We were fortunate yesterday's weather was warm and fine, allowing us to walk and talk with Colette along the lake shore to the Chateau de Chillon and back. Today's morning weather was ominous and overcast. Clare and Colette went for a walk after breakfast, but I stayed in to work on producing a baptism certificate ready for Sunday. I'll also need to take with me a suitable large bowl to use as a font, the St John's Paschal Candle and a decent plain baptismal candle for the child. Aiglon Chapel is simple Vaudois Protestant in its furnishing, and doesn't have a font, only an altar table.
After an early lunch, we walked with Colette along the lakeside to Montreux gare for her return train to Basel. It began to rain, lightly at first, but we arrived at the station and were under cover as the full downpour began. After waving Colette off, we made our way, dodging the heavier rain to the COOP supermarket in the centre of town. Several days ago we made some food purchases here. Clare paid with a preloaded currency Mastercard containing Swiss Francs and Euros. As the transaction was completing she noticed on the terminal display that the CHF bill amount was converted into Sterling, and then back to CHF for debiting from the card. Later inspection of the relevant smartphone app confirmed that this procedure added one and a half Swiss Francs to the bill, due to differences in currency purchase and sale rates in those few fleeting seconds.
Something was wrong, and we formed the opinion that the default for UK Mastercard must be to convert CHF to ££ automatically. Anyway, Clare decided to tackle the store manager about this, and returned next day. He was puzzled, and promised to investigate and report back, when he had found out what happened. She forgot to give him the Church House phone number however, so we popped in to give him this, and buy a few food items, with cash if needs be.
After spending a while inspecting the wine shelves, curious to learn where apart from Switzerland the store obtains its produce (I didn't actually buy anything), I found Clare chatting to a charming checkout lady. It seems others in the sales team were aware of the card issue. We checked out our purchases, and Clare inserted the card. It showed a menu she'd not noticed when punching in her PIN on our first visit. It showed payment options possible with the card - CHF, Euros, and Sterling. The latter was shown first in the till menu, given the card's origin and use with UK currency pre-loaded as well as other kinds. It's an option a card user has to remember to reject in favour of the currency desired. So it was, in reality a simple case of caveat emptor. The purchaser must instruct the card how to behave. It's not automatic. Clare had, in fact, automatically treated her new multi-currency card as she would use a normal debit card.
Still, it wasn't quite as embarrassing an encounter as it may sound. Her conversation with the store manager aimed to suggest staff be reminded to check with foreign customers about their choice of currency, when a multi-use currency debit card was presented. With so many foreign clients from all over the world, it must happen from time, retail staff are generally keen to follow best practice and remind clients of the options in front of them. As we cheerfully parted company with the checkout lady, the store manager appeared, bearing a bottle of Pinot Noir du Valais (one of our favourites!) as a good-will gift. I was astonished by the generosity of spirit this displayed. After all, we made our own mistaken, due to lack of experience in using the card. How marvellous!
We then went to the nearby Metro centre for a cup of coffee in a place with a balcony window which overlooks the lake, and watched the rain slowly diminish and the sky start to lighten. Eventually we caught the bendy trolleybus back to Territet to avoid getting wet. We asked the driver if we could buy a ticket and he pointed to a ticket automat in other half of the vehicle. Then I realised when the bus drove so far from the shelter before stopping. People got on via the back entrance, somewhat counter intuitive.
By the time we reached the machine, walking up a fast moving bus, two of the four stops had been passed, and we were speeding the last leg to Territet. Neither of us could make sense of the picket purchasing routine, nor how much of a ticket we needed. There are no machines at bus stops, just an information panel which would make more sense to locals, the primary users, than to foreigners.
Bus ticket machines also have an entirely different user interface from the ubquitous CFF ticket machines, almost identical to others of its kind, at least, all over Europe. Since we couldn't figure out how to pay, we decided to get off at the next stop. It turned out to be our stop. I felt bad, getting off without paying, and humiliated by being unable to read or work the ticket machine while the bus was moving about vigorously. Welcome to old age, I thought.
This is likely to happen increasingly, given the pace of technological innovation, as our responses to change of any kind slow up - the way my sister June complaining about. The world about us just seems to get quicker, leaving us on this occasion bewildered and embarrassed, not yet helpless.
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