OMG it's the Sales!

A lot of France has gone crazy today. It's the first day of the sales and I imagine the centre of Montpellier is a heaving river of humanity fighting like crazy over bargain impractical shoes and must-have handbags. Naturally I have avoided it like the plague, but I have done my bit to participate, oh yes. On the internet of course.

I popped into Zalando.fr and got my youngest to choose some much needed tee shirts, a pair of shoes and a sweat shirt. He likes them big these days so they should last a while. I thought €7 for a Benetton tee shirt pretty reasonable. They'll be delivered down the road so I don't even have to exert myself to detour much, just a quick collection on my way home from work.

That's the way I like to go shopping. Carrouf was murder this afternoon. I was in there to do my weekly food shop and the world and her wailing baby were in there too poring over the silicon cake shapes and smelly candles. I passed by all the tempting racks, but stopped at one which had cosy polaire sports pullies for €15 or €10 for men (no zip). I didn't like the women's ones and didn't want a jacket with zip anyway, and there were no men's size S, so that saved me €10.

In my joy, I bought a packet of smoked trout to go with the blinis in the fridge, and some proper smoked haddock to make a kedgeree. Bang went the €10, still at least my stomach will be happy, and I can wear the cosy sports pully I already have. Another would be nice but it would just be a reminder to do more sport when the other one is in the wash... and I don't need any reminders like that, thanks!

I had to wait for ages at the fish counter. Some woman was there buying up crab legs, Madagascan prawns at €24.90/kg and oysters. "Invite me!" I beamed over in thought waves. She wilfully ignored me and set her posh woman glasses on her nose - you know the ones, they have graded coloured lenses and gold somewhere around the rims, and probably a logo such as DG on the arms. They protect heavily-made up eyes and the odd bag...

I had to wait for ages at the till too. A very small woman in front of my was buying up the organic food aisle and her trolley was floor to ceiling in natural brown packets with green writing. You can't get big sizes in organic packages so all her purchases were small which meant there were loads. I dread to think how much her bill came to, must have been at least €300.

When I got in the car I realised I hadn't bought the tomatoes necessary for the kedgeree and, come to think of it, the rice either. This means I'll have to go down the road and support the local mini market with its over-priced goods and dodgy veg, or go to the posh greengrocer and faint at the cost of the tomatoes. Actually I think the best idea is to wait until my TWDB says he's going shopping and ask him to get them for me. Thankfully there's no rush with smoked haddock.

The bread machine has just pinged telling me the dough is ready to be shaped and chucked in the old non-stick (non-silicon) bread tin and baked in the (amazingly clean since it was pyrolysed yesterday) oven, which means I can get on and make the beef stew in the slow cooker. It needs the same plug as the bread machine and as I wasn't forward thinking enough to get a double plug (or I've lost it...) I've had to wait for one to finish. Looks like it'll be dinner tomorrow now though or we'll be eating at bed time.

When I've done that I'm going to spark myself up with some XBox Dance Central, promise... My youngest son is here, he can help set it up and do it with me, that'll be good for a laugh.

Sale Away

Today was a Big Day in France. It was the Start of the Sales. WHOOPPEEE. They like things nicely regimented here, so everyone has to start their sale on the same day, and finish some weeks later on the same day too. You know where you are with the sales in France.

Except that, since everyone likes to cheat and break the regulations wherever possible which is half the fun, businesses have come up with various ways of getting round them, draconian as they are... just a little bit. For example, since the beginning of the week, I've been bombarded with emails for 'ventes privées' - private pre-sale shopping at bargain prices. I also got an invitation from Intersport, since I'm an Intersport card holder, to a pre-sale bonanza last night. I didn't go.

At other times, shops can hold a birthday sale around the date they opened the shop, and of course there are the special offers all the year round. If you look hard enough, you can usually find what you want at below retail price.

Did I go dashing into to town to snap up must-haves, want-haves, naughty-but-nice-haves, oh-bugger-bad-choice-haves or can't-resist-haves? No. Well, yes. I had to go into town anyway, and while I was there, I popped into Virgin. I nearly snapped up two items not in the sale, then came to my senses.

I went to see my favourite bank manager who is such a jolly lass that I'm sure she'd be great fun to have round to supper, and retrieved my car from the tortuous car park beneath the Prefecture. So, how's that for action? The sales on, first day, luring me in with my credit card buring a whole in my bag, and I came away empty handed. Good thing too as I spent all my dosh at Christmas. It's such bad timing having the sales just after one has emptied the coffers with no hope of sufficient refill for some months! Who do they think we are? Irresponsible credit-crashers?

It was a question of either buy myself something totally deliriously lovely... or eat. So I went to Intermarche and cleared the shelves of root veggies to roast, wine and stewing beef on the bone. My children will not go hungry afterall.

