'Let me get up first tomorrow', said the Bear, 'and I'll bring you a cup of coffee in bed'.

Wow, what had I done to deserve that? The only problem was that this weekend I'm looking after the neighbour's house, dog and fish and that means taking Nino walkies before he pees on the kitchen floor. Sure enough, when the alarm went off Bear turned over and started snoring again while I got ready to venture out in the wind and rain. Even the cats took one sniff out of the window and refused to get their little paws wet or their fur ruffled.

Fortunately the little dog was not keen on the weather either and after a quick cock of leg up the nearest lampost he made a beeline for his front door. I settled him in with his breakfast, fed the fish and opened the shutters before coming home to do my own chores.

An hour later, Bear managed to wake up and 'pottered' in the attic till lunchtime. After we'd eaten he offered to make some coffee. 'Thanks. Do you know how to use the machine?' I inquired.

'No, I was gong to make instant' was the reply. 'How about another lesson then?' The Bear agreed and watched while I made the coffee. 'Seems simple enough' he decided. But will he remember for next time?

At least, he helped carry the dirty plates to the dishwasher but stacking them is not in his vocabulary. While I washed up the rest of the pots and pans, I watched in horror as he 'cleaned' the glass topped table with a grubby looking rag.

By the time I'd finished at the sink and cleaned the cooker he was settled in front of the telly watching yet another American cops programme, no doubt worn out by his unaccustomed domesticity.

At least he meant well. Or does he have an ulterior motive? He has been hinting that he'd like me to 'hold his hand'  when he visits his family in England but I was hoping for a little holiday apart from Bear.

You get mornings like that, especially when you least want them, and today was one of those days that started badly.

The nurse came before I was up (she has her own key)and gave Whale his Normacol. That meant he'd spend a good hour in the loo so I decided to drag my clothes on and start the cleaning with his room before 'getting up' properly. The vacuum cleaner is a centralised system whereby you plug the hose into one of the sockets round the house and the cat hair and other rubbish is transported via pipes embedded in the walls to the large container in the garage.

I was trying to get at a small piece of paper  under the Whale's bed but instead of dragging it out so I could pick it up I managed to let it get sucked up the pipe. Disaster struck, the noise changed and then silence as the motor shut down. Of course, this wretched piece of paper was now jamming up the pipes somewhere between his bedroom and the garage. After a few attempts to carry on I gave up and got out the old faithful, but terribly noisy Oreck. This was enough to wake Jay and CC but not the Bear, who carried on snoring.

When Jay came down he asked if I'd been outside. We had put the binbags out the night before as they are collected in the early hours. The local marauding cats had torn a hole in the bag containg cat litter  so you can imagine the mess all over the road. I was relieved when Jay volunteered to clear it up.

Back to the cleaning but then I was interrupted by various calls from telesales people. 'Did I suffer from arthritis or rheumatism?', 'Madame, did you receive our wonderful brochure about replacement garage doors and double glazing?', 'You have won a state of the art mobile phone . . . .' The only 'legitimate' call was from a frozen food company that I do order from at times, but today I was programmed to say no thanks.

By now I had decided to make it a 'lick and a promise' job, by not moving furniture unless it was really necessary and by keeping dusting and polishing to a minimum. By the time I had finished it was gone ten o'clock and I still hadn't had a cup of tea or coffee. Neither had the Bear.

I took his coffee through to the bedroom where he was just beginning to stir. 'Oh, is it getting up time?' he said. 'Yes, it's gone ten,' I replied. 'Why did you let me sleep so long?' he protested, sitting up with a start.

Today we had arranged to have lunch in town with Yvette (our friend whose husband has multiple sclerosis). Bear and I had appointments with the chiropodist before lunch and Jay had one at 1.30. Yvette had to go to the hospital at 11a.m. and so we had agreed to meet at La Fontaine just after 12.

