Claude

Could you tell me how you get onto Trip Advisor? When I had a look it appeared to me that you had to pay to get on Flipkey and then you were on Trip Advisor. Can you tell me how to go about it please?

Sorry, it never crossed my mind. I was just answering a question. Please don't shout at me.

I hadn't realised you had six apartments. In that case let them bring their own!

Are you going to supply the duvets and pillows? If I were you I would supply all the bedding and wash it every weekend. Otherwise there is the possibility that the sheets are going to get dirtier and dirtier as I can't see anyone working all week being interested in spending an evening in the laundrette. If you supply a duvet but not the sheets are you sure they are going to bring their own and not just sleep in the mattress cover? Are you going in to clean at the weekends?

Yesterday I paid 0,76€ per litre but it was part of a round for the village. I didn't buy much myself as we are going to fit a pompe de chaleur in the summer.

I know, Chancer. But what a holiday you or I would have with 2500 euros!

"A fool and his money are soon parted" springs to mind with me.

Claude - "I'm intrigued. Can you briefly fill me in on this dyslexic chef?" It's OK. I have just had an amusing half hour reading the old posts about him. BTW The 'quote' facility doesn't seem to be working very well.

I'm intrigued. Can you briefly fill me in on this dyslexic chef?

At 2,500 euros a week for a single room I would certainly become slim as I wouldn't be able to afford to eat for the rest of the year.

I'm still waiting for my sister's parcel sent from Australia in November 2009! No snow there.

Le bag-in-box of wine has always amused us. Now I keep hearing about le cash-back.

I think it always useful to have people unconnected to a site to have a look. What struck me was how gloomy the place looked. Go and take some nice photos when the sun is out. And why show pictures of snowmen when you do not let in the winter? And for that matter get rid of the gallery of pictures that mean nothing to a potential guest. Do I want to look at a cooker knob?

I would call it The Tardis. It looks the size of a phone box outside with a mansion inside.

I am astonished by this obsession with charging for towels. I know it's different for people who have to hire cleaners but for me just one repeat booking pays for a lot of towel washing.

Dog, a group of 10 young people repeatedly jumping into the river with the usual sounds of merriment! If I were a local I would tell you anything to get you to go elsewhere. When I worked in a large hospital we jumped on anyone who started using a mobile phone. It wasn't because they affected the monitors as we said but because it was so annoying to have someone shouting into a mobile in the waiting room.

I've received mine this morning. It's "Empty weeks? How To Get More Bookings & Make Money From Your Holiday Home" by Wendy Shand. It's mostly stuff we all should know but it's good to have it all written down.

My friends, both French and English, soon dissuaded me from leaving tips, thank goodness. Now I don't have to feel embarrassed about leaving too little or emotionally blackmailed into leaving too much. I have hated tipping ever since I arrived at the airport at New York and a big guy picked up my luggage and carried it a few feet into the hotel. He really did demand with menaces. And there was a taxidriver in Hong Kong who chased us down the street in the pouring rain when we refused to tip as we knew he had taken us the long way round.

I think this lack of literacy is universal these days. I too once thought that the natives were rather good at French (even the little kids can speak it!!!) but last year I was was involved in buying a car from someone in Avignon and I had to read the emails aloud before I could understand them as everything was spelled phonetically.

I think Thebiga was just meaning that they were billed as usual for the amount used. We spent almost a year doing up our house but living elsewhere and we had a similar letter from SDEI saying we had to have our water supply checked by a 'plumber of our choice'. This was because we were using much less water than expected. Apparently an average household uses 100m3 in a year. We used 12m3 so needed investigating. I don't know why because if we were augmenting our supply (we have a well and storage of rainwater in the old fosse) surely it would have been none of their business. But now we have made up for it as we have filled our swimming pool!