Living in Brittany

Its been cold recently temperatures hovering around 0 then Sunday night it just rained most of the night so the frost went ( so I thought ). I was due to help a friend at Plufur about 8kms in the interior (all distances over 2km are interior for me ) so I zoomed down the hill from St Sebastien , it is a deep valley I guess a couple of degrees colder so at the bottom it was pure ice so my car just slid from side to side and ended up at right angles to the road with the nose buried in the ditch. It looked quite spectacular with the back wheels in the air hanging over the road. At least I got a chance to use the new warning triangles. A friendly passing car took me to Plestin to find Paulien and with a tow rope it pulled out easily. The motor was fine I have just redesigned the front and pushed the radiator back a couple inches ( it was a good job it wasn't the plastic car as that would have been major damage ) so I drove home OK and it is now on the list of things to do. I still had to go to Plufur so Paulien took me which was about 10 minutes after retrieving my car and there was another car "hor piste " on the opposite side of my accident only she had ended up in the little paddock next to the road.
I think its the worst driving I can remember in Brittany as it rained again last night and this morning on the school run there are skid marks where cars have slid into fields and in Plestin there was a car parked at a strange angle until you notice the crumpled bonnet and the wall in front of it. The moral is to stay at home and keep warm.
The pound sterling seems to have continued the meltdown as it seems to have reached parity with the euro which is fairly tough on ex pats with retirement pensions. I think for us as a business we will get more French and other euro Europeans as being priced in sterling makes us much cheaper. From talking to friends the "perceived wisdom " is that the euro will weaken in the second half of the year so we might/should get £=1.15-1.20. Well its good to be optimistic