The week that was…..

Bonjour,

Since last post we have ducked over to England for a quick visit. We are always surprised about how close it is, and how long it takes to get there. This time we caught the ferry from Cherbourg to Poole, arrived there after 9pm, stayed overnight, then drove to London the next day. Return trip was train into London (Lee drove back earlier), caught the Eurostar from St Pancras to Gare du Nord, then 4 hour drive back to Cherbourg.

We started a list of who does it better – French or English. So far the list looks like this:

Architecture – definitely the French. Most buildings have had some thought go into the aesthetics, the English generally seem to go for function but ugliness is not an issue, especially in the larger cities.
Coffee – neither is great, but the French win this one as well. English coffee is so weak you might as well just have warmed milk.
Food – England wins this one, based on the diversity of food available, both at restaurants as well as supermarkets. French food (from our experience so far) is very traditional and if you don’t like meat, eggs, cheese or butter, then too bad. Much easier to be a non meat eater in England.
Government of the day – both are in a bit of a pickle. The English whinge a lot, the French protest a lot. In both cases, the bar is pretty low for different reasons.
Tasteful Christmas decorations – French (see below). England tries, but they have stiff competition.

The Eurostar was very fast and efficient as usual. And not cheap. £191 for a one way ticket, but that’s on a Friday which is the most expensive time to travel. Middle of the day on Wednesday is only £67. But they never seem to have trouble filling these trains.

This is displayed on the screen in each carriage (05 refers to Carriage no 5). According to this, the train was travelling 75 metres below sea level. I don’t think the octopus is to scale.

IMG_4895 (1) — And this screen tells us that the tunnel is a 50.45 kms in length. Again, I don’t think those houses are to scale. It also tells us that the train is going in the direction of Paris – bit late to know that when you are already in the tunnel.

We stayed overnight in Paris and next morning we strolled around in the rain. Always something to see that is a little different.

There were Christmas decorations everywhere and the wet, dull, gloomy weather really made them stand out. Apparently most people buy a real Christmas tree every year, none of that fake stuff. Then after Christmas there is a rubbish collection to pick up all the trees. We went past a florist shop and they were busy getting the trees ready for sale. It was amazing, they had a machine sort of a like a sausage machine – trees go in one end, and come out all trussed up at the other end. They also have stands made of cut up logs to hold the trees upright.

Can’t help wondering if this guy has been there for the birth of any of his children.

Another thing that was new to us was the delivery of dry cleaning. A motor bike went past with what looked like a small pizza oven at the back. He stopped and pulled out a small rack full of shirts from the dry cleaner and delivered some of them in to a nearby apartment block.

Et voila, the back opens up and the rack of shirts pops out.

What we didn’t realise till we got back last Saturday was the amount of protesting in Paris that day. We didn’t see any of it, but they expect it will be worse next weekend with the truck drivers now starting to weigh in on things. What started off with the ‘yellow vests’ protesting about the hike in fuel taxes has now become a huge anti-government protest. Ambulance officers are striking, students are protesting, garbage collectors are striking…….the list goes on. The main complaint is the rising cost of living in France, apparently the average wage in France is about €30,000 – tough going when prices keep going up.

On the way back from Paris we were stopped at one of the toll gates and the protesters were holding us back till they decided to let cars through. They had managed to raise the boom gate so nobody was charged toll and they were letting through anybody that had children in the car. We were only held up for about 10 minutes and then when we finally got through they were cheering, clapping and smiling like we had just completed a fun run. (Not that we have ever completed a fun run, but you get the idea). It was a bit of a party atmosphere but apparently it’s not like that in other places. If you are not able to participate in the protests then you can show your support by displaying your yellow vest on top of your dashboard, and we are seeing plenty of them.

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