Foreign Perspectives

However, during the last year we happened to get an Auchan loyalty card and about a week ago received the French equivalent of a pre-approved credit card application from them. It said on the letter that all we needed to do to collect the card was to bring along the letter with the attached sample card to Auchan with proof of ID and bank details. Frankly, we didn’t believe that it would be that simple. Besides this being the land of documentation mountains, we had previously tried to open a savings account with Auchan and couldn’t provide them with enough documentation so we figured that there was no way they’d actually issue us with a credit card.

Anyway, as the offer expires in a week or so, yesterday we went to Auchan (similar to a really big Tesco) out of curiosity.

They took the letter, asked us how long we’d been living here, how long we’d been working here and in under 20 minutes we walked away with a credit card with a EUR 7500 limit on it!

Given the lack of credit referencing facilities in France, this seems incredibly stupid of them. After all, the only information that they could check was my passport, address (from the loyalty card letter), and bank details. They didn’t even ask anything about our income or even proof that we were working here for that matter. Also odd is that whilst we use Carrefour every week and have had their loyalty card for well over two years they haven’t come out with any invitation for their card yet we’ve had the Auchan loyalty card for under a year and only go there maybe once a month.

As it’s a French card, the facilities that it has are quite different from those on offer elsewhere in the world. We kicked off with a 10% discount voucher for our first trolleyload put through the checkout plus a EUR 15 gift card so we’re already ahead. As it’s an Auchan card, it also comes with a 10% discount on any Auchan products bought on Tuesdays. Naturally, it comes with a charge: EUR 8 per year from next year which is about typical for store cards issued here. Other odd features are that after 3 months we can get a EUR 300 bank transfer from the card to our bank account and after 6 months we can use it in the ATMs in Post Offices here. Interestingly, there doesn’t appear to be a cash advance fee for that though obviously there are interest charges.

However, by far the biggest advantage of the card is that we can now use the checkouts reserved for Auchan cardholders. Thanks to the loyalty that the French have to their own banks, these particular checkouts rarely have any queue at all.

Our next challenge is to get it upgraded to a proper Visa/Mastercard.

James went on his first school excursion last Friday.

Not a massive one, of course, since he’s in the nursery school. As we’re in a wine growing area it was to a vineyard where they gathered some grapes and went through the whole process of wine production (except the fermentation, naturally). Thoroughly enjoyed by all and each child was sent home with a bottle of the grape juice that was produced on the day.

One difference from the equivalent schools in the UK is that small excursions such as this one seem to be very common in the schools here with an average of around one a month throughout the year. As in most things in France, they usually ask for a “contribution” towards the cost of these but aren’t terribly insistent on actually getting the money.

As we’re in a country area, this excusion even qualified as news and the photo on the left is from the Independant which managed to run up a 1/4 page article on it in todays paper.

Of course, there are books similar to that in the UK which depict a typical first day in nursery school. The difference is that in France, the drawings in the book look almost identical to the school that James goes to. Not because the drawings are of his school but rather that the schools are very standardised in France. Not so long ago for instance, if it was October 5th and you were in the fifth year then you were on page 5 of the maths book, regardless of where you were in France.

So there’s a very similar little cloakroom in other schools and zero privacy for the kids going to the toilet. Actually, I suspect that the drawing of children going to the toilet would be contrary to one or two laws in the UK.

Anyway, we’ve read the book to James in English. That’s probably not quite what the school intended us to do but to get him fully bilingual we need to balance his French and English; the simplest way to do that at the moment seems to be to use English all the time when he’s at home and keep the French to school time.

Want a laugh? Wendy’s going to propose us as parent representatives for the school board.

No more FP’s for a week as I’m off to Belfast tomorrow and won’t have any computer power ’til Saturday week.

Since then, the butcher has closed, the bank has closed and when we walked round the village in July the sheer number of boarded up shops was quite a shock. That’s what happens when a village is almost completely dependent on a single industry and that industry hits hard times.

Yet, even in these hard times for the wine industry, the English have been busy buying up vineyards in the area. More intrestingly perhaps is that they are much more successful at running the vineyards than the locals. Whereas the locals simply can’t shift their 2‚€ wines, the English are selling their stock at 25‚€ a bottle. How come? Simple really: the locals are trying to sell the cheap plonk that they’ve always sold in the way that they’ve always sold it but peoples’ tastes have changed. They drink less wine these days but it’s higher quality wine that they drink nowadays.

It’s not just the vineyards that the English are buying in the area. I’m told that some 90 English familes have bought property in Paziol for instance. So many in fact, that Paziol is pretty much an English village now.

Other indications that things aren’t good economically in this area is the closure of the Rolex shop in Perpignan. OK, people aren’t going to nip out and buy a Rolex every day but it is an indication that there’s a distinct shortage of money across the Pyrenees Orientale.

The downturn in the wine business has depressed property prices even more in an area that’s still relatively affordable so perhaps now would be a good time to buy in this area.

From then, things really happen quite quickly here with the first appearance of the baby grapes in early May until the grapes are pretty much fully formed about mid-June. During this time, the farmers are busy in the fields getting their plants attached to the strings holding them up (the plants in this field are quite old so aren’t tied up).

Once into June, things generally slow down. The plants have all been sprayed and it’s the time for the work inside the winery to get underway in preparation for the harvest. Although you don’t see so much activity in the fields, things are far from quiet inside the various wineries.

In our area, the harvest gets underway towards the end of August (the date varies depending on the weather) and it’s pretty much over by mid-September. As you can see, the plants deteriorate pretty quickly after the harvest but the surroundings remain green well into November. In fact, garden plants and the like don’t start growing ’til it cools down a little so the burnt appearance of gardens is replaced by greenery (except in those gardens maintained by very keen gardeners).

Things change pretty slowly in the wine business with the local vines being replaced over a cycle of 40 years which means that you get about 36 years worth of wine from each plant as it takes four years before the first grapes appear. The bulk of grapes are still harvested by hand though this year European money has obviously arrived in big dollops as there are an awful lot of brand new grape picking machines. That does seem a little bit counterproductive in that those machines are generally used for the grapes producing lower quality wine which is the bulk of what makes up the growing lake of unsellable wine in Europe and, of course, doesn’t really help the unemployment statistics either.