In which Lydia Bennett wonders why all men treat her like a complete nincompoop

I thought I was doing really well, and today the carpet got pulled from underneath my feet, the veil slipped off, the illusion was shattered and all sorts of rather beautiful cliches got called into use. 

It's all about how people treat you, after all, life, isn't it? My day can be pretty much made by some arbitrary stranger being unexpectedly nice (obviously this is even more true in France, being that much less likely to happen) and of course vice versa - I don't know about you, but the morning can be completely ruined by someone behaving like a total fuckwit. Like the waiter in the cafe in Paris who once told me that if I wanted to pass as a genuine French person I had to learn to drink coffee properly (I had ordered a cafe creme, and he had got out of bed on the goddamned ceiling that morning).

We've got this big house, and it has a lot of windows, all of which are rotten, and anyway we wanted to do the environmentally friendly thing and insulate properly, which folks means special glass and a big bill. Well it was my husband who wanted to do the environmental thing (tax deductable, you see); I just wanted it to look nice. So I have been very insistent that I want nice new windows that look quite a lot like the old windows. It turns out that you can't just say 'I'd like to replace the windows, I'd like them to look the same as the old ones, have the same kind of 19th century fastening, but have better insulating glass'. I thought that was quite specific, but apparently not specific enough. I got three quotes and when I asked about each one in detail it turned out that each one was for the most basic kind of window that doesn't look a jot like the ones they are replacing. Another WTF moment: I had contacted one of the companies because they had done the windows in our stylish cousin's place in Paris and they were really beautiful and she couldn't speak highly enough of their workmanship. So I called and asked them to give me a quote to do the same kind of windows as in Mme T's flat, which they duly did.  The quote was so reasonable that I couldn't believe it, which turned out to be a fortunate lapse of faith, as when I questioned them in a bit of detail it turned out that the quote was for the very cheapest kind of window that you can get in wood (I suppose I ought to be grateful that it wasn't for PVC). When I realised, I called them to say that it wasn't what I wanted and they agreed to come back to talk about doing them properly. When I asked why they hadn't given me a quote for windows like Mme T's, even though that was what I had specifically asked for, the talkative one of the pair said innocently 'Ah! Vous parlez des fenetres qui donnent sur la rue! Nous on a cru que vous parliez de celles qui donnent sur le cour'. Which translates roughly as 'Oh! You mean the fancy ones in the main rooms! We thought you were talking about the really lousy ones in the servants' quarters!' Anyway they came up with a quote for sort of the kind of windows I'm after, done in traditional style with a typically French 19th century style iron knob thing to close it. It was no more expensive than the first quote, so I was pretty pleased, only when I looked at it properly they'd changed the glass to a kind that no longer qualifies for the tax break because it doesn't comply with environmental norms. It's all so technical and so detailed that it's only by chance that I realised: a month ago the figures 4/10/4 wouldn't have rung any warning bells, as I'm quite sure they still don't for most people. (I was recently trying to explain the various ways of replacing windows to a friend of mine, telling her about the controversy surrounding one particular technique - it's true, it's a bit of a hot potato of a subject for those who care about such things - and she interrupted with a look of concerned puzzlement and gently suggested that I should find some alternative form of entertainment to take my mind off such things.)