Grèves, grèves and more grèves. A rant!

If you're learning the French language then "grève" is a word that you're going to need to know. It means "strike" and must surely be one of the most common words in the French language.

We've been in France now for less than 3 months and don't keep up with the news at all. The only "grèves" that we therefore know about are the ones that directly affect us.

So, with that proviso, here are the ones we're aware of:

• La grève that caused our return trip by train from Rouen to Saint-Valery-Sur-Caux to be delayed by a couple of hours.
• La grève that resulted in fuel shortages in Brittany. Fortunately, whilst our marina didn't have any fuel, the local supermarket did. I was therefore able to make a couple of trips with a can to replenish our supplies (a bit!).
• La grève that caused our flight home to England to be cancelled. This was apparently the 50th (yes you read that right) grève by air traffic controllers since 2009. We learned of this whilst en route to the airport and had to pay to rearrange transport for the following day.
• La grève that caused our return flight to France to be cancelled too. This resulted in us being holed up in Gatwick for 2 nights waiting for the next available flight. We're hoping to be able to claim back expenses from Easyjet for the hotel and the onward transport from Nantes to Lorient that we had to rearrange.
• La grève that meant only limited buses were running in Lorient when we got back there from Nantes on our way to Port Louis. This delayed us by an hour or so: most of which time was spent walking.... 

So, a bit like wishing for the focus on bicycles in the Netherlands that actually makes travelling on 2 legs a hazardous experience, think twice before wishing the UK had the (presumably - I'm no expert. I'm just having a rant!) liberal labour laws that France has!

Rant over. Just simmering gently now.........