Tuesday 6 April 2010

The Good News and the Bad News

Posted by Rosie

The Good News

Simon and I went up to Caen today to buy various supplies for the gite. Simon had seen some bathroom tiles in Leroy Merlin so we headed there first and after an hour and a half of umming and arrrring, finding suitable floor tiles and working out how many we needed we were happy with our choice. We then chose floor tiles for the kitchen floor and added the tile adhesive onto the trolley before moving on to the heat exchange unit area. That was a bit fiddly sorting out but we got there and piled everything onto the trolley.

"Do you have a Loyalty Card?" the assistant asked, looking at how much stuff we had accrued. He explained the advantages and told us we would start collecting the points straight away. So I went off to sort that out whilst Simon added more stuff - outside lights, a gate bolt and other bits 'n bobs.

Whilst waiting to get our card I saw a poster that said you got 5% discount on anything bought on the day you get your card - excellent. It got even better as we had somehow managed to get our card in the week of an extra-special offer when you got 10% off all the purchases that day. Doubly excellent. But this good luck just couldn't last .........

The Bad News

Remember that hour and a half sorting out suitable bathroom tiles. We went to order them and this was the point where it all started to go wrong. Kitchen tiles were no problem and in stock but we knew there was a 10 day wait on the bathroom ones. Actually no - not a 10 day wait - the line was discontinued. Yes, you did read that right - DISCONTINUED!! The man was very apologetic but it didn't change the fact we had wasted all that time and still had no tiles. We spent the rest of the day trawling round other tiles suppliers without luck. The trouble is, once you have an image in your mind it is very difficult to switch to a different colour scheme. We did find some we liked and in stock BUT at 90€/m2 they were way out of our budget. So the one thing we said we HAD to come home with eluded us and we are running out of places to look.

3 comments :

  1. Hello Rosie,
    This is Andrew here from www.wildfoodlarder.com
    We had some correspondence last year about Confiture aux fleur de pisenlit
    As it happens i would like to talk with you some more as we are also moving to France later this year or latest next spring. We are looking in the Dordogne.Please mail me at andrew@wildfoodlarder.com
    Ta

    ReplyDelete
  2. I feel your pain. Tile shopping in France is grim.

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  3. We are soon to be in the same situation but in the UK. MIL's house is very close to needing bathrooms, kitchen, tiles, flooring etc. aaahhhhhhhh. I hate shopping at the best of times but choosing on budget for a rental house .... I feel for you : )

    ReplyDelete

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