We are isolated here and sometimes it is too much of an effort to drive to a large city for one or two items that I can’t buy at our local supermarket.

As an avid online shopper, I decided to open an account with Amazon.France. Yes, I know it is a mega company that doesn’t pay the correct taxes etc., but it is very convenient – and that is why it has done so well.

I have an account with the UK version of this company (from when we house sat in Kent for 11 weeks), and of course, an Australian one, which I actually have never used.

I needed to buy a hairdryer to replace the one I have been using here. It started to make terrible noises and I feared it was about to blow up. And, it’s not even mine. That made it all the more important for it to be replaced. I did not want our host to get home in 4 weeks time and find her hairdryer was broken.

Mick on the other hand needed some alcohol swabs, and our local pharmacy in Caudiès does not stock them.

France is very different from Australia in that many medicinal products which are available in supermarkets at home, are not available so easily here. You can’ t even buy paracetamol at the supermarket over here. We also tried a larger pharmacy on our day trip to Banyuls-sur-Mer, but it did not stock them either.

So, with my account open, and with me using the address of the home where we are staying at the moment, I purchased the necessary products online.

I thought this was going to be an easy way to buy what we needed without having to engage in conversations (using my poor French). Our lessons are helping a lot, our reading and comprehension have improved noticeably, but our capacity to understand what is being said to us is definitely at beginner level. Actually – it is very poor.

But I was about to get some more practice.

The delivery of the alcohol swabs proved to be a bit tricky for the transport company based in Perpignan (and that had nothing to do with how tiny our road is). I received emails and texts saying they could not find the address. I went back online to add some further information for the driver, and this morning I received a phone call from the driver saying he still could not find the house. Somehow, I was able to explain the directions to the patient driver in French and he found us.

Mick was gob-smacked because I have been known to give incorrect directions to people when I am speaking in English. I have been known to get towns mixed up and turns to the left confused with those to the right for example.

Mick was very happy to receive his parcel, and even though I’d spent less than €10, the driver treated my parcel as if it was worth a fortune. I even had to sign for it.

The hairdryer though was being delivered by the postman, and I was more confident that it would arrive as our host receives mail all the time and the local postman knows her address very well.

But what surprised Mick and I this morning as we were searching through the freezer together for something for dinner, was a voice and footsteps (at the same time) almost immediately behind us – not yet in the kitchen, but definitely in the dining room. And there stood a very tall French man who informed us he was the mailman (le facteur). He was proudly carrying my parcel (which I did not even need to sign for). There had been no knock on the door, but because the door was not locked, only closed, he obviously thought it was ok to walk in.

Yikes!!

 

Anyway, it has all ended very well, and if I need anything else this month I will definitely use Amazon again.

My next challenge has been to organise appointments with hairdressers for the both of us. And I will write something about that experience once they have been successfully achieved. Fingers crossed.