Groceries & such

Living in France is really expensive. I miss all the cheap food & groceries in KL! No wonder you read about people starving and not having enough money to feed their families! It sucks that these people are working hard to put food on the table but the price of meat & fish is so ridiculous that many are becoming vegetarians!
Just last week, the milk producers were so angry that hypermarkets such as Carrefour were charging high prices for milk (they sell milk to Carrefour for 20 cents a litre, but Carrefour sells it to the public at 1.20 euro) they threw out the milk instead of selling it to the hypermarkets!
Due to the crisis, the hypermarkets are supposed to be lowering prices of food, but that is yet to be seen. Carrefour has recently started with a massive advertising campaign to let the public know that certain staple foods can be bought at lower prices, such as pasta & flour. But the "low" prices are nothing to shout about. Methinks its merely a gimmick to get in more customers.

We shop at LeClerc which is similar to Carrefour. The one near our home is much much bigger with more varieties, including an Asian section. I didn't realize how expensive our "outing" to LeClerc has been til Fred prompted me last Friday after another trip to LeClerc.
I call our trips to the grocery an outing as its the only place open when Fred comes home from work at 630pm and he takes us there just to get us out of the house, so we buy a few items every couple of days. Last Friday we didn't actually have anything to buy - I just wanted to walk around and look at the prices ( I noticed that even at different LeClercs, the pricing can differ!) and we ended up with a bunch of stuff costing us 64 euros. If that was our week's groceries, it would have been OK, but we were grocery shopping the Wed before and spent 50 euros and then the Monday before 42 euros. So that makes our grocery bill for 1 week 156 euros!!!!! And we don't buy a lot of food, most of it "instant" like risotto or ravioli, ham, minced beef. (that's as far as my cooking skills go since I am still waiting for my rice cooker to arrive with my little "helpers" - sachets of curry, chili, nasi goreng...).
I know if you take euro and RM 1 for 1 then its not so much but the value of money here is equivalent to converting the euro to RM (or in a lot of french people's minds, they convert from euros to francs).

Anyway, now I'm going to start a list for groceries and stick with it. We will also only go shopping once a week on late night shopping Fridays.

While we are on the subject of shopping - my shopping list for when i come back to KL will be bedsheets, pillow cases and Lucas' shoes! Bedsheets with pillow cases here cost 50 euros to 70 euros (fitted sheet, 1 color). Makes me regret not buying sheets from Jusco for RM50!!!!
We will go to Toulouse next month - hopefully the sheets at Ikea will be cheaper.

BooBoo got a new pair of shoes last Saturday. Oh, we went to town last Saturday for a bit of walking around and shopping. We saw a SALE sign on a baby shoe shop and went in - I actually chose a 19 euro pair of baby shoes BUT the 19 euro shoes are for much smaller size feet. Apparently the bigger the feet, the pricier the shoes!!!!! (And these are not even Clarks, ok...)
So Lucas ended up with a size 24 pair costing his papa 42 euros (after discount as before discount that friggin' pair of shoes which will only last him probably through Summer was 70 euros).

We had lunch at the park as it was a really nice day. The park has got a cafe that serves tarts, salads, paella and lasagne. I had a lasagne, Fred had chicken salad and we shared a salmon & vegetable tart. The food was really good, especially the tart. My lasagne would have been fantastic if they'd not skimped on the meat (re- meat is too expensive, so even cafes are skimping....)

Lucas had a nice time walking around the cafe while we had lunch, listening to the peacocks and ducks calling out to each other.

Fred had the whole weekend off so we went out of Tarbes for Sunday. First we went to the McDonalds drive thru for lunch, and drove to Lourdes and had lunch by the lake where Lucas fed the ducks.
Then we decided to go to the Animal Parc which has been renovated (actually its still undergoing reno). The entrace price is still the same but the parc has been extended to include a nice cafe and sitting area , a theatre and lots more animals. Going to this parc was a great idea - Lucas walked around and as this was an open parc, Lucas could touch the tamer animals. He loved spending time with the marmottes (pyrenees prairie dog) and kept putting his finger thru the cage for the hen to peck. He touched goats, birds and laughed out loud with the marmottes as they all surrounded him (very friendly marmottes) thinking he had carrots for them! Lucas saw the fox, deers, Izard(mountain goat), bears frolicking in the pool, otters (he thought the otters were funny), lynx, kingfisher, ducks, pigs, stork, goose, ducks and lots more.
The day was hot and sunny, Lucas was tired after we finished at the parc. He went to sleep without any fuss last night :D