Friday, June 03, 2005
Well I suppose I’d better do some work….
Apparently I am meant to be doing work whilst out in France. The fact that “apparently” has appeared in this sentence is good, because it must mean that I have chilled out at last and am just ambling through each day, rather than thinking “work, work, work”, which is what I tend to do!
I have to say, up until now, we have had things relatively easy, despite having to set up a deal with a new restaurant and re-write routes, but in as far as guest numbers, it has not exactly been a baptism of fire! Tonight was the first time, for example, that we have needed to be “in 3 places at once” to debrief guests who are departing tomorrow…. But we managed. Soon I will have to start doing the cycle tour briefings: until now I have briefed the walkers, and Gerwyn has done the cycle briefs - the only difference is having to give a puncture demo and give out the bikes and make any adjustments that are needed to handle bars, seats etc….basically stuff I have not done since the training course back in Cheshire, and as with anything, the longer you leave it between training and practice, the more nervous you get!! So my first cycle briefing is on Sunday morning – it’ll be fine I’m sure! (note to self: must not drink too much wine on Saturday night!!)
Mmmm…food!
I am continuing to enjoy cooking – Gerwyn is also taking his turn in the kitchen, and we are both working our way through the recipe books that Kate sent me for my birthday, and starting to get more confident in just making stuff up! I think for lunch tomorrow I’m going to do us a Croque-Monsieur – can you believe that the BBC cook book Kate got me has got recipes for both a croque and tartiflette!!!
It is really nice being able to get fresh, local produce: us Brits have got so used to being able to get stuff from the freezer, or a greenhouse, or imported from miles away – whereas everyone round here really does buy stuff that is in season: it even appears on the news!! Currently, it is asparagus and radish season. In a couple of weeks we can expect local peaches, rather than imported Spanish ones! And we are eating lots of salmon – it just seems so tasty, and relatively cheap…
Politics….
But apparently the French feel the cost of living has gone up. Definitely the euro was a chance to round up prices, and the exchange rate seems to have meant that the round up was noticeable! But also they have this 35 hour week thing, which means they are restricted on how many hours they work, and therefore to get the end product to the shelves, they employ more people or it takes longer, and therefore costs more…so whilst the referendum vote was a resounding 54% Non with 70% turnout, they were not in fact voting against Europe, but instead voting against internal politics!
Local festivals…
A cheese rolling festival in the UK has been making headlines recently on French news – they find it amusing that we roll a cheese down a hill and then run after it, at some point tumbling down, but commenting that the number of fractured bones was not too high!! Well, if they think we are strange, this weekend there is a “ham on the bone” festival in the neighbouring village! Might have to pop along to see what’s going on….they’re obviously not too worried about mad cow disease!!!
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Apparently I am meant to be doing work whilst out in France. The fact that “apparently” has appeared in this sentence is good, because it must mean that I have chilled out at last and am just ambling through each day, rather than thinking “work, work, work”, which is what I tend to do!
I have to say, up until now, we have had things relatively easy, despite having to set up a deal with a new restaurant and re-write routes, but in as far as guest numbers, it has not exactly been a baptism of fire! Tonight was the first time, for example, that we have needed to be “in 3 places at once” to debrief guests who are departing tomorrow…. But we managed. Soon I will have to start doing the cycle tour briefings: until now I have briefed the walkers, and Gerwyn has done the cycle briefs - the only difference is having to give a puncture demo and give out the bikes and make any adjustments that are needed to handle bars, seats etc….basically stuff I have not done since the training course back in Cheshire, and as with anything, the longer you leave it between training and practice, the more nervous you get!! So my first cycle briefing is on Sunday morning – it’ll be fine I’m sure! (note to self: must not drink too much wine on Saturday night!!)
Mmmm…food!
I am continuing to enjoy cooking – Gerwyn is also taking his turn in the kitchen, and we are both working our way through the recipe books that Kate sent me for my birthday, and starting to get more confident in just making stuff up! I think for lunch tomorrow I’m going to do us a Croque-Monsieur – can you believe that the BBC cook book Kate got me has got recipes for both a croque and tartiflette!!!
It is really nice being able to get fresh, local produce: us Brits have got so used to being able to get stuff from the freezer, or a greenhouse, or imported from miles away – whereas everyone round here really does buy stuff that is in season: it even appears on the news!! Currently, it is asparagus and radish season. In a couple of weeks we can expect local peaches, rather than imported Spanish ones! And we are eating lots of salmon – it just seems so tasty, and relatively cheap…
Politics….
But apparently the French feel the cost of living has gone up. Definitely the euro was a chance to round up prices, and the exchange rate seems to have meant that the round up was noticeable! But also they have this 35 hour week thing, which means they are restricted on how many hours they work, and therefore to get the end product to the shelves, they employ more people or it takes longer, and therefore costs more…so whilst the referendum vote was a resounding 54% Non with 70% turnout, they were not in fact voting against Europe, but instead voting against internal politics!
Local festivals…
A cheese rolling festival in the UK has been making headlines recently on French news – they find it amusing that we roll a cheese down a hill and then run after it, at some point tumbling down, but commenting that the number of fractured bones was not too high!! Well, if they think we are strange, this weekend there is a “ham on the bone” festival in the neighbouring village! Might have to pop along to see what’s going on….they’re obviously not too worried about mad cow disease!!!
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