A little cheese please

We are on holiday in New Zealand and have just had the most appalling "service" in a restaurant that I had to air my views.
Eating out in NZ is not cheap and so we decided to take advantage of an offer that

Al Ponte Ristorante Italiano

was running for a Wednesday Evening. Pizza or pasta plus a glass of house wine for $20 ( €15 £13) The restaurant is in Wanganui

The restaurant wasnt busy and we ordered and the food arrived. Now the normal thing in an Italian is for the waiter to arrive with a pepper pop the size of his/ her arm and to offer black pepper and of course the essential parmesan cheese.
Neither were offered so we called the waitress back and asked for pepper and cheese. They arrived a couple of minutes later and to be fair enhanced a tasty meal.

However when it was time to leave, we asked for the bill and expected $40. The bill delivered was $42 which included a $2 supplement for parmesan!!!
I was shocked to see a supplement for condiments and after having paid decided that would have a word with the owner who was by the till.
I explained that it is usual for Italian restaurants to offer the full range of condiments with meals and that I thought that he was taking advantage by charging extra. He shrugged and said it was "expensive" and that was why they charged.

I was lost for words and left disgusted.
I did a quick google check and he hasnt run the restaurant for long, reviews are mixed but my review/ advice is simple. "Dont take the piss out of your customers or you wont have any to take the piss out of."
Even in the picture on the net he is standing at the door looking for the next customer to fleece!!

Weather

I know everyone has weather but I feel an update on the last 10 days is required. The winter was hardly noticeable until the end of January and then it hit like a slap in the face.
The temperature fell although the days were bright and then last Sunday, we woke to snow.
Snow is lovely, on Christmas cards, on mountains and perhaps even here for a limited time but as with the UK we don't know what to do with the stuff.

About 10 inches fell in the village and nearly a week later it is just about still all here. The temperature has averaged about minus 8 at night and a balmy minus 2 during the day. The sun has melted it very slightly only for the night to turn it back to ice.
The villages and hamlets seem to have to look after themselves with the gritting and clearing only on the larger roads. As such we had a couple of local farmers out with tractors clearing the main nroad through the village but nothing else

The bar is warmish but I think we must be keeping the village awake as the gurgling sound of diesel rushing into the boiler is like that of a weir or a small waterfall.
The customer toilets have frozen up on a couple of occasions but fortunately we have managed to keep the seat warm. I am not sure our insurance company would be thankful of a personal injury claim as as a backside is removed from a frozen seat leaving  a circle of skin behind.

As always planning is important  and as they say "the best laid plans of mice and men"  ( R Burns 1786)
This was the week that Seb from Anglo Windows was fitting  new doors in the large room.
These  2 set of doors are approx 4m wide by 2.5m high and were rotten to the point  that they let wind and cold in. However a little cold blowing through small holes in the doors was nothing compared with Seb ripping out the whole thing to let the siberian weather in directly.
They are now in and looking good and in future times will keep the room warmer.

Business wise, the term slow would be a bit of an exaggeration.  We have been open every day, the benefit of living on the premises and have been very pleased that as we can report that we still haven't had a day where nobody came in.
We have had to cancel our quiz this week as the roads in the evenings are difficult to say the least but spring will soon be here and the cold of the last few days will become a distant memory.

and for the next couple of weeks---------

A Small Success

You will recall the ongoing story of the yellow pools. 
The last time I mentioned this, we were going to get a plumber to change the height of the urinal.
Well we did, he did and today we celebrate.
Red wine man visited and didn't leave a calling card.


For those of you with kids you will know that one dry night is only the start and you can expect more wet sheets but for now we celebrate the success of the 24inch high urinal.


Now we have the men trained we can move onto the next problem!!!

Don Du Sang

The bar is a magnet for people who want something displayed for free. Frequently they arrive, people we have never seen before, poster in hand. They want us to advertise their event, their sale or suchlike.
We have had posters for hunting meets, dramas, school activities to name but a few and we always bite our tongues about the cheek of never having even visited for a coffee or a €1 wine but  expecting that we will rush to display their A4 or even A3 poster in our window.
There is however one exception,one poster we will not display. That is Don Du Sang (blood donation).

