CherryB

Thank you both. I see now where I was going wrong - I was trying to translate "was" (past) along with "going to" (future) instead of thinking of it as "was going" (past) and "to ..." (infinitive). What hope is there for me?!

Quick question please: how do I say, "It was going to..." as in, "I put something indoors as it was going to rain and it might have got wet"? I can say, "It was raining" and I can say, "It is going to rain" but I don't know how to say, "It was going to rain" Now I have written the whole sentence I am not even quite sure about, "It might have got wet" so would welcome help there too.

New trike is FANTASTIC thank you! My son can say very few words but he can say "bike ride" and he says it from when he gets up to when he goes to bed now! We spent three hours on it this morning exploring the lanes around us under a cloudless blue sky - beautiful. I'm not getting much - no make that ANY gardening done but, hey, son is happy! Just waiting for the heat to cool down a little and we'll be back on the road...

Thank you Cooperllola. I would be very happy for the bike to give pleasure to someone, particularly somebody who wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity. Have a good trip.

We were fortunate to have some French friends here who passed the trike on to us when their own son outgrew it so I couldn't possibly profit from it. In any case it is well used but these trikes are also well made and someone could certainly still have fun on it. I have asked our friends if they know of anyone else to pass it on to and they don't which is why I thought I would see if there was anyone here interested. Cooperlola, I would be happy for you to offer it to your rehab centre but the problem is we are only here UNTIL September! I am also slightly concerned that it may not be big enough when you talk of "young people". My son was very small until recently but I would not have thought it would be much good beyond 12 or so for an average child. If these two issues are not a problem, let me know. The trike is strong and stable and ideal for a child with some mobility but not enough balance to manage a two-wheeler. We long ago discarded the brakes as our son did not understand how to use them properly. I provided the brake in the form of being at the end of a short rope!

We have a well-used by still serviceable large trike as used by our disabled son that he has now grown out of and which we would be happy to give to a new home. If anybody is interested please PM me for details. We are in north west Mayenne.

Hmm, that quote looks a bit odd.... now where am I going wrong?

[quote user="Sunday Driver"]Go to the top of the screen where it says Welcome back CherryB and click on your name to bring up your user profile settings. Scroll down to Enable Post Mouse-Over Popup and select Yes. Save changes. [/quote] Thank you, have done that now and it works! I was logged in but about the only place I hadn't thought to look at was my name... never even knew I had user profile settings so most appreciative.

I have no idea what what I want is really called so I have been unable to do a search and apologise for the title of this thread. Basically what I would like to be able to do is hover the cursor over a post and see a little bit of the text come up for a while so I can see if I want to actually click on it. I can do this on other forums but despite looking everywhere I can think of on the site I seem unable to facilitate this. Is there a way I am overlooking?

Thank you for all the suggestion. These ideas are very helpful, I am not fluent so thought I should check that anything I wrote would not sound unintentially insensitive.

Sorry, I'm not making myself clear. I'm not confident that my French is up to getting this message over sensitively, I don't want to sound crass so would like help in phrasing it in French please!

I might add that we won't be seeing any of them until Easter and I am sending these cards from the UK.

Well yes, I agree except that we have sent a card each Christmas for the last 15 years and (to a separate address) to her daughter and family and they have all sent us New Year cards in the New Year. Having got ourselves, rightly or wrongly, into the routine of respecting our own country's "norm" it might seem strange to change now. What do you think? 

What would you write in a Christmas card to an elderly French neighbour and friend who has lost her husband recently? We have already written a condolences card and seen her in person once but we are aware that this first Christmas without her husband will be a difficult time for her and we want to send our love in a sympathetic way. Just saying “Joyeux Noel” doesn’t seem appropriate. In fact I always find it difficult to send an ordinary, “have a great time, lots of love from…” sort of ending in Christmas and birthday cards without sounding formal anyway so suggestions there too please.

Thanks for the suggestions. The context I am thinking of is usually when asking a favour of some kind, rather along the lines of, "I was wondering if you could water my plants" or tentatively suggesting somethiong as in,  "I was just wondering whether you would like to come with me..." - that sort of thing. Is there a difference in phrasing when including the "just"?

I was just wondering if there is a good French translation for the slightly diffident, “I was just wondering …”

[quote user="5-element"] So far, I have yet to see a system that takes reading into account...what does the panel think? [/quote] A shelf? I'm definately with you on not reading mags in the doctor's waiting room.

On the plus side for public loos, I love those no-touch flushing buttons - anyone ever seen one in a domstic setting? And I like the entrances to the loos to be around a corner so to speak so there is no need for an entrance door (and handle that other, un hygeinic, people may have touched). Now all they need to invent are non-touch cubicle door locks. Also love the newer, fast drying, Dyson hand dryers but our Hyper U has set it so high it is impossible for children to use and even I have to contort my arms at a very awkward angle with elbows skywards in order to insert my hands.Must have been a very tall man wo installed it.

Wow! I've only just got back to this thread and what a tremendously enlightening and entertaining heap of replies. Thank you to everyone, I feel quite honoured after “lurking” on this forum for a while to get such a response to my first post. Erm, no… it hadn’t occurred to us to either ask permission or declare the fact that we had added a basin to the “room” housing our downstairs loo (more like my husband’s tool shed actually). As you had to walk from this room through the utility room and to the far end of the living room/kitchen to reach a sink it had seemed like the first necessity on the long list of must-dos. Upstairs the bathroom was a very long room with a bath at one end, a basin in the middle (between two windows) and a loo tightly enclosed in a brickwork cabinet… and a clear glass door, at the other end. Needless to say the brickwork and door came down early on too. Would the totally un-private enclosure have been a tax dodge too? There was no ventilation so it held no advantage that way. I feel I have hi-jacked my own thread now as it has moved on to new levels!

So many times when visiting various friends' houses I have used the downstairs loo and then had to come through to the kitchen, often with the sink full of washing up, to wash my hands. Our own house had no basin in with the loo downstairs and we had to fit one - why? It is quite disgusting in my opinion not to have hand washing facilities with a loo and makes me doubt that many people do in fact wash their hands.