Expensive France

I'm so used to having it drummed into my head that the UK is so uber expensive, only a dolt would live there that I actually thought our trip to France would be a pretty cheap affair.

Where do I get my info? This place is stupid expensive. As the Euro is currently hovering around £1 = €.90 (when you actually get money converted, not the crazy quoted official conversion rate that NO ONE ever gets), you start to see how expensive things are.... like beer at €6 a pint (x .9 = £5.40), or Fallout 3 at Game is €70 (x .9 = £63!!!). I paid £29.99 and I thought that was too much.

Petrol's even pricier here at around €1.16 per litre (x .9 = £1.04) when it's hover in the low 90p in the UK. There's other things are are expensive, but not in a direct comparison. Suffice it to say, blowing €50 a night on dinner for Sue and I is a one way ticket to the poor house. I'm having fun, but for my wallet's sake, I'm glad we're only here a week.

Depressing as...

Everywhere I look in the news and on people's faces, there's tales of gloom. Inflation here, drain on that, it's enough to make you give up.

Having read the paper today, there was a tale that blended the sky-high price of petrol with the sky-high price of food materials, with the conclusion that nothing is coming down in price any time soon. Farmers' costs are up, not enough food is being grown for food (thank you bio-fuel) and the end supermarket price is enough to make you cry.

£1.10 per litre of petrol, a loaf of bread is now over £1. It's just purely depressing, especially at a time of property depression and uncertainty in the market in general.

If this were a video game, I would have given up months ago and hit reset. Maybe the outcome would have been different.