Loyalty

St Théodore
Yesterday's weather: still sunny, still cold

When we left the UK I swore I would never again have a wallet full of loyalty cards. Nectar card, Tesco Club Card, WH Smith card, hotel loyalty card, car rental loyalty card and on and on. I never had them with me when I needed them so missed out on loads of advantages (not). Admittedly Nectar points boosted the drinks cabinet every Christmas but I still have the obscure liqueurs I bought three years ago. They sit at the back of the cupboard unopened and unloved.

You see, a liqueur is just for Christmas, not for life, and I was going through a cocktail making phase that probably only lasted about 6 months.

In my 'treasure chest', an old pine tool chest made by my great grandfather I have a collection of scrap-booking accoutrements, something else I got very excited about doing but never actually started yet. But I will. One day.

Next to these are the greetings card kits and accessories. Ditto to the above.

Then there are the patchwork squares - yes, all in good time. Hundreds of scraps of wool which I know will come in handy for making toys (who for?) socks (I did make one pair but haven't got around to making any more), and blankets. Well, yes. The blankets I do make squares for from time to time.

Anyway, back to the point of this post.

This morning I picked up my Advantage Card from the Intermarché. I got fed up with telling them I didn't have one and let the lady complete the form for me the other day. So, having checked the little booklet to see what I could earn money on this month, I went shopping.

The little booklet tells you that you can get money back on all sorts of things from wine to cereals, coffee, toothpaste, rubber gloves, batteries and Y-fronts. 'Make up to 160 Euros', it says on the front cover. You can only buy three of each of the items offered but, wow, you could earn a fortune in money back. I must check and see how much you need to spend to get that 160 back again.

As for me? Well, my till receipt tells me that I earned 10 cents on today's shopping plus a bonus of 30 cents for the dozen eggs as listed in the booklet. A total today of 40 cents.

Must try harder.