Heron n° 2

What a gloriously hot day - 40°c, now that's what summer is all about after that long winter we had, but it's getting to feel hot for me, the n°1 heat fan.

I went down to the lakes and got what was nearly an epic shot of a kingfisher diving for a fish - the water splash is perfectly in focus, but the kingfisher is a bit blurred behind it - it actually looks quite arty, but I won't post it until I get a mega shot of these fabulous birds.

So this is the second variety of the three heron varieties we get here - The Purple heron, incidentally the only migrating heron.

See it bigger here

It was hot at the lake - my shirt and shorts were wet through with sweat .. maybe you didn't need to know that.

Oh yeah, you know what France is famous for?
Beautiful countryside
Fabulous food
sublime wine
Not winning the Tour de France for yonks
Sun
Extremely bad or non-existant customer service.

I went to Castorama to get some bits for a mini-project on the combi before we set off on our surfathon next week.
I was after a rail for the inside table to clip onto the outside of the combi so we can eat outside - Castorama is a bit like B&Q with scowling sales assistants ...

Me: Do you have a rail like this (shows rail to sales assistant)
Sales assistant: NO!
Me: But do you know what it is ?
Sales assistant: *sighing* We don't have them.
Me:But if you don't know what it is, how do you know you don't have one?
Sales assistant: *rolls eyes and sighs heavily* I told you we don't have one *walks off*

Brilliant - Well done Castorama, flying the flag high for French customer service.

So here we are in the middle of the holiday season - do you think there is a caravan or camper van shop open in and around Toulouse?

They open on Saturday so they then close on Sunday and Monday - SUNDAY! The day when people don't know what to do with themselves - they might pootle around a caravan shop and accidentally buy one - no chance in France - the friggin' shop is closed.

When I first came here, everything was closed from 12 midday til 3pm then again at 7pm until 9am.
Now I love France - but the level of customer service and commercial nous is so damned annoying!

Mrs Combi often says in amazement - "I love that shop the people really are helpful"

My response is that that is how they should be for Dog's sake - they are a business and the customers are not to be disdained but actually pay their salaries ... END OF RANT!!

Hope you had a good Monday!