Rants

(Written for funsies- the majority of this is about three weeks old now).

Today I got a box of dead flowers, well on the way to turning into mulch. It took the French postal service a month to deliver them. The previous record was when the postman acquired an Amazon delivery one Friday and got around to attempting delivery the next Wednesday (when I finally got the delivery note and could pick the parcel up on Thursday). I am used to mail sent within France taking a week to be delivered. The stamp for a letter here costs the same as the Europe-wide stamp you buy in the UK. A letter from the UK to France takes about three days to arrive. People complain about the Royal Mail but it's pretty good.

I'm not one to be spooked by the "yoof" of today but I am put on edge by French teenage boys. It isn't that they are often on the trams and buses drunk. Or that they play music loud. Or that they shout. It is that they spit. A day does not go past that I am not confronted by this horror.

The best supermarket I have been able to find is the equivalent of an Asda. I used to find the hypermarkets amazing. Dvds and food in one place? But now that is almost commonplace in the UK and I am no longer in awe. I am just depressed by the lack of quality in the fruit and veg, the sparsity of healthy ready meals and the expensive meat that goes off instantly and is riddled with fat. The chocolate and biscuit aisles are extraordinary and don't let me near the pattisserie section, but overall I am not impressed. The time wasted queueing is a constant bugbear as well. It takes far too long to get through. The UK needs to catch up on the States and Japan in many ways but France is clearly behind the UK in employing enough staff and designating different queues for different quantities.


About a month later now and I can happily report that the fruit situation has improved with the season.

Today there is a strike and so public transport is almost but not quite non existent. You just don't know when you are standing at the bus stop whether you will have to wait a few minutes or an hour. It's a common thing. There seems to be a large strike every month or so with smaller strikes happening every week (I am not sure whether they actually qualify as strikes or whether it is just that the drivers all decide to stop to have un cafe). I find I cannot look at this with anything but wry amusement though because as ridiculous as this is, at least there is public transport to miss. Getting anywhere in California was next to impossible and it is so hideously expensive, crowded and complicated in the UK that I despair. So, this isn't a rant about the strikes. It is just amusement.