Gosh ! Is it really that long since I last posted ? I must be the worst blogger in the world.
So, what's my excuse ? Well I've been doing a lot of writing (honestly!) I've been putting quite a few articles on Constant Content just lately. I was spurred on by selling a few articles really quickly which gave me a real boost so I have been researching like mad, trying to come up with some 'hot'topics. Green issues are certainly hot right now, so I'm becoming very well informed on green travel, green babies, green fabrics. I was really surprised to find out that cotton production isn't as 'green' and ecological as one might think and can actually contribute to the global warming problem.
There's only one downside to writing for American sites and that's the state of the pound sterling and the dollar against the euro.
Oh, don't start me on that !! As soon as one or two ex-pat Brits are gathered together you can bet within three seconds the subject of UK pensions and the euro comes up. I even had two Brit Jehovah's Witnesses turn up on the door step last week, and what do you thing we talked about?....no, not the end of the world, or even blood transfusions....but , you've guessed it!! The falling value of the pound! Well, you have to admit you wouldn't get that in the UK.
It's certainly belt-tightening time at the moment, and we are working our way down the supermarket chains as I write. When we used to come here on holiday the highlight was shopping on the markets.. .well isn't that every one's raison d'etre for a holiday in France? But shopping at the Carrefour hypermarket just before the journey home came pretty far up the list of 'must-dos'.
When we came to live here...well it was a different matter. We weren't on holiday anymore. We were (ouch) on a tight budget. So our supermarket shopping was pitched with this in mind. We moved down the ladder...like going from Waitrose to Tescos, and shopped at Le Clerc...something I had turned my nose up at when we were 'en vacance'. That was fine for a while, then we had the change from francs to euros, and all those prophets of doom who had moaned on about prices going up were right it seems. I must confess I didn't notice it much at the time. I was just too grovellingly grateful to be free of having to translate " trois cent, quincante huit franc" as three hundred and fiftyeight francs, meaning £35.58 in familiar money. "Trente euro cinquante huit" is just so much easier when you're trying to write a cheque in a supermarket queue.
After a couple of years Le Clerc seemed a bit pricey so we transfered our loyalty to Atac, a sort of small Asda which has weekly offers and are very good for some surprising things. For example I bought a great computer screen there last autumn for 130 euros, so they are always worth a look- see when checking out prices.
Now we seem to have fetched up at Liddl and Aldi for our weekly shop. How much lower (price- wise) can we sink? Never mind, we console ourselves with the fact that we couldn't afford to live in the UK at all.
Which brings me back to all my hard work selling articles on the US market. What seems to be a 'nice little earner' in dollars looks decidedly pathetic by the time PayPal has paid it into my account. Thanks goodness we don't have to rely on it for a living.
So that's one reason I've been lax on postings. I've also been re-submitting a revised version of my opening chapters of 'New Wine ' on to the You Writeon' website, but the reviews have been so slow it's like watching paint dry!
But after a wet spring so far, summer must be just around the corner now so I may just be lured outside instead of sitting at the computer, but as far as this blog is concerned it's a case of ' can do better if she applies herself' as my old school reports always used to say, so will apply myself better in future.
Watch this space.....but not for too long!
