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That's a nifty tip, Lehaut, thanks. I'm going to try my French on it and see if that's understood. I envisage hours of fun!

If I may suggest another approach. Try finding the "microphone" on your keyboard. On my android phone keyboard it is above the comma. Press that when you are composing an email or SMS and speak slowly and clearly into the phone. The words will appear in the document. The same when using google search, tap the microphone on the right of the search bar and pose your question. Mine voice input spells much better than my finger inputs!

If booked in advance, the IBIS is normally reasonable and worth it to me. I've always found it clean, quiet with good beds and clean linen. Food choices are not great, but there is a decent supermarket and boulangerie just around the corner from the hotel (5 minute walk from your room).

That's exactly what I thought of doing, thank you. ☺️ I'm also flying out to Manchester a couple of months earlier as a practice run.

Oh I hate driving on autoroutes too. I'll also avoid them whenever possible. As to CDG, I have found that to ease the stress of airport manoeuvres, I arrive the evening before travel date and stay at either the IBIS or Novotel at Roissypole. And easy CDGVal shuttle to the terminal(s). I'm used to CDG, but arriving the day before (no matter what time my departure flight is), still eases some of the stress.

I'm much happier driving small roads rather than motorways. In fact the sat nav is set to disregard anything from a duel carriageway up. I'll quite happily take four or five days to get up to Brittany, when I have to, stopping off at small hotels en route. Sometimes I can drive for hours without seeing another car and, as others have said, this country has such amazing scenery that I just feel blessed to be able to see it. I also hate airports and have only used small regional airfields for over 20 years. This year, however, I've decided to go to Canada and take the Canadian across country from Toronto to Vancouver. That means a departure from CdeG so I'm having to gen up what to expect. That part of the trip I'm not looking forward to.

Good idea, Noisette, that would work too .. it's the movement and shiny surface that does it according to OH.

When they get used to the DVDs, how about a miniature version of the raptor kites used in the fields to deter pigeons? They're kites on the end of a bendy stick which swoop and sway in the breeze.

Thank you Judith. If there's one thing I've got plenty of it's old CD's ( or more correctly blank DVD's ). I've tied one to each beam & fingers crossed it'll deter them. I did see one bird do an about face but that could have been because the cat was out.

So true. Yesterday, on my way back from the Dentist in Montignac, the return road I normally take had decided to become a one-way (the wrong way for my return home) since my last travels there (no idea when or why). So, I took a different route (Rte de l'Escaleyroux); seemed to be going in the right direction (no GPS). Tiny, winding road heading uphill (what a shock round here 😉). After a km or 2, I came upon a parking turn off and wondered why the heck would anyone want to park here in the middle of nowhere (no houses, no businesses). Just after the parking spot, there was an observation point built out on the left (cliff side) of the road. I turned my head to see that I was WAY up a small mountainside and the sweeping view from the observation deck was jaw dropping. I have a dreadful fear of driving on tiny, mountainous roads, so I would have been better off never looking towards the view point... However, it was so incredibly beautiful and in the middle of nowhere, yet I've driven around it (yet not taken this particular road) a dozen times. So many hidden beauties. And yes Menthe, we too managed a walk yesterday around 17h00. Only got slightly sprinkled on. Came across a beautiful, very large hare, that jumped into the surrounding fields once he saw us coming. Also enjoyed the gorgeous, green rolling hills all around us. So pretty. Don't know if the google map view will copy over, but this is the Observation point. https://www.google.com/maps/@45.0888531,1.2121814,3a,75y,349.31h,71.23t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sBmgLkzas-6XI9q4sApk3Tg!2e0!5s20210301T000000!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

I use a spreadsheet to arrive at the figures for our tax return, so it is fairly simple to change the rates for foreign exchanges. All our UK income stays there, so I have no actual figures to use. This year I made one calculation at a £ to € rate of 1.138 and another using the daily rates from www.exchangerates.org.uk , which is quite compact to print out. I always keep a copy and a note of the source for my figures, in case of any dispute. The amount of tax payable was slightly lower using the daily rates, and more importantly, just below the next tax band applying to us, so I used those results for our return. This also has the advantage of probably being a more acceptable source than second hand information that is available.

Well not entirely happy, and my parents were capable of embarrassing beyond belief. But the country would not be in such a mess with more of their sort still around.... As to long journeys I'm with you Lori and menthe. Where we are in Devon is very very rural, and I think we've only set foot outside the county a couple of times in the last four years. Heaven forbid that I should ever have to go anywhere by plane - I haven't flown since 1997 - but I'd need someone with me to show me how all the new e-tickets etc work, and I have no idea what one is now allowed to take with one, or baggage excesses etc. TBH I don't *want* to know, I've never been further than Austria and 99% of my abroad time has been in France, as I failed ever to see the point of going any further than that beautiful country, with its (mainly) lovely people. Sadly since we sold the house in 24 we've not been back - in nearly five years now. It's not helped by the fact that we both still have paper driving licences, and part of the Brexit punishment beating has been that France no longer recognises them. And that makes me feel no longer welcome, or inclined to trouble myself to regularise my position. I'm afraid I feel that if they don't want me I'm not going to make the effort, particularly as I was one of the "victims" of Sarkozy's (illegal) policy of refusing residency to anyone below retirement age with a pre-existing medical condition (totally minor in my case).

