Rants - French drivers, their dogs and their cats!

Our overall impression of French drivers is that they are an impatient, hot-headed, bad-tempered lot using any excuse to blast you out of it with the horn! This is based on experiences in Gorges du Verdon, La Route des Cretes from Cassis to La Ciotat and, in fact, anywhere cautious driving might be called for. Surely they know that tourists frequent this area but are not familiar with the roads or 100 per cent sure of where they are going! I have considered creating a notice similar to "Bebe a bord" - "Touristes Irlandais - n'ont pas la moindre idee ou ils vont!". Or simply - "Danger! Irlandais!!".

While I'm in the mood for ranting - dogs and their detritus!! Every second French person has at least 2 dogs and they trail them everywhere no matter what size they are - to restaurants, into shops, into churches. Everywhere! More often than not the doorways into shops are inaccessible because there is someone there with dog on lead as dog sniffs up another dog and owner looks indulgently on. From the looks of it, it goes farther than sniffing because we have seen varieties of dogs that go beyond what one would call interbreeding! The other day I had had enough and allowed myself to exclain loudly "Dogs!" It made no difference at all. I had to push myself forward, my knees coming in contact with the dog's snout, yuk! Obviously one's reaction is supposed to be the gooing I reserve for children. On several occasions in restaurants we have had dogs coming to the table to investigate what we were eating, their owners totally oblivious to our discomfort. On one occasion, the dogs were tied up to a table and caused a traffic jam as the owners engrossed themselves in their meal.

And then the shit! Sorry, I'm not in the mood for euphemisms. It's everywhere! And this morning was the final straw as Jim, unfortunately, managed to transport some into the car. What a mess! Between having to carefully pick my steps so as not to fall and carefully pick my steps to avoid the dog shit, my God, I could do with wings!

I was wondering if maybe the dogs could do with wings and hover over their owners. But then it dawned on me - very very bad idea!

And then there are the cats! Six on the street where we currently live eye us up clearly with malign intent and arch their backs. I scurry past anticipating a hissing spit!

Thank God for the beautiful scenery, food and wine!