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Mr Mum: The 'joy' of a stay-at-home dad

~ Now based in France!

Mr Mum: The 'joy' of a stay-at-home dad

Tag Archives: Driving

Be Careful On The Roads At Night In Rural France…

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Posted by Phil in out and about

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Accident, Boars, Driving, France, funny, Humor, Nature, wildlife

Time/date: 12.30pm, Saturday 26th September

Location: Rural road in central France

Weather: Slight rain

Visibility: Poor

Speed: 70kmph (approx)

Incident: Travelling along road in usual vehicle at a slower than normal speed due to weather and time of night, what seemed to be a bush was observed and noted to be shaking oddly at the side of the road. It rapidly became apparent that this was not in fact a ‘bush’ after said ‘bush’ looked over its shoulder at oncoming vehicle and headed into the middle of the road. ‘Bush’ was then identified as a large wild boar and evasive manoeuvres (and screaming) were initiated.

Outcome:

Wild boar = undamaged

Vehicle = undamaged

Trousers and underpants = no longer fit for purpose.

Really Dodgy And Inappropriate Advertising On Kids’ Go Karts In France…

08 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by Phil in annoyances, out and about

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Advertising, Cigarettes, Driving, France, French, funny, Humor

We came across the following go-karts on a day out to see one of the many lighthouses on the il d’Oleron during our holiday. They were on one of those unmanned tracks where they just leave the karts and it’s up to you to insert the required 2 Euros for upwards of two minutes of mild amusement for the kids.

The first one, as you can see, is littered with lots of almost-but-not-quite official sponsors, see if you can spot them all:

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I particularly liked ‘Tec Tyc’ because when I think of racing, I think of Tic Tacs.

That was really amusing though, but I found the next one not so funny:

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There’s no dodgy, knock-off attempts made here. If you put your 2 Euros in this baby, your child will soon be riding round the track advertising one of the world’s most popular brands of cigarettes, with no ambiguity whatsoever.

What’s the message here? Start them young?

France eh? You’ve got to love it.

Bourges: There & Back Again – or – Why Do Satnavs Always Do This To Me?

02 Monday Oct 2017

Posted by Phil in flying solo

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Countryside, Driving, film, France, French, funny, Humor, Nintendo, Rural, Satnav, technology, Travel

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I’m off to Bourges today, hooray! It’s the longest journey I’ve undertaken on my own, completely solo, without the steady guiding hand of my partner. It’s OK though, because I’m bringing my ‘trusty’ satnav with me. So nothing can possibly go wrong.

 

Which basically means things will possibly go wrong. I mean, why else would I put the word trusty in inverted commas?

 

Anyway the reason for this trip is the procurement of a Nintendo Mini SNES Classic, a sold-out item that I have managed to reserve at Micromania, in the Carrefour shopping centre in Bourges. It’s an in and out job, I just want my piece of retro-gaming nostalgia and then I’m out of there and back home, so I can get stuck into said bit of retro-gaming nostalgia. The journey there is trouble-free, it’s effectively a straight line, with the odd slight curve, and then a left turn at the end. Easy-peasy.

 

I’m out of the car, in the shopping centre and heading happily back to the car, hard-to-find gaming-system in hand before you can say ‘Well that was unexpectedly easy’. Then it all goes wrong.

 

I boot up the satnav, head out of the car-park and confidently press the ‘Go Home’ button. It’s not till I’m sat at the traffic lights that it dawns on me that something is wrong. It’s 10.30 a.m, it took me an hour to get here, so why is it now saying I won’t be home till 7.30 p.m? It’s saying that because I haven’t updated it since we moved to France, so it thinks ‘Go Home’ means home to West Yorkshire.

 

In England.

 

Doh!

 

So I frantically choose ‘recently found’ as I watch the traffic lights change, keeping one eye on the car behind me, which has taken up the standard French position of being just one inch from my rear bumper. He seems to be aware that there’s an Englishman in distress in this car. At least that’s what his eyes tell me. I can see all these nuances because he is parked an inch from my rear bumper. It’s standard practice in France you see.

 

New info input the satnav seems to take an age to ‘recalculate’. I love the way my satnav says this. It sounds like someone underwater. A lady underwater, maybe Aqua Marina from Stingray, a TV series with marionettes that I used to watch when I was young and we didn’t have Youtube. She was a mermaid who helped the main character defeat his nemesis. She must have made an impression because I can’t remember his name, or the main bad guy’s name. Although now I think about it I don’t think she could talk. So maybe not her.

 

As the lights change – giving me just enough time to receive updated information without causing my bumper-hugging friend behind me to actually attempt to mount my car – I follow the new route and pull a hasty right turn. Hasty, but not illegal. I’ve driven about 5 yards when the drowning-female-tones inform me that the route is once again being ‘recalculated’. I recognise this area though, I think to myself. I’ve had a bad Chinese buffet here*.

