Be Careful!

There's no photos, because it was dark when we first noticed them, but there are a number of new stop signs around our end of Preuilly sur Claise.

They're all on the Route de Grand Pressigny: two are by the Chapelle de Tous-les-Saints on Rue de la Croix and Rue de la Chapelle, and the third is on Route de Chaumussay. On all of these the main road now has priority and the intersections are no longer give way to the right.

The new stop signs are marked with red dots

I can't recall any accidents there recently, but these intersections have been the sites of many a fright, as they are basically blind corners.

It's December Already?

How did that happen?

So what's Simon been up to lately?  Not much - we went to l'Image a week ago, and been on a couple of very shorts walks. We've had a couple of visits from friends, and had a few medical appointments. We had our flu jabs, too.

The fire has been lit for about 2 weeks now, after we had a sprinkle of snow - enough snow to be cold and wet, but not enough snow to tempt one outside. This means we've spent most of our time indoors keeping warm, doing bits and bobs.

We have had a slight lifestyle change. We have reverted to the traditional meal schedule of having our dinner in the middle of the day, and a lighter meal in the evening. This is quite easy during winter when we're at home during the day, but whether it will last through summer I'm not sure. 

As far as my cancer goes, at the moment it appears to be under control. I am still having the hormone treatments, but I don't have to go back to the oncologist until September next year. What happens after that I'm not sure.

And that's the minutiae of life in rural France for us at the moment. 

Egg Shortage in France

I must admit I hadn't noticed. Someone on Facebook pointed out to me that there had been a flurry of news reports about egg shortages in France, and the supermarket shelves were looking a bit bare. So next time I was in the supermarket I checked, and sure enough, there were obvious gaps. So what is it all about? France is Europe's biggest egg producer, and French people eat a lot of eggs (more than 4 each per week, and that figure has been increasing over the past few years)*. So that's one reason -- supply is not keeping up with demand, especially while we have bird flu doing the rounds (which has reduced production by about 4%).

Apparently, since the beginning of the year, demand has outstripped supply by 13%. Last year France produced more than 15 billion eggs, and the normal level of supply is about 2% less than demand. These days eggs are seen as an economical and ecologically sustainable alternative to meat or fish. But also influencing the market are changing ideas on cholesterol (it's OK to eat eggs again), the fashion for high protein diets (promoted particularly by sports nutritionists and scientist influencers such as Jessie Inchauspé the Glucose Goddess advocating savoury breakfasts), and how eggs lend themselves to quick and simple preparation.

 

How to decode your egg stamp: the top line is the best by date (dd/mm), 28 days after laying; the bottom line indicates how the hens live, with a number 0-3 (this one is 1, so this is a free range egg), then the country code (FR for France), then the département (county) code (02 is Aisne).

In order to meet this increased demand we will need a million more hens, and 300 more egg farms. French egg farms have on average flocks of 16 000 hens, but nobody wants to live next door to an egg farm, so permission to establish new farms takes time. French consumers want French produced eggs, preferably organic, Label Rouge and/or free range (Fr. élevée en plein air) ie the stamps on the eggs should include codes 0 or 1, not 2 (barn) or 3 (caged). For the moment France is making do with importing 4% of eggs in the market from Spain, Poland and the Netherlands, where much bigger egg farms are permitted, and French consumers are dubious about traceability.

 

Eggs at one of my local supermarkets on Tuesday.

 

*Australians eat even more eggs per capita than the French, but consumption is declining slightly. Average annual consumption in Australia is 259 eggs per person, in France it is 226 eggs per person.