And for vegetarians, Porto!
When we arrived here we were charmed by the quality of the seafood in the markets (not hard coming from the Jura) but have been horribly disappointed by the cooking of it in the restaurants weâve been to. Very standard old school french cuisine.
Think I would have had a big one, of relief. 
When my son and his then girlfriend came to stay, 20 odd years ago, I had to gently pick the right moment and level of sensitivity to ask them not to shower together. 
We werenât prudish but with a shower over a short bath on 4 narrow legs, anything greater than normal weight would have landed them in the basement, and us without a bathroom floor. 
I love Italian food. I donât think Iâd go so far as to say itâs better than French cuisine though⊠Itâs different.
Funnily enough we have some Icelandic friends who emigrated from the UK to Italy at the same time we moved to France. They are in the fortunate position of owning their own business and were able to relocate wherever they wanted to.
Theyâd been to Italy many times on holiday and thought theyâd like living there. After a few months, however, they decided not to settle in Italy as they found the cuisine didnât suit them⊠Too much pasta and veal, not enough seafood. They considered France but now live near Barcelona and are absolutely smitten with Spanish cuisine.
Each to their own, I guess.
So is tbat 2 down 1 to go?
In other cheerful news, my SurfShark VPN contract expired last week. Iâve been happily using it for the last 2 years, and didnât mind paying the 35⏠p/year fee.
I received several reminders to update my card details, and they pointed out the price was 80âŹ. I thought itâs only an extra 5⏠per year, so I went ahead and renewed. However, I then noticed the renewal was only for 12 months, not 24. I was suddenly less happy unsurprisingly.
This evening I opened a support ticket to enquire about cancelling, and asking if refunds were pro rata. Their chat bot told me there are no refunds for cancellations. I told it I live in France and am afforded certain consumer protection rights under EU law, and asked if this changed anything. The chat bot sent me a link to cancel my account and another link to their T&Câs, so I asked whether it was saying my statutory rights were overruled by their T&Câs⊠At which point it immediately put me through to an agent.
The agent immediately confirmed that as an EU citizen I could cancel within 14 days without any penalty. They then asked why I was cancelling, and when I said that I found their practice of changing the duration dishonest, he immediately offered me 24 months free extension to my contract.
So I now have 3 years of SurfShark for 80⏠
I agree with everything people have said here including about seafood being often ruined in F and were it just food Iâd actually have picked the UK at least pre Brexit. France still absolutely has excellent food but as an ordinary person you have to look a bit harder for it theae days in many areas than you used to have to..
Iâd have chosen Italy for several reasons not just the food. But having spent quite a bit of time there actually there are some things they donât do well (and Iâve had conversations with Italians who thought so too) including in the food line. Society is also different.
For instance hard to get a decent steak in a lot of places. Chicken is generally OK though. Restaurant desserts are often poor (yes I know there are some great ones like tiramisu.). Bread⊠give me Germany any day. If youâre unlucky it can get a bit monotonous but if you love pasta, cured meats, all manner of veg, youâll be at home for a long long time. Seafood ok to amazing but depends where. Of course just like France, you can be very lucky depending where. I eat well in italy but stay thin.
Agree having lived on the coast in far west FinistÚre for over 30 years and the seafood is the best there is, mostly foraged by ourselves after the high seasonal tides or down at the Crieé from local fisherman straight off the boat. Traditional xmas eve meal is a seafood banquet and again if you can do it, on Dec 31st. Here on the med, the local mussels from Leucate are exceptional, totally different to their Breton relatives.
Well done on getting that - but itâs standard practice nowadays for tech companies (and others, like insurers) to hike prices massively and then back down with an âofferâ if challenged.
Iâve mentioned before the annual dance I do with Adobe regarding my Creative Cloud software subscription. Each year I cancel it, and on the final screen a 50% off discount magically appears to get me to continue.
Itâs a pity that they donât embrace the opposite approach of giving loyal customers an ongoing discount after they have subscribed for a few years.
Mind you, this year I will be dropping down to a subscription for just Photoshop and Lightroom instead of the full suite, as I am retiring from professional photography on October 1st!
Traditional cuisine is holding up very well in homes; itâs in the most expensive restaurants that it has disappeared 
One of my daughters has been living in Pisa for two years while working on her thesis, and she complains about Italian bread. Her boyfriend, an Italian from Puglia, recently told me that junk food is on the rise there, just like everywhere else, and so is obesity.
Yes the ripple effect generated by crap from the US, good little sheep following and despite huge amounts of data governments not restricting the tumour like growth of these companies. 2000% tariff as Trump would say. Ban them save the health budgets.
The parts to complete fitting the shower finally arrived today. Theyâre 10 days late, but they got here! I sat outside watching for the delivery van, and he nearly drove past!
Of course, we leave tomorrow.
Better get a bloody move on then AM
You have no Idea how tempted I am (or maybe you do) but Iâve a 120cm panel that needs cutting to around 109.3cm and Iâm not going to rush/bodge it and ruin the panel. All my tools are back in the box, packed and ready to go.
You need to retool on LBC so you donât need to drag them back a forwards!
Thereâs a tension between leaving good tools here and then having to clear out in 5-10 years time. Thereâs quite a lot of tools now, but the power tools travel with me (plus Iâve a lifetime of use with many of the others).
A friend was walking past this gorgeously located church on the coast near us in Seine Maritime a day or so ago, when she noticed a young couple just ahead of her. The man suddenly dropped to one knee, and (presumably!) proposed to his girlfriend. Our friend assumed the girlfriendâs answer was suitably positive as they were then locked in an embrace that carried on, and on..The Church is at Varangeville-sur-mer.
Very romantic! But whatâs not so cheerful is that this church is threatened by cliff erosion.
Varengeville is a little-known gem in the history of art.
And garden design, with its Lutyens/Jekyll house and garden. (Possibly in link above but demanded that I accept cookies to look at it)
Unfortunately true - but if itâs any slight consolation, its sad disappearance would probably not be for about 530 years - at the earliest! This is on the basis of the âfastestâ projected erosion of the sedimentary cliffs locally, which is on average about 0.3m a year. The cliffs are some 158m from the church.
Itâs hard to predict, because the collapse isnât regular. The cliff can remain stable for years, then collapse ten meters all at once. But one thing is certain: it wonât grow back!
