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Tuesday, April 01, 2008

French shopping

A day trip to Calais last Thursday, calm seas, dry skies and even some blue... A quick visit to the Calais branch of Troc (a national chain of antiques and furniture warehouses where they sell people's goods on commission). One 10 foot long plate rack on the roof of the car later we were heading for Cite Europe for three and a half hours of mooching and shopping.

She-who-likes-shopping-more-than-I-do was amazed at my patience as we checked out the shoe shops (just buying one pair, amazingly) before heading in to Carrefour. If you treat it as your normal fortnightly shop, but with a more interesting range of stuff, it sort of makes sense. And the one thing Tesco hasn't quite managed to master is the idea that fresh food is a real joy to buy - all the fruit and veg really is larger and more colourful over the channel: these aubergines were just one example (and we had them last night. Yum). And just half an hour to get home once we're off the ferry. Perfick.

Boulogne is certainly prettier, and far better for antique shops, but Calais is just that little bit easier as the ferries run often enough to be convenient: Speedferries to Boulogne only manage half a dozen a day, which means it's always an hour too early or an hour too late. Yes, we are that picky... and our travel season is just beginning (ok, it runs all year, in case you were wondering).

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