We brought our ancient Dyson with us from France in the knowledge that it needed an overhaul. Whilst it worked well on tiled floors (the vast majority) it didn't pick up on carpet, the tiny bit that we had. We had it serviced in France but frankly they didn't do a good job and even accused us of picking up 'builders rubble' with it. As I did the majority of the hoovering and, despite looking hard in every corner, I never found any builder's rubble. Jan could be messy, as could the dogs, but not even I could accuse them of leaving 'builder's rubble' lying around. I'd go so far as to say that our house was bereft of builder's rubble. It was a rubble free zone and frankly I wasn't best pleased at their comment. Anyway, I decided to give them (Dyson) one last chance and I phoned the Dyson service centre here in England. I had a lovely and very funny chat with a nice lady and she booked us an appointment with one of their service engineers. Did you know that they had their own men who made home visits? Anyway, Simon turned up, took our machine to bits and started to rebuild it from scratch. Not only did he replace a whole raft of parts but he also ordered a new body because he'd spotted a crack that had in fact been there since we sent it away in France. A fully reconditioned machine for the modest (in my opinion) outlay of £73. Now that's what I call customer service.
The relative size between French and English women people is no myth. English women people are, on average, much bigger and, in my opinion, it's down to two things. Despite all the nutritional information that's bandied about, the English diet is much more reliant on fat (taste), and carbs (bulk). Loads of both. The other factor is the size of portions. When we ate out in France we rarely felt too full after a meal and nor did we feel we were eating unhealthily, despite a paucity of vegetables. We never quite figured that one. Here you can really struggle to finish the main course after you've eaten a starter and all the bad stuff tastes so good. Take the other night. In our non-stop endeavours to find a decent local curry we ordered a takeaway. We each ordered a starter and main course. I felt the food was quite good, Jan less so, but the portions were enormous. All in all, over the next few days, we ate a total of six individual meals from an order of just two. It was great value, but if you were determined to finish what was initially delivered it would have been way over the flop top.
Looking at this picture today, which was taken shortly after Minnie came to our house in France, reminded me of how gentle and patient Max was with her when she was little (there's about two years in age between them). Despite her own bed being right next to his (you can just see it to the right) she used to climb into his bed and he then found it difficult to settle down. Quite often he climbed out and slept on the floor, leaving her to it. Not much has changed really. She still gets her own way. She still adores him and he pretty much lets her do what she wants. Now what else does this remind me off?
On this basis, Jan should live forever. Mind you, I'm a bit partial to the old retail therapy myself. Even if it is popping to the supermarket for her indoors. Talking about shopping, we popped into a Lidl in Knaresborough the other day, mainly to see what the difference is between an English one and a French one and, as Jan pointed out, I might still be in the market for a cheap crash helmet. You could definitely see the similarity but in Knaresborough there was a distinct lack of centre aisles bulging with all the goodies that you never knew you needed and a bit more fresh food. I think it's fair to say that in an English one you could do your weekly shop, not what we felt in France. Don't get me wrong we liked the Lidl in Sommieres, it's just a bit different here. Now if you stop yawning at the back I'll tell you more, but not until you stop. Do you hear me?
We needed to get the headlamps changed on the Golf, get an MOT for it, as well as report an annoying noise from one of the wheels. Sytner Harrogate VW just outside Knaresborough is very grand, very smart, all chrome and glass, full of lots of expensive cars. The sort of place an old scruff like me feels uncomfortable walking into (I keep telling you - Ed). The showrooms and workshops were cleaner and smarter than our house and the staff are exemplary, friendly, knowledgeable and smart. Anyway, after a few hours they phoned and reported some minor problems which needed fixing which was good and reported that the rear nearside wheel was hanging on with only one bolt. WTF? Jan had driven the car from France like that, despite me reporting the same noise to a dealership in Nimes. The foreman was however quite reassuring because he said that we'd have spotted the problem as the wheel sailed passed us one day on the highway. I did see the funny side.
We have tried, unsuccessfully, three times now to cancel Jan's mobile contract with SFR. Her first letter was in the same envelope as mine and, as they've cancelled my contract, they must have received it. It was just ignored. She has sent two further letters one from France and one from England. This article came as no surprise. Even Vodafone have decided to get out of France, albeit that they walked away with a few billion squids and we're still stuck paying the poxy contract.
My son, his wife and their little girl, Clara, my first blood granddaughter are staying with my mother at the moment and we are doing lots of family things. Guess where she gets her good looks from?
Humour's a funny thing. As part of Jan's ongoing campaign of trying to get a bit more culture into me we headed to Harrogate Theatre again last night. We'd never heard of this guy, Count Arthur Strong, but the reviews were good and we thought that we'd give it a go. The audience, we'd noticed, were a bit older than last time we went so we were intrigued to see what would happen. When I say older you have to remember that this was Harrogate, where you have to prove that you're over 60 before they'll serve you a drink! Anyway, CAS started his act and the audience around us were laughing there heads off. Jan and I looked at each other in puzzlement because we couldn't see anything funny at all. It's fair to say that we didn't laugh once in 45 minutes, so much so that we decided to leave at the interval. It reminded me of the last act we'd seen, Mark Steel, he was making the audience laugh a lot and I noticed a chap at the end of our row who didn't laugh once. I kept checking and I don't think that either he or his partner laughed at all. Funny thing humour.
