Life can be complicated here, even in simple things. When I say that to people who have lived here a long time, I sometimes get some pushback: “No, it’s not that bad. Not so complicated. Used to be worse,” etc. Right. Here’s complicated.
Tonight Mary and Gilles are having a dinner gathering for us, another couple and, of course, them. Laurie asked if we could bring a dessert and Mary said, “Bien sûr!” So this morning we went to get a cake at the bakery. There is a boulangerie/patisserie that we know has excellent cakes near the cheese shop in Bois-le-Roi, and as we needed some cheese we decided to go there.
Whoops. Closed: de vacances for three weeks. Okay, there’s another bakery in town so we’ll go there.
Whoops. Closed: this particular bakery is closed every Wednesday. Well, there’s a good bakery in our current hometown, Samois-sur-Seine, that we know is open on Wednesdays, so we’ll go back there.
Whoops. Closed: sign in the window says, “Closed this Wednesday morning uniquement.” Closed just this particular Wednesday, just for us. Okay, now we know there’s a bakery in Samoreau, a ten-minute drive away.We do not know if it’s closed for vacation or closed on all Wednesdays or closed this Wednesday uniquement. Off we go.
It’s open! Yahooo! And parking right across the street! Whoo-hoo! And…they have no cakes. Really. They do, fortunately, have a selection of beautiful tartes, of which we buy six and call it a day.
Complicated. Let’s go buy a cake. Four bakeries later we have dessert, but no cake. Complicated.
One could always bake a cake…..
That one was probably cloaed because of Bastille Day or the awful massacre in Nice. N’est pas?
One was closed for vacation (okay), one was closed its regular closed day (okay), the third was closed in the morning but not the afternoon, but they would not likely have had desserts in the afternoon. And it was the day before Bastille Day, so they can’t use that or the Nice tragedy as a reason. I’m sure they knew we were coming and closed uniquement just for us!