Day 237 (Tuesday)

It was a bit cloudy this morning and it lasted most of the day – quelle horreur!

I found a few more fun facts for you today…

1. France was the first country to introduce a public transport system. In the 1660s, "five-floor carriages" were a system of horse-drawn carriages circulating at a fixed time and on lines linking various neighbourhoods of Paris. The concept was developed by Blaise Pascal.

2. Until World War II, France was on the same time zone as London. After occupying the country in 1940, Germany forced France to conform with Berlin time, and this change has never been cancelled.

3. In France, traders are under no obligation to give change to their customers. According to the law, it is the customer who has to pay with the exact money.

4. In 1940, France and the United Kingdom briefly considered merging into one nation to face the German invasion. The project included common citizenship and a single parliament.

5. In France, trains run on the left - except in the eastern border region of Alsace-Moselle. Why? Because the area was German territory when the railway was constructed.

6. With 11 million km², France has the second largest maritime surface area after the United States. As some requests of France have not yet been validated by the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, the marine territory could even extend to an additional 1 million km².

7. France has the most powerful radar ship in the world. Called Monge, it was designed to be able to monitor the course of nuclear missiles. Its most impressive achievement to date: detecting a monkey wrench, which had been lost in space by an American astronaut.

8. A number of French departments have changed names over the years. For example, Loire-Inférieure became Loire-Atlantique in 1957; Basses-Pyrénées became Pyrénées-Atlantiques in 1969; Côtes-du-Nord became Côtes-d Armor in 1990. In many cases these changes were made because the original names had taken on derogatory connotations.

9. France boasts more roundabouts than any other country. 30,000 in fact - which represents over half of all the roundabouts in the world.

10. The French municipality with the shortest name is Y, in the Somme department. Its inhabitants are known as Ypsilons.

Andy came round for dinner and Huw made a curry for him and Andy. I don’t particularly like curry so I had leftovers spaghetti bolognese from last night. Huw used the jar of curry sauce I had bought him for Christmas adding more spices to make it suitably hot. We even got the good wine glasses out and the gorgeous carafe (a wedding present) and Andy was suitably impressed with the fruit bowl and the flowers on the table.