Briancon

After a reasonable recovery from my sore throat and earache in the last few days, yesterday the ailment returned with a vengence. I had very sharp pains in my right ear and Ginny was very kind to fix me a doctor's appointment with her own doctor. We thought that if I am much better by this morning we can always cancel the appointment.  As it happens, while the earache was slightly better, I still felt pretty awful this morning, so we were set to journey into Briancon to see the doctor at midday, do some shopping and if I felt up to it some sightseeing. I took two paracetamols just to be on the safe side, so we went at about 11.20, after Ginny's hairdresser had been.

Ginny with the barcode reader

Briancon is really impressive. It lies at the confluence of 5 rivers and is full of forts and a lovely old town.  The doctor was an absolute darling and honestly I am seriously considering moving to France just for the reliability, efficiency and quality of its health service.  We got through with no problem on the phone (remember Hassocks?), got an appointment for the following day, waited no more than 10 minutes in the surgery and the doctor treated me as an equal, as a member of the human race, explained everything in detail, was smiley, polite and even chatty, albeit my French didn't allow too many responses from me, but he chatted with Ginny for at least 5 minutes while he was doing the paperwork.  It cost 23 Euros, which I will get back from my insurance, so it seems a good and humane system, unlike the ones we know (countries shall remain nameless!!). The upshot of the examination was that he could see no bacterial infection, so no anti-biotics, but suggested pain killing eardrops, should the pain return in any big way. Also, if I feel in any way worse in the next few days, we should come back straight away.  Apparently he is on duty during the weekend, so I hope that the earache will not return, but should it do so, at least it will be this lovely man that Ginny would take me back to.

Briancon fort and the big church in the distance

Afterwards we bought some bread, visited an organic food shop for some stuff and then a supermarket. By the way, in this supermarket people shop with a very clever little gadget: it is a hand held barcode reader and as they put anything into their basket they read the barcode on the product with it.  The gadget registers the purchase and gives you a running total, which is also useful. At the till, no queueing, no waiting for everything to be rung up, just one quick reading of the gadget and you pay. So easy and quick!!

Looking up one of the valleys from the fort ramparts

Finally we walked around for about 40 minutes in the old town/old fort. Fantastic place this part of France, it is really delightful in every respect: the people, the facilities/services and especially the environment. On the way home and perhaps even before we finished our tour of the old town, I felt awfully dizzy again and we thought it was because the air got very damp and oppressive. Well, just as we got home a quick shower ruined all the nicely dry clothes on the washing line, but we managed to get them in quick. As soon as I was indoors and the shower cleared the air, I was OK again. Currently I am awaiting lunch, which will be very nice, I'm sure. Ginny knows all about veggie cooking and the ingredients are always first class. I have a feeling I'll be back again.  Perhaps I can also talk Roy into it, as the atmosphere is so delightful here and our hosts are equally so, that it couldn't be a better choice for relaxing and switching off.

The fort's outer defences from the ramparts

A cafe/restaurant on one of the fort's bastions