We were supposed to have an electrician come round this evening to do some wiring.

18:00 was the time of the appointment and we were still waiting when we went to bed.

I suppose we got our wires crossed…

I know this isn’t just a parisian thing, but shopping online in France is sort of easier than it is in the UK.

In the UK we preferred the “every little helps” company rather that the slap your bum one. Primarily because the latter would not deliver what we ordered and then refused to refund us, but that is a different story from a different time…

So fed up going to the local supermarché and lugging all the bottles of water cheese and general stuff we don’t actually need we decided to try out some online deliveries.

The first company looked good, and they stated they do not replace items that are out of stock as what you see on the site is what they have in stock.

Fairy snuff, I thought, and spent the best part of 2 hours collating what we need and keeping it under 3 figures as we possibly could. About an hour in we saw that there was free delivery for first time buyers.

So we finally agree that we have everything we need, the delivery is indeed free, plus €3 to pay by check and €10 ’service fees’.

This prompted a race to the big button saying Cancel!

So we found another site, this one charged for delivery but had the fantastic idea of having Veg Baskets and Fruit Baskets, so rather than going through all of these we thought it would be a good idea and bought some.

Baskets and delivery we were paying a little more than the first site but with next day delivery and the amount of things we had, we were definately onto a winner.

Wrong!

So the delivery comes on time (apart from knocking on our neighbours door) and it feels distictly lacking. Everything is there exactly as we asked for and ordered. There are no missing items and no substitutions it is just ’smaller’…

Even the baskets were a bit of a disappointment – Are avocados Fruits or Veg? as we got them in both baskets. expecting a range of quality produce it looked as if we had been given the stuff that had been on the shelf for a day before being not quite so carefully boxed.

I think we’ll have to go back to the Sunday market kitted up in our Riot Gear (see: previous post) to get the fruit and veg from now. At least we’ll get fruit when we ask for fruit and veg when we ask for veg.

It’s been quite a hectic week this week preparing for, and giving, my first presentation to a French audience. I think it went well although I know not all of the audience could understand what I was saying when I got into my rhythm and started to speak more Scots than English

Once that was over the next mission was to prepare for my reunion with the future Mrs Scotsdreamer who has been with her family since last Sunday.

Eventually after grabbing about two hours sleep it’s time to brave the 6am metro and make my way to Dept 17.

By the time I had travelled across Paris on the Metro and get to Gare Montparnasse I had about an hour to go to collect my tickets. For ease I had booked them online, theoretically I should have had enough time for petit dejeunner.

Once there the machine accepted my booking reference and then asked me for the card and pin I used at the time of booking.

How many 4 digit numbers do people have the capability to remember?

Unfortunately, I think I have reached my limit and entered the wrong number. ‘OK’ I thought and said if it isn’t that one it must be this one.

Wrong!

I was now in a state of mild panic thinking if I get this wrong will the machine keep my card, if it does what will I do… After cautiously entering the number for the third time the computer said…

…No!!!

In near hysterics thinking if I was not able to collect the tickets and this go back to my cherie d’amour what on earth would I do? What would I say?

Eventually, after finding an english speaking person behind the ticket desk and manage to get my tickets… I now had 10 minutes to find the platform and get on the train before it left without me, tickets or not

T.F.F.T.!

Charrentes-Maritime is a fantastic area and to be able to leave the hustle and bustle of la vie parisian is a relief even though I’ve only been there for just over a month… It will give me time to really recharge my batteries.

One of the reasons I was really panicking about the tickets is the fact it’s been a year since I proposed.

To commemorate the anniversary I was going ask her again though instead of the diamond ring, I used an origami ring.

Thankfully the reply was still “Oui!”.