Environmentally-friendly agencies in France are at long last turning their attention to the problem of overpackaging. This is something many French manufacturers are well and truly guilty of. We’ve all come across that horrendous, thick plastic that many items are packaged in, particularly DIY tools and toys. Even with a very sharp carving knife, and sometimes even a saw, it takes quite a battle to get into and I’ve had some nasty cuts from it. I shudder to think how long that will take to biodegrade in the environment, if it ever will. It’s way over the top.

I’ve just been reading the Creuse edition of La Montagne. Grève news I’m afraid. There’s news of a boycott at Boussac College, a ‘manif’ (short for manifestation – a demonstration) outside Lycée Jean Favard, Further afield a surprise strike (grève) by the National Dock Federation have disrupted the port at Sainte Nazaire, the air traffic controllers are just about finishing their strike, as are sailors in Corsica. College and Lycée teachers are striking on 12th March and a general strike is scheduled for 23rd March. We’ve already had one national strike this year.

The winter holidays have just finished here in Creuse, but are just starting in other parts of France. Les vacances d’hiver are probably the strangest of the school holidays for ex-pats. There isn’t anything similar in Britain or Ireland. There you get a few days’ half-term but here we have a full fortnight of time off. These holidays originated as Mardi Gras (Shrove Tuesday) holiday, and were set out in an arrêté in 1939 to take place on the Monday to Thursday around Mardi Gras. Now they last two weeks and are staggered over four weeks across the country. The staggering is to allow for a longer skiing season and to relieve the pressure on the slopes which would result if everyone turned up with their skis and snowboards at the same time.

French painters are revered the world over. Not so French paint. It regularly gets a very bad press. We know quite a lot of people who won’t touch it, but get relatives to bring English paint over for them. In fact, there are companies that have been set up just to distribute English paint over here – it’s a growing business.

The 21st Winter Olympics has got off to a sad but extravagant start in Vancouver. It’s a dreadful shame what’s happened to the Georgian luge athlete, Nodar Kumaritashvili. But when you think about it, the Winter Olympics features an array of deadly sports, with the exception of curling. Almost every activity sees the athlete moving at tremendous speed with very little protection. Skiers hurtle down almost vertical slopes, ski-jumpers try to fly, snow-boarders do gravity defying stunts and as for ice hockey – would you go onto the ice against any of those scary looking guys? Even figure skating features a move called the death spiral. However, despite the danger, or possibly because of it, all these winter sports are very popular, and addictive to watch.

French breakfasts are brilliant. I don’t think any other country can pack as much chocolate into a single meal as the French can. Hot chocolate to drink, pains au chocolats and brioche smothered in chocolate spread to eat, or maybe a bowl of chocolate enhanced cereal. Our particular favourite is muesli with no less than three different sorts of chocolate in. A brilliant way to start the morning!

And if you don’t like chocolate, all is not lost. You can always have a crunchy baguette or hot croissant with apricot jam or just lashings of butter. Of course, you can’t expect to get a proper cup of tea, unless you have a stash of English teabags. French tea just isn’t the same, even if you double or treble up the number of teabags. But it’s bearable, so when we’re in-between visits from tea-bearing friends and relatives from tea-drinking nations, we get by.