Cold-dUGGery

I came home from work today, peeled off my clothes and put on a loose sun dress. It is unbearably heavy and hot; the sky is black and we're all wishing the thunder storm would just hurry up and get on with it.

We are well and truly smack bang in the middle of summer already. I'm not sure what happened to spring, it seemed to get swallowed up in a couple of days squashed between weeks of miserable rain.

I suppose down in the southern hemisphere it's coming up for winter which may explain why Sarah of Woogau.com.au sent me an email about Uggs. Right now the very thought of pushing my tooties into something soft, furry and enclosed is enough to make me hyperventilate.

I've never bought an Ugg boot. I'm not a follower of that sort of fashion 'must have' item and generally prefer smarter city boots for work. They look lovely and comfy and I'm sure are a delight to wear but I'd feel like an old biddy stomping around in them. They are also not hugely popular down here in the south of France so I wouldn't even be able to feed off the street cred.

However, there are lots of people who love their Uggs, those who practically live in them and maybe even some who go to bed in them. I would too if I lived in an unheated house in the middle of Dartmoor. I remember at university at Exeter there were students who had houses out in the sticks which were so cold their toothpaste froze if they didn't take it to bed. Now there's an ideal Ugg situation.

So, if you are in the middle of frozen wastes which is difficult to believe when I'm sitting in 27°C at 10.30pm, and having to take your toothpaste to bed, you may be interested in a special Ugg offer because I know they cost la peau du fesse (du sheep...). If you go to the Woogau website and enter the code SARAHHAGUE into the cart, you'll get $30 USD off.

You may wonder why you'd buy Uggs from Aus when you could get them down the road, and I asked Sarah that very question and this is what she answered:

We ship to all countries for $15USD so with the gift card it would mean our most popular classic tall boots would be $99USD to the door anywhere in the world.. The Australian exchange rate is very weak and so it results in pretty decent prices, particularly for Europe..

And of course as the US$ is also very weak, that would cost less than a cup of tea in Euros... with buns.

Well, I jest, but you get the idea.

What do I get out of this plug? Dunno actually especially as I don't even wear dem boots. No, not even a euro cent for every sale. I can see I'll never make a million before I'm 40.

Oops, make that 75...

Snowbell la Vie

It's been quite a start to the year.

A week of galettes des rois at work, snow, freezing temperatures and the beginning of the sales. I'm hoping it calms down a bit now because too much excitement will have us all a bundle of nerves by February.

I'm not a great fan of frangipan - the filling used for classic galettes. If it's made industrially, it has heavy overtones of almond essence, which I hate, and a sickly, greasy texture. The one we had yesterday had homemade filling, no almond essence, and a much nuttier taste. The pastry was crisp and light too. That's what I call a galette des rois.

On Wednesday, I took my eldest to the sales to buy clothes and shoes. It happened to be the afternoon that it started snowing too. We decided to make it a military operation - in and out in as little time as possible. He made a list of what he wanted - jeans, Converse-type shoes, jacket - and said that the 2 Halles (clothes and shoes) would do fine.

Surprisingly, it was not very crowded in either shop. He found shoes in 2 minutes, tried them on, liked them, and we were third in the queue to pay. No beating our way through heavy bodies blocking aisles, tripping over small children on the floor, crashing into bigger boys running about the shop, or fighting off competition for the right size shoe. Chrono - ten minutes, thirty euros.

Next door in the clothes shop all the jeans in the sale were conveniently placed on one rack with their 50% off labels flapping enticingly. Three pairs were deemed wearable, on trying them, one was discarded; a sweat jacket and belt were picked out and we joined a queue.

I'm not sure the average IQ level in the queue reached much over 2.3 because there were in fact, three queues. One had a long line of people, one had two, and the last had about 5. What's more, the first queue had a woman at the head who was buying armfuls of stuff, and then found she couldn't pay for it all, so it was taking forever. We joined the shortest queue and were finished while the other woman was still trying to decide what she wanted to buy out of the pile of stuff she'd collected. Chrono - fifteen minutes, fifty euros.

It was now snowing pretty hard and my eldest was making hopeful noises about it blocking roads so he wouldn't have to go to school the next day. Unfortunately for him, it didn't last, and had nearly all gone by the next morning. Unlike Marseille where they were under 20cm and the whole city was brought to a standstill. Strangely, there wasn't a flake to be seen in 'Poubelle la Vie', my favourite French tele series and must-see nightly viewing. Just goes to show it isn't quite as reactive to events as 'The Archers'...

But we forgive all because Roland hasn't been gunned down in cold blood by the reluctant mafiosi, Bruno, and so maybe Mélanie will go to the ball (her wedding) after all. Fingers across the length and breadth of the country are crossed, defying all social strata and level of neurone activity.

We are blue, not with cold, but with bated breath!