The anti cafard advert

On a short trip to Paris last month, I saw an ad in the newspaper that said ‘anti cafard’ and had a phone number beside it. I thought it may be some sort of political pressure group, so I asked my brother, who had lived and worked in France for many years. He explained that cafard means cockroach, and what I saw was an ad for a pest control expert.

It got me thinking, because in England I’d seen several of these awful insects over the years, including some in a flat I’d once lived in. It was directly above a takeaway restaurant, which I originally thought would be most convenient for me, but I soon realised that their hygiene wasn’t perhaps as good as it should have been.

Thankfully, that’s now a distant memory. The house I live in now has always been cockroach free, I’m pleased to say. I wouldn’t want to find one in my kitchen now, and if I did, I’d call out the specialists.

Control de plagas – a Spanish mystery

I recently travelled to Spain on holiday and saw a van that said ‘Control De Plagas’ on the side of it. It was parked outside a restaurant in which my family and I were enjoying dinner, and I have to admit I was intrigued when a rather serious-looking man got out, and he was armed with a dozen or so small boxes.

He went through the dining area and into the kitchen, pausing only to nod at one of the waiters. He emerged a few minutes later without the boxes, and I was intrigued to know what he was doing. Luckily, my 16-year-old daughter has been studying Spanish for many years at school so I asked her.

She told me the van said ‘Pest Control’. So those little boxes, which I assumed contained delicacies for the menu, perhaps some rare truffles or a few servings of caviar, were probably actually full of rat poison!

Find great flight deals in no time

The next time you’re due to go abroad, whether it’s for business or pleasure, you should head to a comparison website and see if you can find a cheaper journey. There are so many airlines around these days, so there’s a good chance you will be able to find better, and substantially cheaper, flight deals.
The one thing you should bear in mind is don’t just book it without checking the Internet. You can potentially save hundreds of pounds. Therefore, take a few minutes to at least investigate the possibility. You have absolutely nothing to lose.