Lehaut

We were having dinner at a UK families house in France a couple of years ago. He was in high level insurance agent in Lloyds, ex army. We were chatting about families and a candle suddenly waved about in an odd manner. He chap looked at the candle and said, in all seriousness " Ah, dad is here". He firmly believes the spirit of his dead father joins family gatherings on odd occasions. His wife and two adult daughters did not bat an eyelid. We felt nothing.

Unless the entire council is under the thumb of the Mayor it has to be a communal vote of the other members of the "conseil municipal" to carry forward an action. All minutes of the meetings are published on line. All meetings are also open to members of the public to witness. They cannot challenge the meeting, but they can, by their presence, indicate they are actively against something. Also this would indicate it is not a power crazed mayor; Interrogé fin mars, le maire de Saint-Brevin avait rappelé que 400 demandeurs d’asile ont été au total accueillis sur la commune depuis l’ouverture du Cada il y a sept ans. Et, soulignait-il, «il n’y a jamais eu le moindre souci».

menthe, thanks for the update. Good to read there may be light at the end of the tunnel.

Yes, along the coast from Nantes. I posted a couple of years ago that some people not happy with the mayor here and their paperwork blew the doors off the office. The explosion was heard all over the city. This new one is an outrage. There was a previous story about mayor that was stapled to a field by an unhappy constituent. No wonder its difficult to find good people to do the job.

Follow on from DaveLister. In our last village the water board tried the same tactic, ie move the meter from inside our house to outside. I categorically refused to allow them to do this (might have helped as I was on the council). They had no idea where the pipe ran from the house to the proposed new site outside the courtyard. We had just had it re-tarmacked at our cost and invited them to re do it if they wished to replace the pipe. As said, from the meter to your house is now your responsibility. Probably too late for you to do anything about it, but worth knowing for other people. Incidentally, the pipe did eventually break just before the meter inside the ground floor and flooded it! One possible solutions. Our classic meter was changed some years ago to a readable at a distance one. Even though the meter was inside the house, the meter maid could read it from outside in the courtyard with a hand held device. Given the obvious difficulties you have in accessing the new installation, you could ask that they install this type of meter to make everyone's life easier. To this end, you may need to contact a more powerful organisation than the mayor! https://www.pour-les-personnes-agees.gouv.fr/preserver-son-autonomie-s-informer-et-anticiper/amenager-son-logement-et-sequiper/amenager-son-logement might be a start. Only a suggestion as I have never used them.

We started on this road many years ago and both got topped up to full basic rate pension. My wife is currently waiting for a decision paying class 2 contributions for her time working in France to bring her basic rate pension up to the full new state pension by paying another few years contributions. The person she spoke to in DWP suggested this route which we had never thought of. I have just paid £824 to HMRC to get a lift o £5.24 a week for my pension as I found I could pay one more year - better than any interest rate! This was sorted out on the phone, email and online payment in April 2023. The new full rate pension in not available to me as my military service pension was opted out. The people are very helpful provided you can get through to them on the phone, you survive the "not this department" "I will pass you on" phone calls. My wife's dossier was raised in March this year and we are still waiting an answer. At least she has a dossier number from before the new July cut off date. The one pitfall to be aware of with payment is this. DWP pay the pensions and HMRC collect the contributions. HMRC will quite happily continue to collect your contributions even AFTER you have made the required amount. You can pay 40 years contributions but you will only get 36 years worth of pension! If you find you have paid too much, you will only get a refund for partial year payments, not full years you have already paid. Make sure you get the proper picture from DWP. I got caught out on this, so I know.

Don't think the population have much control over the choice of their president. The two party system is the problem. You rabidly support one or the other and nothing will make you change your mind. The senators/representatives have their snouts so deep in the trough that they will support someone so blatantly corrupt as Trump/Santos (who admits lying on multiple fronts to get his job) just so they can keep their jobs. They appear to have no interest in the well being of people as a whole, just their wallets. It is their country just as France/UK is ours. What I object to is the push to their population that they are the "best of the best". As of 7 May there were 202 mass shootings. The only solution so far put forward on a broad front is "thoughts and prayers". Any thought of anything else by their elected officials is too difficult. America is 13th in the quality of life index published by the Economist Intelligence Unit. This survey quantifies healthiness, family life, community life, material wellbeing, political stability and security, climate and geography, job security, political freedom, and gender equality. The United States ranks 49th in life expectancy and an outrageous 178th in infant mortality. The United States ranks a dismal 25th in education. America ranks 13th in starting a business. The U.S. ranks 47th in press freedom America is ranked 10th in economic freedom There are 21 countries better than America in freedom from corruption, according to Heritage.org and the U.S. was ranked 24th in perceived honesty, according to Transparency.org. Unemployment rate is worse than 102 of the 200 countries listed in the CIA Factbook and they are 142nd out of 150 countries in infrastructure investment. On the good news front; The pharmaceutical companies make a lot of money The United States leads the world in only three categories. Number of incarcerated citizens per capita, Number of adults who believe angels are real, and Defence spending

Just widening the "whole coronation thing" a bit (I did not watch it, but my wife did and shares some of your plus points). According to the news today (9 May), the police have called round to the house of one of the anti monarchy protestors and apologised for arresting him. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-65527007 Allegedly his organisation had cleared their plans before with the police. UK is meant to be a free country. Between my wife and I we have over 40 years service to HM, and are both in favour of the Monarchy. We accept that not everyone has the same view. A coronation is one of those rare events when both sides of the argument should be allowed some (peaceful) protest/opposition.

Good find betise!

