Vital Supplies

We've been in the UK for the weekend finishing off Adam's kitchen in his new Southampton house. I drove back via the overnight ferry with a very heavily laden trailer. One of my principles in writing this blog is not to fall into the trap of xenophobia, bearing that in mind I'll look at what we decided to bring back in the car and trailer - and why:

Food Shopping

• 320 Taylor's Yorkshire tea bags - it's true that you can't get decent tea in France ....
• 3 kg of organic rolled oats - to feed my porridge addiction, French versions simply make gruel not porridge
• 2.5kg os Seville Oranges - for marmalade, never seen these in French shops. Confiture d'oranges isn't so popular here.
• Heinz baked beans - unobtainable in Brittany, sometimes you just fancy them
• Muscovado sugar - unobtainable here as far as we can find

Other

• Black exterior woodstain - expensive in France, truthfully not much cheaper in the UK
• Fish Blood and Bone fertiliser - not found a source yet here 
• Prunus Subhirtella Autumnalis - Barbara's birthday present (it's a flowering cherry). Just because we saw one and we haven't been to all the local nurseries here
• A builder's grade step ladder - to replace the flimsy bent one left here by the previous owners. Haven't found a sturdy ladder I trust in France yet.
• Double extending ladder - a second one for the roof work we're about to do. Safety first this one, I wanted to be able to buy a brand I knew; important when I'll be the one 22 feet up in the air on it !
• A one tonne pallet of paving bricks - cheaper and better quality than we've yet found here.

So, the reasons for loading the poor old Honda up to the brim again were threefold: some things just aren't available here (generally food),  some things are significantly cheaper in the UK (the saving on the paviors more than paid for the trailer both ways) and we don't have a broad enough set of sources here yet for everything we need.

Fortunately the incongruously dreadlocked customs official who pulled me over and checked the car in Portsmouth didn't ask why I had any of these items on board. He only wanted to know if I had any knives, explosives or firearms on board - now if I needed any of those I probably would have got them in France !!