lizzy h

hello there, you are inviting people to share your home, you are not a hotel therefore when doing evening meals you cook them normally in your kitchen as you would if serving your family or friends, you don't need special adaptions and a resturant style kitchen 'ie stainless steel) it it your home and just make sure your kitchen is clean and hygenic, you can go over the top you know!

Yes it is a scam I have recieved several of these type scams and its not worth wasting your time on them ,I have recieved the same enquiry today  and just deleted it , it was though a good rentals website and I have forwarded it into the admin today. you wiill get a few of them in this line of work , hazard of the job I'm afraid!  

I thought there was something funny on reading it until it come to the end where you are asked to set up local dog Islands and then they said it was fictional!

this is the page address I go on its cedit agricole Normandie now https://www.calvados2-enligne.credit-agricole.fr hope this works for you cheers

Well, we came before the rabies vacines and passports were compulsory and and we just got the export liciences, these were the way to get your animals into the country, we always said that if need be, sinse the passports came about we would get the passorts done, but having brought 17  amimals 12 cats and 7 dogs most of which are quite elderly ( having 7, 16 to 20 year old cats and 4 dogs over the age of 10) we knew we woulden't be bringing most of them home, within the next couple of years, we have now lost two of the 20 year old cats and two of the 14 year old dogs, the point getting is that it cost us over £2000 to bring them over knowing that alot of them wouldn't be coming back but we have took precautions since and got the younger cats and dogs rabies and passported since and we know if we had to come back it would be okay cos by the time we sold up and sorted ourselves they could all come with us, the younger ones all 14 of the and the old ones after 6 mths so what I' m saying is cover yourselves, if they are young get the blood test and if they are old if theres any chance of you going back start the process straight away and probebly by the time you go they will be able to come with you, As we all say a animal is for life! and we brought them here, don't let us be another one of those leaving their animals behind because we didn' t think that we might not go back!always take precautions!

Can you buy the Oust fans in France as I haven't seen them here, if so can you tell me where to get them, I've seen Oust products  in England but so far not in the Limousin area. 

Hi there,  No not at all it comes up every time for my account details.

is it on arrival or at the end, the reason I am asking is that i don't take deposits as its too much hassle for maybe one or two nights and even a week. but this summer we have had a few guests that in two instances I have asked to leave early through unreasonable behaviour and had a couple of others who have had to leave through family illness  (or so they say) and a incident yesterday hit home that I should get their money on arrival what happened; a family of five booked for the week approx 6 weeks ago in the family room, they had three children aged 5 and 4 and 11 mths so all the kids were free, the lady stated she needed a cot so I went and bought one for 100 Euros. They arrived and the kids were running around mad pulling at the curtains etc I took them to their room the kids immediatley trashed the room pulling the quilts of chucking the towels around, they then opened the door to another guests room, the lady was asleep in bed and was very unhappy and told them to get out. I saw this with my own eyes and the mother said nothing, the 5 year old then started spitting on the chairs and then shouted  "UURG YOU HAVE SPIT ALL OVER THE CHAIR!!!!" to me so I said back, in a not very happy voice "no I have not I have just seen you do this and please do not this is my home and have a little respect!" to this the mother gave me a dirty look and said "come on we will go and get something to eat," so off they went on foot as the car was parked round the back, then low and behold a hr later the car was gone and and so were the people and all that remained was rubbish and a dirty nappy on the clean unused beds, So what I'm saying, I have turned away bookings for these people, spent money on a cot, was having the kids for free and for what! to have them nick off when our backs were turned, should I get the money off guests as they arrive to avoid people nicking off  and then if they have paid I won't be any worse off, as I will never fill that room now unless heres a passer by, all help will be appreciated, Some people just don't have any respect for peoples homes and livelihood, or on the otherhand should we expect to get ignorant people like this and just shrug our shoulders and get on with it! cheers  

Sugs off Maddness's mam, does that count? and a very famous( in london anyway)artist called Beazer who has just finished painting Gazzer and currently doing an exibition at the barbican and was the mind behind bob the builder, they liked to drink champagne here all day in the middle of house hunting  

Coco, I totally agree with you in everything you said, this is on the lines of how we (me and hubby) run our b and b, we do get  knackered especially at this time of year but at the end of the day when we don't have guests we spend half our life promoting our b and b and trying to get guests and moan that we haven't got them, and when we have, we moan that we're knackered so you can't win but we find it good fun and better than psyciatric nursing and being a chef as we were when we were back in Newcastle!

