The Green Cross

When you need a pharmacy in France, you just look for the green neon cross, there's bound to be at least one, if not five on every main street.

I know I said in my last post that I was feeling a lot better, but it seems that after every three days of work I crumble all over again. So on Saturday, as the doctors clinics are closed, I decided to go see a pharmacist instead. I had heard that pharmacists in France are highly competent and very trusted as a source of advice for all minor illnesses. They are also able to give out drugs that would require prescriptions in other countries. So it's quite common, if you've got a little 'souci' (worry) to go and have a chat with your pharmacist, who will most likely hook you up with some suppositories. Well not always, but seriously, I think it is the preferred method of um, administering your medicine here. The twins had ear infections last week and there were suppositories as part of the prescribed medications.

I have 4 pharmacies within 5 minutes of my place, all on the the same street, so I chose the one that the family uses, hoping some name-dropping might get me friendly service. I'm sure the service would have been lovely anyway, as the lady listened attentively and then scurried off for solutions. Pharmacies here don't sell the plethora of stuff that Kiwi ones do, and the front of store, with just a smattering of makeup and shampoo, was smaller than the storeroom/concoction lab, or whatever it's called. She returned with a pill for my churny tum and another for my nausea as well as some general advice for keeping well. It was so cheap, and if I had been a French - or if my carte de sejour had been processed...grrr - it would have been pretty much free.

So the lesson of the day: when in France, your pharmacist is your friend. And in the event that you pick some fungi in the wood and want to know if you can eat it, take it to your pharmacist, they're trained to know their mushrooms too.

And just to change the topic a little...I have a mosquito who is stalking me. For the last four nights I have woken with a start at the sound of a buzzing in my ear. Back in April when we had the heatwave, there were lots of mosquitos, and I would often be woken by them and then sit there, book in hand until the rascal flew close and I could smoosh it good and dead. They are pretty big and slow so I always succeeding in exterminating them and thus ensuring I could safely go back to sleep. Only this time round, though I leap up in bed and switch on the light, I can never see her (only the females bite). I sit there with my book ready, scanning the room, ears straining, and there is nothing. I give up and go back to sleep, and when I wake up I have a new bite.

I'm mystified: I know that I hear the buzzing and it always terrifies me out of my sleep, but I never see a mosquito. I've just been reading Maupassant's short story The Horla, and here, I am with my own Horla. Though instead of a mysterious creature that drinks milk and water in the night, as in the story, this one is drinking my blood. Ew!