Living in Brittany

Yesterday was "jeudi noir" as most of France was on strike and the boys didn't go to school. Even Lannion had a demonstration of 5000 in the afternoon, I was asking people in the bar why there were strikes and demonstrations and nobody had a sensible suggestion. So half the population doesn't like Sarkozy but the other half does and helping out the banking sector isn't popular but letting it collapse would be worse, but what do I know.
A good or bad example of French industry was last week I had to order a small item for the pool, the pipework is by a British company called Certikin and I was told to get in touch with the Perpignan office as I lived in France.Over the next couple of days several telephone calls and emails produced zero response , they weren't interested so I asked for a English company to deal with,one telephone call and the product is in the post. OK its not a lot of money but its an attitude problem they need to learn to love their clients.
The pounds continuing decline although making life more expensive if you are sterling dependant makes the UK much more attractive for shopping so I'll have to make a list a do a shop in the spring.My middle son bought a laptop from PC World about 150€ cheaper than he would have paid here and it also keeps him off my PC as well.
Its our annual band dinner on Sunday I think its the 30€ menu + wine all paid for by the municipality of Lannion, not sure if they are getting good value.

The weather has reverted to type for January cold, wet,windy but the temperature is +5 as opposed to -5 which we had for the first 2 weeks of the year. I even planted some onions in my new raised beds. I made 7 of them from old beams I found in my store they measure 1.2 x 3.5m and should make gardening much easier as the soil doesn't get compacted and I can give them a coating of compost at the start of the season.
The recession has made its mark in Plestin the upholstery shop is closing down we know the owner well and her work is good and she doesn't appear to be incompetent as a business person. She told us she hasn't paid last years taxes and this year she had a demand of 21k from the RSI (regime social independent ) which includes social security payments and pension contributions. It seems very excessive for a small business I think French economists go to the same school where they invented the square wheel.
The Lannion harmony band seems to have the opportunity of going to Bavaria for a week as part of an exchange the only problem is only half the band is interested and we would be short of trumpet players so it would effect the total sound of the band. I guess after the locals have had a few beers it wouldn't sound too bad.

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