YES, Lori, you are a woman after my own heart! We are lucky to live in such a beautiful and large département. You are right, there is always a delightful corner to be discovered, even if you just go on foot. I managed a walk yesterday evening and I really enjoyed looking at the land and crops, the contours of green and brown plus the swifts, ducking and diving they way they do.

I remember Wooly advising me to string up Cliff Richard CDs on our veranda to stop birds commiting harikiri by flying into the glass. Not sure they worked that well BUT they weren't Cliff Richard's as specified by Wooly....I was simply not a CR fan and did not have his CDs. Eventually, I put up voile curtains which were a better deterrent though I appreciate that, in an open terrace, that might not be possible.

You are not alone and no you are not pityful either. I find traveling long distances these days to be very stressful for a great number of reasons. So I generally avoid it. There's a lot of very nice scenery within an hour or two of our house. I'm happy with that.

Martin, I could see you have very fond memories of your parents! I say "lucky you" because parents were people who mostly embarrassed you at school and stopped you doing things when you were young. It's strange how some things remain in the memory and some completely disappear into a dark hole. I have missed a flight once while on holiday in the far east and my flight was around midnight THEIR time. It was mega confusing, what with the heat and everything else. Cost me a bundle to pay for another flight and even then it was a 48 hour wait. Also missed the ferry once in Brittany and had to go all the way to Ouistreham to take another ferry home. While these things might seem funny in retrospect, at the time they were extremely distressing. Increasingly, I am not so keen to go too far from home, pityful object that I am.

Actually I wonder if I've misled you a bit over card freezing. You can do it from the Barclays app, but having looked at the Barclays on line banking system (ie from a computer rather than a phone) I'm not sure it's possible.

We put up old CDs on string to discourage birds from nesting under our "upstairs" terrace, as we sit underneath it .. seems to work, I can see the terrace as I type and there are no birds evident, nor have been ever since we put the discs up. Bits of aluminium foil would work as well if you don't have old CDs.

I have that problem too, Menthe, as I can touch type too .. yes,you need to learn to type with one finger only, sadly!

I am using 1.139 (taking Banque de France average between 1 Jan 2023 and 31 December 2023).

Writing frrm what seems to be the only place in France still under extreme drought conditions, and being no gardener either, plus being in the UK for most of March, all I can say is, that this year has been totally untypical ... one minute so warm I can put a T-shirt on, the next week, I'm back in winter woollies, and that has been happening all year! My drive both ways to the UK was wet, wet, and even wetter, I did manage a few nice days on and off whilst in the UK, but it has been just the same here, except for the rain, we just get grey skies, which are neither use nor ornament to anyone, since I got back. Winter woollies today, 3 days ago, T-shirt!!!

Re Martins mum & dad and tickets, years ago when the shuttle used to issue tickets our friends came to visit us in France, they also bought our daughter in the car. They got to the shuttle booths where the wife said to hubby got the tickets, no was the reply the last time I saw them was on the mantel piece. They were still on the mantel piece. They had to buy new tickets there and then, they told us later that by having our daughter in the car saved their marriage. Our friends usually had these kind of adventures, missed their flights back to the UK while on holiday in Africa etc. Martin I do actually do online banking at Barclays, didn't even know that I could freeze the card, was more concerned if someone had used it.

It makes forgetting where I put my glasses seem like child's play! But, yes, I suspect that more people than we'd like to think of have done some things similar ... and I must confess to checking passport location even when I know I have put in where it always lives when travelling! It's where I have put the house keys for safe keeping in the room, when I am away which I forget!

What stories Martin !!! You should write a book on your memories. 😀

PS Have to add this: my parents, whilst searching for somewhere in 05, drove down a couple of times with a caravan. My father would always wax lyrical about how good the French were at building roads, (to hear him swanking about the marvels of the Bouleveard Peripherique you'd honestly believe he'd built the entire thing himself single-handed). Anyway, their journey used to take them to Grenoble, but before the A48 had been entirely completed. On one occasion my father was rabbiting on about how wonderful this new motorway was, how the French anticipated traffic levels so early, and even my mother had to admit that there didn't seem to be a single other vehicle on either carriageway. They did a happy five miles or so totally on their own, before hearing "Ni-nah ni-nah ni-nah" becoming audible behind them. A police car overtook them, and signalled for them to stop. It turned out that my father had got the wrong side of some cones (he was colour blind, which didn't help, and French signage wasn't as comprehensive as it is now) and he'd managed several miles on an unopened section of the A48. Had he carried on another couple of miles he and the caravan would have ended up in a large hole. They were escorted back the wrong way (my father got in a total panic and it was the gendarmes who had to disconnect the caravan, turn the vehicles round, and reconnect them).