaced. In a stunning first for France, our prefecture is now running a wood burning system. They have made a silo holding 35 m3 in one of the bridge arches. The wood lorry comes along with its little wooden balls, they hinge up the road, pour in the wood, and one delivery will last for 15 days of normal usage.

(Photo from LA Depeche online newspaper)

A saving over the old gas costs of around 10,000 euros per year. The whole project cost 431,000 euros, so it may take a couple of years before it pays for itself, but boy are we green. A solar heating system for hot water is the next phase. Another authority is soon to follow in our green wake.

So I went up the steps into the warm waiting area, a lady comes out of an office takes me back outside and points to the entrance a few hundred yards away.
The next door is trickier because I don’t bother reading the notice properly.
I press the buzzer pad, and push the door, I press the buzzer pad and pull the door, I press the buzzer pad and pull the door (I have spotted the tirez sign).
Reluctantly I read the sign above the buzzer pad, push the pad while pulling the door.
I finally do as I am told and enter. I expect it is not too annoying for the 2 receptionists sitting twiddling their thumbs, to have silly people pushing their buzzer all day.
I approach their sanctum and ask to see DM. Oh, they say she is here, but she is not here today. Their collective brain clicks into gear and one of them says that perhaps I would like to speak to DM’s secretary?
I say yes and follow one of them round the corner. No dear reader, it is not a ruse to get me on my own, there is indeed an office containing a lady who is on the phone. The French do love their phones.
We gesture to each other and I stand in wait.
I have time to study her. She is extremely slim, and very chicly dressed. Short well coiffed hair and must surely be feeling rather hot in her boots.
How can she help?
I would like to make an appointment to meet DM
Do I have an appointment?
No, but I would like to make one.
And so the dance goes on. I learn that DM is not there today and I leave my mobile number and email address. This is written down in an A4 notebook. I am now at the bottom of a very long list…..

What’s in a name?

At my last meeting with my work mobilisation advisor she decided that I should concentrate on tourism. My homework before the next meeting is to go to the employment and solidarity education centre to chat to a lady about my burning desire to become a tourism technician. It is possible that the French state would pay for me to go to Carcassonne to study for 7 months to get the qualification necessary to apply for jobs in this seasonal tourism sector. Bed and board would be paid for and I would return home at weekends. There are other locations for the training throughout France, but Carcassonne is the nearest. I think that work placement is part of it too, so perhaps I would not be home for weekends. There is usually a waiting list to go on these courses so if I was lucky enough to convince the lady that this is where I really want to work, then I might get on a course later in the year.
Unlike the UK where there is probably one category of tourism worker, in France there are about 14 or so, all minutely different and requiring a specific qualification to be eligible to apply for suitable posts which come up.
Not that there are many posts in this part of France. I would probably have to travel afar to find work.
The next person that I have to see is the Head of Tourism for the Ariege, based in the Town Hall. I have to find out what planned direction, if any, tourism is to take in the Midi Pyrenees, where the work is etc.
I also have to go to the big secondary school and speak to one of the teachers / lecturers who provide the tourism course there. I have to find out from them where the best locations to find tourism jobs in France are.
Disneyland probably has their own training school, so there is not much chance of Mickey Mouse tapping you on the shoulder and it being me.
Before I start harassing the above people, I have 17 pages of text to read about this role of “Technicien d’accueil touristique option accompagnement” entails so that I can prepare my sales pitch to try to get onto a course. The speaking 3 languages requirement will be an issue…..

Simply British

This morning we leapt out of bed and arrived at the new premises for the Simply British shop. The shop was set up about 12 years ago by Sue and her husband. Today the old shop fittings and contents were to travel a few hundred meters up the road into a new location which is much more visible to passing trade.

About 10 people in total turned up to help and everyone was kept busy up until 1pm, when we walked another few hundred yards to a local restaurant Gaia, for lunch. Lunch was vey good indeed. The restaurant is run by a Brit and his Australian wife and holds about 16 people at most. Here is a link to a review of the restaurant some months after it opened,

2 hours later it was time to start work again. S and I are old hands at shelf arranging, which is just as well as the shelves were filled, contents were then moved to another shelf, and then moved again. The shop also stocks a range of second hand books for sale and I had amazing fun putting books where I was told and then moving them again and again.

All still to do








Sue, the owner, Soopervises

Sue's husband forced to sit in the naughty corner, with the books










Don't know where the supermarket trolleys came from






Yes, Simply British is the one stop shop for all your UK favourites. Heinz Baked beans, Pataks curry sauces, Johnsons baby oil, Walkers crisps, brillo pads, mint jelly, sherbert fountains, HP sauces, crockery, various makes of tea and coffee, Birds custard powder, the list goes on and on, and they do mail order.
This is a link to the Simply British web site to see what goods you might miss should you move to France that you can pack them into your suitcase before you leave the UK.

We finally called it a day just before 6pm, as one of the freezers was being manoeuvred through the front door.
Most of the work is done, and the shop should be ready to open on time on Tuesday next week.We were both tired, not being used to lunches with wine and having to move about for long periods of time without sitting down.

Hyperactivity

After returning from our trip yesterday afternoon, Madame rang my bell.
I opened the bedroom window and she told me that her friend D was coming at about 3pm to discuss all the work that I need doing on the house, and the possibility of demolishing the outbuilding which is about to fall down, and replace it with another structure.
He whizzed about for 2 hours, under the house, on the roof, searching for a bouton to switch off the ventilation system. (Eet must be there by law, but of course it is not anywhere visible. He thinks it is behind a wall and when he returns next Saturday he will bring a friend who has a machine to trace wires)
It was very exhausting, and he kept on telling me the same things over and over again, quite sure that although I was telling him that I understood, he seemed sure that I didn’t.
Next weekend he will also bring a measuring tape. The outbuilding job will probably require paperwork and permission from the Town Hall.
D seems keen that Bee boy's van is pressed into service to remove the rubble and wood when it is demolished.
Madame reports that the new outside light works well, and Bee Boy also confirmed this. Perhaps the sensor only detects small, French people?