France needs blood as can be seen from the facts below

Blood donation in France – Key Statistics

• 1 million patients treated each year thanks to blood donations
• 10,000 blood donations needed each day to cover patient needs
• 1.7 million blood donors in 2010, 360,000 of which were first-time donors
• 3 million donations made in 2010
• The lifespan of blood constituents is short: 42 days for red blood cells and 5 days for platelets.

Both J and I donated in the uk and I have a fairly rare blood type which was welcomed whenever I donated. But in France it's a no thank you

English blood is  " tainted " as the UK had cases of  Mad Cow disease  and as such no English person is allowed to give blood in France even though blood is needed each and every day.

France failed to own up to BSE being a problem until a report in 2008 finally admitted the size of the problem and reported that France did not do enough to stop it's spread and to protect the public.    President Jacques Chirac  even said in 2003 that the only thing Britain had given European farming was mad cow disease.

It is said in France the disease was called "JCB"  because of the speed the animals were buried!!   

The ironic thing is, the taxman here wants our blood but the health service doesn't


C'est la vie and a strange one at that

French Life, The Driving Medical

France has different rules than the UK relating to driving. One of these is the medical.

It is normally encountered when a person needs to change their licence from UK to French because of age. The UK licence is valid until the person is 70 ( except for the catch whereby the photo is only valid for 10 years). It is not possible to apply for an extension to the UK licence unless you have a UK address so change to the French one is imperative.
Likewise the French licence is less inclusive than that from the UK and for example a special licence is required for towing a caravan or other large trailer. Suprisingly large trailers and caravans also have to have separate registration documents, number plates and mot.
So, the medical. I have not yet had to go through this but a number of our customers have and the process is always discussed with some incredulity.
The person is asked a few general questions, asked to identify colours by means of different discs being held aloft and has a general eyesight test.
This is followed by the introduction of a wooden step, similar to a shoe cleaner's set up. Walk up the  two steps, jump off the top one, step onto the top one, walk down again.
Then comes the part that nobody believes, whilst you are standing on the step, the doctor pulls, as if by magic, a toy monkey from behind his back and throws it at you. Catch with your left hand, catch with your right hand, catch it. The monkey is spinning around the room like the finale of the Cirque Soleil and if you catch it you pass and can tow a trailer!!!

Those of you reading this in the UK may well think you get off light, well be warned. I hear that the same type of test will soon be introduced by the UK but that the monkey catch will have to be done whilst holding a mobile phone to your ear and having a mcdonalds in the other hand, to simulate real driving conditions.

Bonne Annee

I'm sorry. It has been nearly a month since I last posted and I have been lax and not updated. We left the bar with puddles on the floor and thankfully whilst scooter man is still drinking, he is managing to keep it in and release somewhere else. It did however lead me to investigate urinals. I guess this the downside of having a) the internet and b) time to read it. I found out that the base of a urinal should be 600mm from the floor "for optimum usage". Ours is set at 750mm so we are asking the french version of bob the builder to resite it lower. In reality I dont think it will make any difference to our man as the puddles are left nowhere near the urinal!!

 Business wise, we have been open throughout Christmas and New Year. It is a quieter period for us as a large number of our British clients go away for Xmas, either to their families in the UK or to warmer parts of Europe. ( hint to kids...these people are invited to their children's homes and put up, fed and watered, for a month or so over the Christmas period...all in exchange for a couple of hours baby sitting and a few bottles of Lidl's best red....)

 On New Year's Eve we had a British table at the Village Revillion.

As reported at this time last year the food and wine was excellent and plentiful. Jeanne won the sweepstake for correctly guessing the time that coffee would be served. The event started at 8pm and J won with a guess of 02.15am! ( this guess was made when all of the glasses in front of her were still empty) I must however, take this opportunity to apologise for the lack of tact shown by some members of our party. We live in a poor part of France and a number of the people at the meal with have saved a long time to get together the €104 a couple for the tickets. To show off wealth in the way below was a little tactless and I hope they forgive us and allow us back next year.

Bonne Annee Happy New Year to all readers and I promise I will be back quicker next time

Hubble Bubble Puddle Trouble

He's been and done it again. The piddler on the floor. We saw him go to the toilets but weren't quick enough to get to him. He returned and whispered to J that all was ok but he lied!!
The next customer reported a yellow pool

Any advice would be gratefully accepted. We don't want to ban him but are fed up of cleaning the floor