We have been to France, hence the lack of posts. Initially the idea was for 3 weeks to sort out the house and make sure all was good before winter but we ended up staying for over 5 weeks.
Why ? Well there was the weather which was stunning over the whole period. Then there was our broadband connection.
Until June 2021 our broadband to the house was arranged by UK Telecom who subcontracted to SFR locally in France. UK Telecom decided to change to Orange as the provider so our broadband got chopped in June while Orange took up the reigns …. or not as the case maybe.
We arrived in September and still no broadband via UK Telecom from Orange. I visited the local Orange Boutique and they were keen to subscribe us directly to their fibre service which is now available in the village. We signed up and 2 weeks later had heard no more. Promised installation dates came and went with no contact or visit and we stayed in specially for these dates. After my third visit to the Boutique we told them we were no longer interested and to cancel the contract. This they did without quibble.
We then went to FreeBox who are a new kid on the block. Same routine, keen to sign us up, promises of dates etc. Nothing further. So we did not have a broadband connection at the house and had to depend on Vodafone roaming for the 5 weeks we were there. This meant buying another 2GB of data to keep us connected.
I am working on what the plan will be for the next visit … should we go back to SFR direct ?
We love France and we love the local people. I don’t know what it is about businesses in Frances that makes them incapable of managing customer expectations. We are blessed in the UK with a high probability that if you email a company you will get an answer or at least an acknowledgement of your message. This probably spoils us when we are in France where there is an enduring black hole of little or no comms or at least no timely comms in response to messaging them. This assumes that they give you a contact email address but usually they hide behind web based decoupling. You would think that the likes of Orange or Free as communications companies … would communicate ?
Rant over.
Back to the workshop and am I am trying to remember what was work-in-progress 5 weeks ago.
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