French customs and futile objections

For the first time that I can remember it was colder when I landed in Carcassonne than when I left London. That's not supposed to be the way of things. It was a glorious Spring day in the UK but it was murky and windy and decidedly fresh in the Languedoc. It was also the bumpiest, most turbulent flight over that I've experienced.

At least there was someone to welcome me at the Customs desk this time. The last time I flew in there was no-one about to check passports, but being terribly British, my fellow passengers had decided that we should wait until officialdom put in an appearance. There was a time when I would have done exactly the same and fallen into line. I don't know if it's a sign of my assimilation into France and adopting a more revolutionary streak to my character, but I felt that if they can't be bothered to turn up and look at my passport, why should I stand around waiting for them. So I walked straight through customs and out into France, unchecked and free, ha ha, and headed to the car park to find my recalcitrant motor and the more pressing concern for me of whether it would start or not.

Lo and behold, the reluctant British queue had followed me out. Sheep? Us? A fellow passenger remarked what a shambles it was and that it could only happen in France. Of course. "That's why we love the country and live here" was my response. The idiosyncrasies of this country, it's culture, it's laws, it's inconsistencies and it's quirks are what attracts us to the place to begin with.

Lo and behold, also, the car started - wow - that's two times running the car's starting running without outside assistance - amazing. So I pootled on home to see what progress had been made with the renovation whilst I'd been away in London for the week.

What I found was a man cursing about tiles. Now this man is my building genius which means that if he's cursing then these have to be the world's worst tiles ever to work with. We are installing two bathrooms at the moment and are putting the same tiles into both. My wife has a fantastic designer eye, it is her job after all, and she knew when we saw these tiles in our tile emporium on the outskirts of town that they would look fantastic. Unfortunately, the genius wasn't with us at the time because I'm sure he would have tried to talk us out of buying them. Indeed, he is insisting on coming with us when we go to choose the tiles for the bathrooms in the separate apartment and studio just to make sure we don't go down the same route.

They are beautiful tiles. They are porcelain not ceramic, which means thay are as hard as nails and very difficult to cut. I now own two tile cutting machines and neither is perfect for these tiles but they are so noisy that I can hear them in operation from 2 blocks away down the hill. I feel sorry for my neighbours, especially the music teacher downstairs. It must be impossible to practise your scales when you can't hear yourself. They have polished edges rather than bevelled ones which means there is absolutely no margin for error in lining them up - so laying them is difficult. They are large at 60 x 30 cms which means it is much harder to lay them level, especially on old uneven floors and walls. You get one corner right and the opposite is out so you push a bit there and the other corner moves, so you take them up and add or take out adhesive and start again and so on and so on. Their size makes them heavy which means we can only do one row at a time on the shower walls. If we do two they start sliding down with the weight.

Apart from that they are no problem and, don't forget, they are beautiful. "Haven't you finished yet", said my wife. It would be fu-tile to ignore her.