Wednesday 8 September 2010

Anyone for Fruit Salad?

I am not a big fan of raw apples unless they are a particular variety or texture BUT I do like cooked apples especially with chocolate and pancakes.
Oranges ... hhhmmm ..... I am always suspicious of what they are going to taste like and have not yet worked out which season or variety is the best as usually they are too bitter and sour for me .... and yet I am the Marmalade Queen!
Have you ever eaten oranges fresh from the trees in the Alicante region of Spain? .... they are to die for and I can easily eat a kilo in one go!
Bananas have to be slightly green and never baked or put into warm, yellow custard aka school custard! or even baked with blue cheese! I cannot stand raw bananas if they even go slightly ripe, yellow and certainly not brown or black! However, to do the fruit justice I do love a banana sandwich or fresh sesamine baguette with banana sandwiched in-between!

I have been going bananas over the last few days!

Telephone and Internet facilities have been down .... unavailable ...
I have managed to get a new internet system fixed at my new house and tried to avoid signing up for France Telecom .. but ... silly me... if there is a problem with the Orange 'net plus' I can't dial out as there is no landline and I have no mobile except one routed via UK! It is fixed that I am in a conundrum!

So after days of trying to make the LIVEBOX at AsA work, I think it is still unsuccessful plus the days of not being able to access our internet system at Village de Vaux, including of course the hours that I have spent at both houses/homes trying to access the world wide web!...., 'les plaisirs' were not here or there ... in fact, blue berries could be added to the fruit salad!

This evening the nice man at Orange has made my nice Apple mac pro educate me in circumnavigating the nasty Safari which decided not to work. Thank goodness that some months ago I downloaded Firefox and today as an extra precaution I have downloaded Google Chrome which is thankfully available to certain Mac models.

Therefore APPLE has been able to access the lovely ORANGE and my BANANAS have not gone quite so bendy and so brown!

It has been False Economy because in order to save I have incurred the loss of time and humour... as well as pennies from the purse (the VERY nice man from Orange who knew all about my Apple was not a gift). One cannot beat the telephone system (Misters Bell and Edison would turn in their grave!) so I have changed the contract and changed to a France Telecom line with an Orange internet line at extra expense per month but with the added security that if one system fails (as I continually do!) one can hopefully use the second option! PS. It will take up to 3 weeks. But the horrible Orange lady who out the phone down on me without answering my questions would not tell me this and would not tell me that, so I have been told by a different Orange customer services agent that I may continue to use my current system (hohoho if I can get it to operate tomorrow/demain!).

I regarded (looked at) the LIVEBOX to see if it was alive today! From red blinking 2nd light of three days and apart from one day then the 7 days before that! it has all by itself turned to orange blinking light..... but it should be a fixed green light and not clignotant!

I have had 3 visits to the ORANGE shop and subsequently learned how to negotiate with the managerial person who stands centrally to allow or disallow persons to enter or not the hallowed Fort of Modern Telecommunication! (N.B. not jut F.T. but F.M.T.)
I am not allowed to change my package, my contract, my livebox, my annuaire details or my line parametres! However, when I asked most politely for a chair, given my age, she did get me one! There are few chairs for those who wait!
I, of course, WAIT, for I live in France, and in France one waits patiently and in order to progress more quickly one must improve one's command of French and try to sooth with soft, negotiable, smilingly, encouraging, complimentary words those with whom one wishes to succeed more quickly!
I would rather have a fruit salad ... but shall we add some other fruits?

1 comment:

Susan said...

With you about raw apples, but completely opposite on bananas - I can't bear a fiddled with banana - they go a disgusting colour and the smell is totally off-putting.

If it's any consolation, we have a steady red light on our modem-router, and have never figured out how come we actually have a functioning internet.

I'd go easy on the smiling at French people who are inclined to be nasty to you. They are quite like to decide you are a grinning fool scheming to ingratiate yourself and that they will put a stop to that. A nice turn of flowery phrase works wonders though.