Old Rocamadour photos, and...

...some ramblings about French fuel and bread nowadays

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Yesterday I did something that I'd been thinking of doing for nearly a week. I drove our old Peugeot over to our local SuperU supermarket and and filled the car's tank with diesel fuel. It was down to about a quarter full. The Citröen has about half a tank of diesel fuel in it, and I may go fill it up next week if I can.

And yes, the supermarket is where you go to fill your car's fuel tank if you live around here. There are no longer any service stations in Saint-Aignan area. We used to have a couple, but they but they closed down years ago.

I had been watching reports of possible fuel shortages on the news for while. Prices have been going up too, to about double the price of diesel fuel a month or two ago. I decided the time had come for a fill-up. We can't really live here without a car to go shopping in, even though we have three local supermarkets, each one not more than a three-mile drive from our house. Walking to one of them would take some time, though, and it wouldn't be easy to bring a good supply of groceries back home on foot.

I didn't know what I'd find when I drove to the supermarket. Long lines of cars waiting to fuel up was one possible scenario. Another was pumps closed down because of shortages. There are a dozen or so pumps at the SuperU filling station (for high-test gasoline and regular gas, as well as diesel fuel). I've heard that diesel fuel is in especially low supply right now. Sure enough, at least one of the diesel pumps was not working. Payment is by credit or debit card.

However, I decided to drive over there at about 7 a.m. because I thought that might a time when other people were not out and about yet. In fact there wasn't a single car at the filling station when I got there. One other car drove in a few minutes after I got there. Leaving the gas station, I had a thought: What about bread? It would be good to lay in a supply so we wouldn't have to waste fuel every other day or so driving around to find an open boulangerie. The two bread bakeries remainiing in Saint-Aignan were not yet open at that early hour, so I drove to the village on the other side of the river. The boulangerie there was open.

We buy several baguettes at a time and keep them in the freezer at home to avoid having to drive to a boulangerie several times a week.They thaw well and are good, but they're not as good as fresh baguettes. When we came to live here 20 years ago, there were six boulangeries within two miles of our house. Nowadays, there's only one. All the others have shut down one by one over the years. I think most people buy their bread at the supermarket. Unless you live in a big city, well... la vie en France n'est plus ce qu'elle a été...