 

Then lady satnav makes me take a right turn and I’m in completely uncharted territory. I know now that I have to listen to her every command, because I’ve just remembered I forgot to bring my phone, and the scenery is starting to look a bit creepy.

 

Picture in your mind the locales used in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes and, particularly, Deliverance. Transpose those locales to France – so basically take the yellow filter off the lens – and you can see why I’m getting worried. So many abandoned buildings. So many abandoned rusting cars. Who did they use to belong to? Did I see a curtain twitch in that window just then? Was that sunlight glinting off a shotgun’s barrel?

 

I once saw a film called Calvaire, set in rural France, about a traveller who breaks down and gets taken in by a local farmer. The local farmer gets confused, and thinks the traveller is his dead wife. Did I mention the traveller is actually a man? Hilarious scenes follow where the traveller is forced to dress like a woman, and a pig is raped. The theme seems to be that there’s nothing much to do in rural France, except rape pigs and then dress up stranded men like women. Oh and the traveller gets raped too.

 

I only watched it once.

 

So films like this plus my overactive imagination, as well as my complete lack of any means of communication – bar screaming – make me feel all kinds of worried. The roads get narrower and narrower, and the buildings look ever more sinister.

 

Satnavs always do this to me. A straightforward route to wherever I’m going is followed with a ‘scenic route’ on the way back. The worst one was one in the UK, when I was driving to Wales. That journey involved lots of animal skulls, men with few teeth, and a road that would have been better suited to rally-driving. I think satnav manufacturers are actually angry farmers, who try to make people drive down their windy roads, so that they can accidentally run them over in their cars with their tractors.

 

Like I said, I’ve got an overactive imagination.

 

Just as I’m despairing of ever getting out of this rural hell, and begin thinking that I actually died back at the traffic lights, and am in a hell of rusting tractors and scared-looking farm animals, the satnav tells me to turn right and I see a vision: the main road home. I breathe a sigh of relief as I head back down this familiar road, winding the window down (something I was loathe to do ten minutes earlier) so that the sweat down my back can dry.

 

I smile at the driver behind me, as I drive home, imagining him smiling back at me. Actually I don’t have to imagine it, I can see it. He’s a she, and she’s not smiling. I know this because she’s driving an inch from my rear bumper. It’s standard practice in France you see…

 

 

*I have yet to have a good Chinese in France. They are edible, and you can’t really complain, but it’s a bit like that scene in The Fly, where he puts a cut of meat in the teleporter, cooks it, and then invites his lady-friend to try it, and compare it with a non-teleported piece of meat. One’s fine the other one tastes synthetic. Well that’s how I always think of Chinese restaurants in France, when comparing them to the UK ones. 

Tired Of Endless Questions From Your Kids?

21 Monday Aug 2017

Posted by Phil in annoyances

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

annoyances, Driving, fun, funny, holidays, Humor, Parenting, Questions, stay-at-home Dad

Are you tired of endless questions from your kids? Do you grind your teeth every time one of them asks you ‘where are we going?’? Or perhaps, after telling them where you are going, you are going hoarse from constantly answering the follow-up question of ‘Are we there yet?‘ Or maybe you just want a relief from the constant stream of gibberish questions that children emit, every second, of every minute, of every hour, of every day?

You could want respite from such quandaries as:

‘What’s a cow?’

‘Why aren’t we there yet?’

‘Why is that car there?’

‘Why are teeth?’

‘Why aren’t we there yet?’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Why can’t I drink some cola?’

‘Why aren’t you and mummy married?’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Why aren’t we there yet?’

‘Can I have some chocolate?’

‘Why can’t I have some chocolate?’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Why aren’t we there yet?’

 

And many, many, many, many more…well fear not, because Philco Industries have created the all new Stupid-Bloody-Questions-That-Children-Keep-Asking-And-Follow-Up-With-Even-More-Bloody-Stupid-Questions-Till-You-Start-Thinking-That-Being-Sectioned-Might-Be-A-Good-Thing-Dampener-Board (name subject to change).

 

 

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Simply insert this board in the car, tell the kids ‘It’s to cover the holes in the fence that the cat keeps using to go next door‘ and then sit back and relax, as the questions are blocked out* and absorbed** by the reassuring 2 inches of wood.

 

This faux-limo-style separation between you and your darling, adorable, lovable but oh-so-bloody-annoying children, will mean that journeys will fly by***.

 

Available in all leading stores SOON****!

 

 

 

 

*You can still hear them

**It’s more muffled than absorbed

***This is a lie

****This is also a lie

 

 

 

 

Mr Mum: The ‘Joy’ Of being a stay-at-home dad

Mr Mum: The ‘Joy’ Of being a stay-at-home dad
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