Snow
We had our annual
one day of snow in the village ten days ago, about 15cm of it, much
more than usual, and vestiges hung around for some days. The photio
shows the scene that I saw from my kitchen when making the first
coffee of the day. Higher up there is a lot on the hillsides and
mountain top. There is plenty of time for more but I hope we'll
avoid the worst of it in the village. There is only one way out of
the village without ascending a few hundred metres and that one way
is a narrow icy road that sees a snow plough once a day if it is
lucky. So travel gets difficult if there is snow at this level.
English
Conversation
Steve and I gave our
last English conversation class before Christmas on Tuesday; we'll
start up again onthefirst Tuesdayin February. Steve brought mince
pies that Jo had made, I brought Christmas cards and the class gave
Steve and I some bottles of very good wine. So we had a festive
ending to the term.
I had thought that
probably everybody in the surrounding area who might be interested
had heard about the classesand so we wouldn't have anyone new.
However, one new person, now a regular, came in September and three
new people came in the last few weeks. Whether they will come
regularly in thefuture remains to be seen but we have a hard core of
eight or nine people who come most weeks. That is enough to make it
worthwhile.
I've started putting
a circonflex accent on words when I write them on our whiteboard to
indicate where the stress is and that seems to work quite well.
Everybody understands that there are no written accents in English
and I had been struggling to think how I could represent the tonic
accent. I don't know why it took me so long but the obvious answer
was to show a tonic accent, as in Spanish, even though it is not
written in English. I find that the French, particularly those whose
English is good, most often make a mistake when the English and
French words are the same or very similar, as with «families» for
instance or «development». I'll do that all the time next term.
Brexit News
Being completely in
favour of the UK staying in the EU I can't quite make up my mind
whether the latest Brexit news is good or bad. What it seems to
indicate is that Parliament is unwilling to countenance a hard
Brexit, which is certinly good news, as is the fact (at the moment)
that Perliament will have a say in accepting or rejecting whatever
agreement is finally reached. However, chabges are occurring from
day to day so I'm still keeping my fingers crossed and hoping. What
I understand least is the position of Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour
party.
Orange/France
Telecom Service(?)
I'm having a problem
with my telephone landline. Some three weeks ago I found I had no
dial tone when I picked up my phone but my internet connection (via
Free) still worked, albeit spasmodically. However I managed to report
the fault to Orange France (not to be confused with Orange in the
UK). It seems there are two methods to rack progress on a fault. One
is via the interent and the other is via a portable phone. Since I
didn't then have a portable phone I gave the number of a friend's
phone and duly received a message that the fault was on the France
Orange network and would be repaired by 18.00 on November the 29th at
the latest. Since my landline still wasn't working when the November
30th arrived I tried tracking it on the Orange France website and
found that the tracking service wasn't working either. I tried again
a week later and the fault tracking service still wasn't working. My
landline still isn't working now (December the 18th at the time of
writing).
Last week I asked a
friend if he would report the fault, which he did. It took him some
time though. He said that Orange France have a menu system when you
phone them, which is quite usual these days, but that the menu didn't
allow for someone other than the landline holder to report a fault.
So a landline holder can report a fault by phone only if he has two
landlines, one of which is working, or if he has a mobile phone. And
friend can report the fault by phone only if he waits until the menu
options are exhausted to speak to an Orange France employee; which my
friend did. He waited, he said, 20 minutes before he could talk to
someone. He was told that there was a fault on the Orange France
network and it would be repaired end of day on December the 22nd. I
tehn tried tracking the fault on the Orange website and found that
this time the fault tracking service was working and that there was a
file open on the fault. So I tried to track the file and got a
message that there was no file on the fault. I am bemused (to put it
mildly). In despair I bought a mobile phone (and, as you might
guess, the contract is not with Orange France). What do I do
next? Well, obviously I have to wait until December the 22nd to see
if my landline is repaired than. I shall also investigate whether
there is a means of registering a complaint other than to Orange
France and see if I can be compensated for having paid for a month
for a landline that I haven't had. I'm not holding my breath but I
am monitoring my blood pressure.
I've mentioned my
predicament to several French friends and their reactions have been
much as they were to my previous problem with Chronopost, the French
Post Office parcel service. That is they either said «It's awful»
or shrugged their shoulders and said «That's Orange France, what do
you expect?». The French are generally a tolerant lot but the
extent of their tolerance is beginning to amaze me. I rather think,
when (if?) this story is concluded, I shall recount it on Facebook in
French as well as English. In fact, I might even do it now. Will
Orange France even notice, will itcare? But it's the least I can do.
