According to the Guardian, thieves stole a French winegrower’s entire harvest – 30 tonnes of grapes over 2 hectares.  A few thoughts: How do winegrowers survive if their entire harvest, a whole year’s work, is only worth £13,000? How much do grape-harvesting machines cost? Presumably this bloke has one for his own harvest and it [...]
Entries Tagged as 'France'
Back through the tunnel
November 26th, 2009 · No Comments · Life
Got back from another quick trip to France tonight. There were a couple of meetings today, but the first was at 10:00 so I went out yesterday. Back in the old days I could have done it all in a day – when you could still fly from Gatwick to Orly and could turn up [...]
Run that by me again
October 11th, 2009 · No Comments · Politics
At work we have TV screens in various public areas like in the canteen and the lobby area outside the lifts. The screens display a slideshow of company information, but also have a scrolling RSS feed of the latest BBC news headlines. On Friday one of the headlines was “French ‘boy sex’ minister issues denial” [...]
Long day
June 8th, 2009 · No Comments · Work
For a change I had a work-related trip abroad that even I couldn’t wring a bit of enjoyment out of. I like to arrange schedules so that there is a little scope for sightseeing, photography, shopping or museum-visiting but this time it all went horribly wrong. Started at Crawley station just after 6:00am. Met my [...]
In the grippe of swine flu
May 20th, 2009 · No Comments · Life
On the Eurostar on monday I noticed an oriental couple a few rows behind me sitting there with surgical masks covering their faces. Arriving at Paris’ Gare du Nord station on Monday I was greeted with large signs – about two metres tall – with headlines about swine flu, or whatever they were calling it; [...]
Tags: France·Medicine/Health
Tour de France
November 16th, 2008 · No Comments · Life
I’m a little bit knackered right now, having really got out of my normal (lack of) sleep patterns.  Mostly this is the result of popping over to France for the day only a day or so after getting back from there – also from missing out on my now-traditional Friday afternoon snooze.
Parisienne Walkways
November 14th, 2008 · No Comments · Life, Work
I’ve just got back from a little trip to Paris. I can’t even call it a flying visit because I took the Eurostar again. They are up and running after the fire, but not so frequent and the journe takes even longer. It was another visit to our French offices for a union-related meeting where [...]
Tags: France·Paris·Photos·Railways·Trade Unions
Paris
June 14th, 2008 · No Comments · Jane
This looks like graffiti artists are much more advanced in Paris than they are round here. I love walking around a city, turning a corner and finding something like this. It makes all those times I get lost worth it.
Dank u wel
June 13th, 2008 · No Comments · Life
Many thanks to the Netherlands for providing some top entertainment today. Not only have their games been tremendously watchable, but they have now made sure that next week’s France/Italy game has the potential to be a real battle. The game was not as one-sided as the 4-1 result might imply: France still looked dangerous, especially [...]
Tags: Football·France·Netherlands
Back from Paris
June 7th, 2008 · 1 Comment · Jane
Well, we are back from our flying visit to Paris. Many photos to download and label – mostly flowers. My best advice to anyone visiting Paris is don’t try to do Giverney and the Louvre on the same day! We couldn’t do anything on our last day apart from moan about how tired our legs [...]
