After more than a week and a half, our skis still haven’t arrived from France. Never mind that parcels from Hong Kong arrive at my doorstep four days after being posted.  No, in France, it seems, things take longer.  It took more than a week for my skis to make it 280km to the Export Centre, where they have sat for the last three days making no progress at all.

Once they make it over the border, I’m confident that the Swiss won’t waste a second assessing the duty and taxes on my skis, then sending a man around to collect the balance.  Nothing motivates the Swiss like collecting taxes.

So our plans to go skiing this weekend were put on hold, as I’ve found skiing is less fun when you’re simply wearing boots.

Instead, we headed off to Germany to do a little ice-skating.  Nice way to spend a cold winter’s day, and we had some snow outside to make it even better.  Finished the day off with a trip to the German supermarket (always fun, although I discovered that everything is a little picked-over if you wait until Saturday afternoon to do your shopping.  It’s like the beach chairs – the Germans get up early to ensure the best choice!)

We’re crossing our fingers that the skis turn up before next weekend.  We’re trying to squeeze in a day of skiing before I have to leave for India and Australia – we’ve got a week booked in Chamonix as soon as I get back, and I’d like a chance to get out on the skis once before we hit the big mountains.

It has taken me ages to get these photos edited and online, but here are a few snaps of our game of boules in the park in late April. Depressingly, it was warmer and sunnier then than it is now.

Aude, Karine and Julien prepare for a game of boules with a quick glass of pastis

This joke remains as funny as it ever was…

Emergency Chinese take-away to stave off the hunger. You need a lot of energy to play boules.

Aude surveys the landscape.

Julien has more boules than most…

Textbook form!

The ladies are up…

Matthew adopts an unconventional technique…

…which proves remarkably effective. Laugh if you will, but we won.

The girls are up again…

Aude seems pleased with herself…

Karine, on the other hand, is a little skeptical.

Some serious adjudication going on here to determine the winner. If you need to know who won, I suggest looking at the thumbs.

Don’t get me wrong. Aude is a pharmacist, so I know first-hand that pharmacists in France are highly educated, knowledgeable professionals. I know that the advice that they hand out is top-rate, and that they are genuinely interested in providing a good service to their customers. But they are driving me nuts.

First, you have to accept the premise that no one in France is expected to be responsible enough to look after themselves. From pensions to healthcare, the government assumes that you are too irresponsible to be left in control, so they issue enormous tax bills and take care of all the details for you, the taxpayer. And on one hand, it is incredibly helpful – there really is very little to do after you have received your paycheque each month.

But just like many other examples in France, the French pharmacy system is designed on the basis that customers are, basically, uneducated idiots who would kill themselves if left to their own devices. Never mind that the French take more medicine per capita than any other nation in Europe – they are pill-poppers extraordinaire.

The aisles of my local pharmacy are filled with shampoos and soaps, all of which I am trusted to select on my own. Two full aisles are filled with nothing but diet pills, and these are all considered safe for self-service. But heaven forbid I should need something as strong as a few ibuprofen or paracetamol. For those, I am expected to have a consultation with a pharmacist. And because the pharmacists have a total monopoly on the market, I am expected to pay €7 for a box of pills that would have cost me about €0.70 in the UK. This morning, feeling a little under the weather, I thought I would pop in to buy some vitamin C. No, even that is deemed too dangerous for me to purchase without a pharmaceutical consultation.

In the end, I gave up and bought a glass of orange juice. I’m amazed they allow me to buy something so potent on my own.

After more than two months of wrangling with various telephone providers in France, we are finally reconnected to the web. Hurrah.

One of the drawbacks of living in Paris — you need to watch your step!

French dogs are lovely…