We had a flower/animal local fete on one of the islands on the Loire last weekend. One incident made me laugh. Kids were running round looking at the various displays and creatures. One child had no problem identifying this beauty; But I heard his brother shouting excitedly to his father, Daddy , Daddy is that a lion: Below is the animal in question!

Pickles, thank you for your reply. All the current external insulation installations within a 1km radius of us are all thick blocks of expanded plastic, rendered and protected at the base by metal. I will have to acquire a piece and try to set it alight. I also believe all these forms of insulation have a "life" too. Though I will not be around for this building's replacement if it is actually done! As for wood, I was interested to read this piece in the Guardian some time ago, the claims are quite interesting regarding its fire resistance; https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/jan/30/caress-lift-eco-office-block-miracle-wood-timber-black-white

All dogs are friendly and caring - till they are not. I don't think a week goes by without some report of dog/dogs ripping apart other dogs, children or adults. In know this is a very small percentage, and is nothing compared to the death/injury inflicted by cars. Still, according to the internet, you can stop an uncontrollable dog attack (pit bull, mastiff etc) by strangling it or pushing your finger up its ****. Another good reason not to have a dog!

+1 on the fosse part menthe. Knew a lady who had exactly the same problem.

Ditto DraytonBoy! And, AnotherBannana what happened to the other 109 Charles?

A façade caught fire here in Nantes last night. There has been a massive increase in external insulation around here recently. Mostly large blocks of PSE (?) fixed to the outside of buildings then covered in an coating (enduit). (90% of flats use this). From what I have found, there does not appear to be a incombustible version of PSE: https://isolation.ooreka.fr/astuce/voir/95850/polystyrene-expanse-pse-et-resistance-au-feu There may well be better versed people on the forum who know better. I would welcome their input. Reason being. Our current residence is partly insulated with rockwool at our level. 1 Jan 2025 introduces an obligatory energy audit for residences which could lead to some major works including external insulation. Other blocks in the area have seen bills of €30,000 per flat to get the resulting work done! Nantes. La façade de l’immeuble prend feu, 46 locataires évacués.html

I think it will very much depend on the type and cover of your assurance. Especially true if it is a secondary home and you do not live in it all the time. Your only recourse is to contact your insurance company and find out. Couple of recent cases here: Do let us know how you get on as its an increasing problem. En théorie, c’est bien au squatteur de payer la réparation des dégâts», assure Maître Romain Rossi-Landi, avocat en droit immobilier. Le propriétaire, s’il veut retrouver son bien dans son état d’origine, devra donc prendre en charge les travaux de rénovation, en tant que seule personne solvable. Et devra faire jouer son assurance. Encore faut-il que son assureur accepte de payer les travaux de réparation. Dans l’affaire d’un squat de Saint-Honoré-les-Bains, dans la Nièvre (58), en 2020, où il n’était pas question d’incendie cette fois mais d’une occupation illégale de la maison d’une octogénaire, «les assureurs avaient refusé de prendre en charge les dégradations de la maison car il s’agissait d’un squat qui est un cas d’exclusion», explique l’avocat en droit immobilier.

I do not know what goes in the the data bases used by these people. In recent years they have double our household income and changed my wife's name. All with zero input from us. The other weird thing is that our street has an L' in the address. Many official sites do not recognise the L' when you type it in! Some organisations use the INSEE code not the Code Postal for correspondence. All down to the individual to check.

It has been like this for years. "Prix choc" - the "shock" is you pay more for the pack of 3 than 3 individual ones. Anything to separate the client from their money.

Probably not how he thought he day would end when we joint the pot banging demonstration on Monday! Un manifestant perd un testicule après un tir de LBD à Nantes : la police des polices saisie

Fact of life unfortunately. No matter what mankind has done for the common good, there will always be those to seek to corrupt it. The only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is that good men do nothing - Wikipedia. Thankfully the remaining moderator acts for us.

Menthe, the ladies and I were wondering the same thing. The garden party was supposed to be set in a house in London and the plants in the garden in Nantes did seem a bit exotic. However; According to the RHS: Some hardy palms will survive winters in much of lowland Britain in sheltered gardens with favourable local conditions. London itself is an urban heat island with mean temperatures at least 2 to 3 degrees warmer than the surrounding places. So technically it is possible, we all learn something!

Hectorsdad, to whet your appetite! Our eldest managed to "find" a copy of the first film I did two years ago and sent me a still of the scene. We (80 of us) sat in a church for about 4 hours for this one clip of a woman walking towards a coffin. No cushions on the seats, so it was a painful 4 hours. I am under the arrow. The chances of being mobbed for an autograph in the street is thankfully small, based on this 🙂

The series will not be out until September, so I don't have any stills of myself (yet). We started at 0800 and finished at 18h00. From that (according to one of the "stars" we spoke to) there may be 5 to 8 mins of actual TV time used. Don't even know yet if I will be in it as they shot the same scene from so many angles. Watch this space for any updates 😉

After my roaring success as an extra in the French film "The Origin of Evil (L'Origine du mal)", I was once again in demand for my services. "Mademoiselle Holmes" is filming in Nantes so I put myself forward and got a call late on Tuesday. It was a garden party set in London so they needed British extras to provide background ambiance. On our feet all day, take after take of the same thing as the temperature ramped up. These people must have the patience of saints to do this job full time. Did learn when talking to them that most of the technical set people they are classed as in precarious employment . As they work film to film they have no long term contracts so things like mortgages, loans and renting are difficult if not impossible. Great day out and met loads of interesting people, French and British, Dutch and Zulu, 4 course lunch, SMIC with one hour extra. Don't think I will make a career out of it, two days work in 2 years will not cut it! This was the garden party set.

Anyone can elect not to take their pension by deferring it, so hopefully your friend has "done the right thing".