However, the phone went at nine and it was Yvette to say that the ambulance was not coming to collect her husband (who normally goes to a care centre on Mondays and Thursdays to give her a break) because of the WEATHER. What weather? Had they been watching the British forecast by mistake? It had snowed very lightly here early this morning but by eight o'clock it had turned to rain. She was helpless but angry. This was the second time she had had to cancel her appointment at the hospital and she had been looking forward to having lunch with us.

She said this was so typically French: any excuse not to work - even some teachers were on strike today. The chiropodist also expressed his views while we were there. According to him the French start demonstrating just before presidential elections for fear of losing their rights. If the socialist, Segolene Royale gets in they should be safe, but he reckons that the majority of French lean more towards the right and so people are getting worried.

As we left town we noticed groups gathering in front of the town hall with banners. They were quiet and orderly but there was a police presence so maybe they expected it to escalate into a noisy protest.

We'll see if it makes the local paper tomorrow.

Update: It did make the front page but the headline suggested there was a poor turnout - about 500 people demonstrated against school closures, minimun salary and loss of public workers' rights.

'What do you think of this?' asked the Bear, handing me one of the advertising booklets that get jammed into our letter box every week. It was an advert for a combined DVD and video recorder for 99euros. Too good to be true, was my first reaction and then my heart sank as I realised it would mean fiddling about with the scart connections and possibly buggering up the entire satellite reception again.

Closer examination of the pamphlet revealed that the source of the advert was a store with an extremely badly thought out method of selling to its customers.

Nevertheless, we set off to find a bargain but, due to Bear's lack of attention, ended up at the supermarket instead of the store in question. 'Oh well, we're here now so let's stock up on water and anything else we need.' he said.

Forty minutes later, with the boot already full with water, cat litter, binbags, washing powder etc. etc. we arrived at the intended destination. We had trouble finding the right department and then had to root out a saleslady and show her what we were looking for. She checked it out on the computer and said they were in stock. I asked her if it really did record DVDs and she assured me it did, so we started the painful process of buying it.

First she filled in information on her computer and printed off a bill. Then we queued up at the cash desk at the other end of the store to pay. After that we took the receipt to the 'warehouse department' and waited in line to proffer our piece of paper to the indifferent young lady behind the counter. She nonchantly stamped it, gave us the second copy and told us to go to the 'waiting area' where our goods would be brought.

The said waiting area is equipped with vending machines, tall round tables to lean on while you drink and a few plastic chairs. After a while the doors opened with a hiss and a chap wheeled a trolley through, laden with flatpacked parcels for a young woman. He went through the paperwork with her and then disappeared to the carpark for a good five minutes. When he returned he wandered around a bit and got himself a coffee.

The people in the waiting area were getting pretty fed up by now and one woman complained. After another wait, the door hissed open again and he brought out her stuff and ours on the same trolley. We signed and dated the paperwork and took the parcel BUT, wait - in large letters, in English it was marked DVD PLAYER and VIDEO RECORDER.

Back we went to the warehouse lady and explained the problem. At first she tried to make out that it was nothing to do with her. The advert said it records so it must do. The box must be wrong. Eventually she phoned the saleslady and it appeared that there's an error in the description. We had to go back to find her, leaving the appliance in the 'warehouse'.

It was a few minutes to twelve by now so we went back via the 'no entry' doors (we'd been in the waiting area long enough to notice how the staff pressed a button at the side to make them open) and tracked down the offending lady. She said she had been on holiday and so didn't know about the error and tried to persuade us to buy a real recording machine for three times the price but we insisted on a refund.

That required a long phonecall to 'the office' - thank heavens they hadn't all gone for lunch - more fiddling on the computer and another piece of paper to take to the cash desk. This time there was no queue but the cashier didn't look too pleased at being late for her break. She put my  card in a machine which spat out another scrap of paper and pointed out that it was clearly marked CREDIT. We wished each other a hypocritical 'Bon appetit' and Bear and I made for the car, empty handed.

'I'm never coming here again', he muttered. I just hope he remembers this experience the next time he thinks he's found a bargain.