Lizfjr

The worst smell in the world is deodorant anti perspirant and aftershave. Much much worse than natural smells IMHO. I loathe perfums which make me sneeze and get all snotty. People seem to use it with no thought whatsoever to quantity or discretion. I am often in hotels because of my job and lifts stink of these products especially in the mornings. Ugh.

We had similar problems with wallpaper strippers and gave them up as a bad job because they kept cutting out. And no. We're not on 3 phase. I reckoned it was to do with the thermostat. Back to sponge and water.

I started to watch, but hated the camera angles and movement so much, I gave up. Language not a problem to me. Just all the jumping round.

Can anyone help me with understanding the categories of civil servant in France? I need to complete my local census return. I'm  a civil servant working in the UK, but based here. I am classed as a senior civil servant, but not sure how my post equates to the categories (1 - 4) here. Anyone know?

Just successfully registered 3 x UK bikes at the prefecture with an English CoC. The woman there did initially say they needed to be from Kawasaki France, but I pointed out that they are eurpoean certificates and she accepted that. Now all 3 bikes are on French plates.

Quite.

We took our daughters to Oradour last year. They are in their twenties, we in our forties. For both generations, it brought history to life. I think there is something wonderful about its preservation. I also visited Bergen Belsen last year. It was February and very bleak. There was only the distant rumble of guns from military exercises in the area and no birds singing. When you see the ordinariness of the villages of bergen - belsen, you have to ask: how did they do all this? And I often wonder when I travel around France quite how the Nazis managed to effect such complete control. Very thought provoking.

I am doing this. My conditions of service are that I am home based but my working life is spent visiting local authorities or in nationally based meetings or running briefings for advisers. There has always been a lot of travel for me and hotel stays anyway.  Having been home based in the UK for 5 years, I decided I could as well do this job from France. I spend 3 -4 days a week in the UK and 1 -2  holed up here in France with my PC doing any admin/office stuff I have to do. I have applied for my E106, which asks what the breakdown is. I expect to continue being taxed in the UK under the EU agreement. The main issue for me has been making sure that I have broadband so that I can get into all the work systems I need to. I have got myself a VOIP phone which has a UK number so that people calling me aren't faced with international charges. That's all working smoothly now. The only issue for me is the slog up to Roissy each week, but it won't be for long because I am not intending carying on with this job after April. YIPPEE.  

This was a problem for us at first. I just kept an eye out in the local shops for little notices and eventually some little flyers appeared for a local forestiere selling wood and they now supply us. You could also ask at the Mairie.

Hi, Shan Thanks for your comments here & at the other place. Just thought I'd keep peeps posted. Think there are on or two who are waiting for the plan to fail! Glad you are getting out at the mo on the FJR. Next job is to get the insurance and then we'll be off. Pretty blardy cold up here right now, but wood is all piled high, so keeping warm. Happy new year to you and D. Liz

Some good news and some not so good news on this score. I had 3 bikes to re register. 2 x GTR 1400s (full power) and 1 x KLE 500. So off I trekked. Took all the good advice from here (Quittus Fiscal from Hotel des Impots, certificats de conformite etc) The GTRs are identical bikes, bought the same day, same dealer. Both full fat UK power, which I thought was going to be my problem.... KLE, puissance 33Kw. No probs I thought. I din't flinch at the first hurdle when the nice prefecture lady said the Cde C had to be from Kawasaki France. Non non. It is a European CdeC I said. However, the KLE CdeC was still not acceptable to her because it had only the CNIT on and none of the other information. So I sighed and moved on to the GTR CdeCs, which have loads and loads of detail on. And guess what? for my husband's GTR, she typed in the CNIT, and Viola! She said the magic words ... I have found it. YAAAAY. So far so good. One lardybike registered. Now we come to mine. Remember. Same bike. Same colour, same power blah blah. And with her eagle eyes she spotted that the clever people at Kawasaki had put the right CNIT number, but ARGHHH, on my certificat, the VIN number for my husband's bike, which I hadn't spotted because I had copied the info from the regsitration document when I filled the forms in. So now we have ... 1 GTR registered, full power, no probs. And 2 x Cde Cs re ordered from Kawasaki. GRRRR. Oh well. At least there are no mods to be made, just another trip to the prefecture.

Just a question: who are they and what do they do?

There are loads to choose from. Why not try the Accor chain? If you google them (or Ibis or Mercure) you will find something to suit.

I have to admit to occasional irritation at loud cans, but just one of those things I can live with. I have been very interested in overall traffic noise pollution recently. We are temporarily living in rural Lancashire, but on moving here, was appalled to realise that day and evenings, you can hear a constant low level noise which can only come from the M6, 10 miles away. Now that has made me notice traffic noise pollution even more. Recently I was in a small Cheshire town and again, could hear quite distinctly a constant roar from the M56. Yesterday I was in greater manchester in a quiet suburb and yet again, could hear this same low level noise from the M60. I quite simply had never noticed this phenomenon till I moved out to the sticks and I certainly don't get it in France. And of course every last one of us with a vehicle is contributing to the problem. How do you think I got to each of these locations?  I think that is much more scary and pervasive than loud cans.

Oh that brings a very unpleasant thought to mind. Maybe it's just me.

You have to look really hard to see my husband's cat. Can't imagine it's very effective there though and might just stuff it up the exhaust to quiten things down a bit. [IMG]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2081/1636350975_374688a21a.jpg[/IMG]

Thanks, all. No, it doesn't smell as if it's going up in flames, in fact it smells even when cold. I've swept the chimney then burnt a chemical block too. There's nothing suspicious coming out of it, though yes, it does smoke when cold, but I know that's a cold flue. I love the smell of woodsmoke generally. I have a new poele at the other side of the house and that's great. This one just seems to have permeated the fabric of the house in a not nice way. I did think it would get better as we did our own thing with the house, but after nearly 4 years, it's still there. Maybe the whole stove needs cleaning out.

My house smells of burning. It comes from the 30 year old wood burner in the kitchen. I am planning on replacing it with a more up to date model. In the meantime, can anyone advise me on how to eliminate the smell? Is there anything that neutralises it?

That's good jonzjob. Thanks for reminding me that I need a tow bar. I think they can do the registration for us. We are a lot further north, in Burgundy.

Really helpful information that I will use. Buying in Belgium? What sort of difference might that make?

Cheers, Anton.

One of the first things I will be doing when I arrive in France next month is to order a new car. Is there anything basically different to the process in the UK, and what deposit is usually required?

Can anybody tell me what happens if I sign up on line for broadband with FT? Does the livebox come through the post and how long does it take to arrive?

Juju, I had a similar problem. Bought a bike (FJR1300) three years ago. It came from an official dealer, but they had sourced it from an importer. When I went for the CoC to Yamaha UK, they said they had no knowledge of the bike: it wasn't showing on their database. However, for £75 they were prepared to send me a CoC. There was nothing to say that it would be anything other than proper CoC, though I havene't pursued it. In the end, I have now bought a GTR 1400 instead, which I made sure came with its CoC.

The sad fact is that it has taken a long time for this 'company' to be exposed. So many were taken in by convincing words and clever networking, including me. Gradually, through one to one conversations, people have realised what they are. I stood to lose a relatively small amount of money, but I got so angry with the lies that I took a chance in pursuing it. Once I had done that, we had moved beyond speculation and gossip and I have been able to make public what happened. I do not know how they sleep at night.