Like most French houses, ours has nearly all hard floors. This has pros and cons from the cleaning point of view. It's nice to be able to mop the floor quite easily-but large clumps of fluff and dust can accumulate and blow gently around the floor like that stuff you get in desert films when someone's about to die-which I can never remember the name of.For a long time, I managed with a broom and brush and dustpan, then one day, I decided to buy a little hoover just for upstairs to get things really nice and sparkly clean. Will I never learn? We went to the nearest big supermarket and i carelessly selected the cheapest hoover. it cost 34.90 euros and I was robbed.
It's so plasticky that the hose doesn't bend, the on/off button has already broken, and it's got less suck than an ashtmatic kitten.
Now I think about it, 34.90 may have seemed cheap (for France), but in fact if paid a minimum wage, (which is common here), you'd have to work at least 7 hours just to buy this useless heap of plastic junk. Of course, nearly all your money, wehn you're poorly paid, goes on basic living expenses, so in fact this hoover would take you at least a full working week to purchase as long as you had no other indugences that week and someone gave you a lift there and back to the shop to buy it.
Now, because it's useless, it's going to exist as a pice of horribly coloured plastic whilst my grandchildren's grandchildren are sitting around discussing the meaning of life.
Also-doubtless the people who produced and assembled it worked in miserable conditions for next to no money.
Why couldn't I have just carried on with my brush and dustpan until I could afford a quality item? or bought one second hand?
This is not the first time I've made this mistake.
Poor old Ma. I wish I could reassure you but I remember all too well the dreadful hoovers of my childhood. Your favourite was a vintage secondhand thing which looked antedeluvian and sounded like a plane taking off. I was very scared of it. Our own hoover is getting a bit feeble and I'm thinking of saving up for one of those henry hoovers, about which I have never heard a bad word said. Ben had them at work and they apparently survived the rather rough handling they got when Ben tried to get others to join in with housework! They are 90 quid at the cash and carry, which might be justifiable. Check it out when you come over. Or go mad and get another dyson!
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