Shopping in France

In England one can wander around all sorts of shops and I suppose just take shops for granted, having been born and bred with the language one doesn’t think twice.

To live permanently here in France, it’s so completely different, you need to acquire technical French for everyday occurrences. Sometimes it’s so difficult to find a specific word and then place that word into a sentence, which is understood without any misinterpretation. The French dialect in our region, we are even told by the French is very difficult to understand, and even the French visiting the area have problems understanding. This does cause us major problems and even stress.

So what chance do we have? It’s definitely a perseverance problem. So one tends to keep to the same shops as after a few visits one can determine how to approach them as they are all different, they recognise you and get to know who you are, and although on the first visit they seem set on not helping you, once they know you are trying to speak the language and make yourself understood, they become much more sociable. However, there comes a time when you need a particular shop only once..and it can be a nightmare.

Once sentence we have learnt not to use here is "Parlez vous Anglais" as the reaction is always a "No" and we feel sure they have been offended by us asking, as usually they will just walk away. (From experience now we know these people can speak a little English, but had no intention of trying due to our question).

We have one particular shop here in our nearest town, it’s a kind of “end of line” “seconds” shop, selling lots of household items, food and clothing at a very reasonable price. It has become our second home, anything we need or require we tend to go there first. We have learnt the way they work, and one can go and see the new range in, and then nearly always go back 3 weeks later and if the items haven’t sold they reduce by 50%…then several days later to 60% or even 70%, it certainly is a good way to keep the bank balance in check. We only buy at full price now, if it’s an “I must have”, and not an “I would like” item. Hence we have many “I would like” items. But don’t tell everyone!

With the shops closing at 12 noon until 2pm, some shops till 2.30pm, you have to change the whole way you shop, it is certainly so different from England. You either have to decide on an early start or the afternoon out. There is nothing worse than hanging about for 2 hours !!