Renovation project - seond hand cars, sightseeing in Quimper and french monkey's - Saturday 8th September
We spent most of yesterday looking for a car on the internet
for John’s daughter; you can still be a helpful parent when you live in a
different country, especially when you are buying it! The web is a wonderful
thing! Found a car sales near to our old home in England and spoke to the
owner, have a car all set up and can buy over the phone with the bank card,
SIMPLES! (No it wasn’t!!!!!!). She went to view on Saturday and found out they
only accept a £50 deposit over the phone with a bank card. So spent the morning
contacting money transfer companies before giving up and going to the bank,
unfortunately we had a different teller, she was just as helpful but something
was lost in translation and she arranged to have the money not transferred to
England but to be available for us to take out in sterling! Many French and
English apologies ensued, before another teller arranged the transfer. So all
excited at the new car purchase, John really is the best dad and not just my
opinion.
As we had spent yet another afternoon (Friday) cleaning and
painting and the sun was shining we decided to do a bit of exploring, we had
been to Quimper 3 times, but only ever made it to the Brico depot, this is a
stunning town so we head off to do a bit of sightseeing. The trip was lovely
and it felt like we were on holiday, sun shining, hot temperatures, the air
conditioning on full, then we remembered we weren’t on holiday, we live here
and this was the equivalent of driving to Macclesfield from Reddish!!!!!
Quimper was as beautiful as the postcards we had seen.
We
sat and had lunch at a pavement cafe underneath Hansel and Gretel’s house.
John went to
the toilet and said that there was a baby bird in a nest in the window, so I
had to go and have a look and sure enough on the window ledge a bird had built
a nest, so took a photo, then realised that I may have been in trouble as there
was a man leaving the toilet. Oops, but how cute!
Walked around the town and the outside the cathedral was a small merry go
round, there was a bride and groom sat on it, with their small band playing,
what a beautiful wedding memory for them! Inside the cathedral another wedding
ceremony was being held, so sat at the back for a few minutes so we could say
we had been to our first French wedding (pity we had no idea who they were, but
at least it saved on a wedding present!).
As we were in Quimper, we couldn’t leave without going to
the shops; we have now purchased our new shower and toilet for the en suite and
a wooden worktop for the kitchen.
Buying the shower brought home to me how funny you can sound
when you get words wrong in a different language, my French is coming along and
I told the assistant which shower we wanted, he went to the stock room and came
back and told me in his best broken English, we couldn’t have it because of the
monkey, yes that’s what we thought as well! We spent some time trying to work
out what he meant and he finally explained that the shower came in 3 boxes, but
there was only 2 boxes in the stockroom, the other was monkey, this was when we
realised he meant missing. I now know how much all the staff must have laughed
when I was talking small green pea!!!!!!
Lost in translation takes on a literal meaning!
Once again the trusty Volvo was able to carry all our
purchases, do we really need to sell it and buy a van?
Back home and it’s too late to do any work, so had a nice
meal and watched a great film, Middle Men, got slated when it was released but
we highly recommend it, but as we have sold a lovely house and given up 2 successful
careers, would you really take our advice???????
Top Tips
1.
If moving to a country with a different
language, try to learn the language, do not expect people to speak perfect
English, most will try but you could end up with a monkey and not a shower!
2.
Take time to visit the local attractions, if you
have spent you’re whole time working you may as well have stayed at home!
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