Hi again, yes we are all above board and work immensly hard from morning till night to give our guests a great service as I said we let the guests stay in but to be honest they all go out househunting or sight seeing and tend to come back about 4 and then go in the pool etc its not a problem for us as our house is so big and we have a three bedroomed grenier to escape to, most of our guests are as you said english and Irish and we get alot of Dutch and Beligins, but this year we have got afair few french which is great, these are usually passed on from the tourist office and ring last minute whereas the brits etc book well in advance, we give all the nationalities the same sevice and hopefully we have got it right,even though me and my hubby are knackered! I wanted to go with GDF but french isnt up to the required standard yet but this is still an option, however we dont grow our own veg we get it from the allotments oppositewe have a deal with the french neigbours! we do get the odd French lovers who stay in their room for up to three days only surfacing to go for a quick meal somewhere, nice good guests as you never see them!  

hi try the ferme de logis at Magnac laval, they do lovely food in a romantic french atmosphere but not cheap! Also the Henry 1V hotel in bessines is also immpressive cheers  

hi there we have a chambre d hôtes in limousin and as far as Im concerned the guests do get the room and can stay in it all day if they want! I always ask the guests on arrival if they would like their room cleaned daily and bed made and 99% of the time they say no. I ask them daily if they would like their towels changed and they usally hand me them,we have a pool so alot of the people hang around (at this time of year) and sit by the pool or go for walks etc and sit on the terrace, and it doesnt bother me, we have tea making facilites in the dining room so they can help themselves to drinks (free) anytime. and we have no bother,however we do have seperate living accommodation and therefore we can still have our privacy, sorry to be the opposite but if I stayed in anband band didnt want to go out I think i would hate to be chucked out every day! cheers Liz

hello there, I know exactly how you feel and am so very sorry i am crying as I am writing this, I lost my sole mate cat to the bloody road about one month ago and cannot forgive myself for not getting him in that night as I always do since moving to france, the pain is deep and he will always be with me in my heart, I cannot even go to the part of the garden he is buried and cry everytime I look at the road where i found him, you bring them all this way and when they die so young its guttering, however on a positive note I would have never left any of my boys and girls ( all 17 of them I brought from Newcastle) because their lives are so much better here with the vast space and freedom, we just have to enjoy them however long or short their lives are and sometimes they are lucky and live to a good old age like the 3 20yr olds I have the pain will become less but for me its taking a long time but I have the happy loving memories to think of and so will you  

hello there, we have a 8m by 5m double bubble pool, with a abri cover, everything was fine intil the abri got put on now its cloudy and has a slightly yellow film round the edges and on the bottom we have been putting chlorine in but its still not clearing the water looks really murky but not green what do we need to do? we are cleaning it (hoovering) every day and the filter is running all the time but it still not clearing urgent help needed thanks

Re holidaylets they donot advertise bandbs just gites, In my own experience and may I add this might not be the case of other b and b owners, visit france, owners direct and perfect places are good, holidaylettings I also found to be good, french connections was excellent last year but ive had few enquiries this year its better to get your own website and go on adwords google or overture adwords, Also go to laymyhat forum and they willl give you loads of advice on where to advertise, by the way holiday rentals is also good. What may be good for you one year may change the next so set yourself abudget on what you want to spend on avertising and make use of the free trials and see what works for you good Luck

hi there, we are also not wine buffs, but we offer a simple bottle of cotés dû rhone 1 per person with the 20Euros evening meal  if we have BBQs we include wines as much as you can drink, I start the evening off before the BBQ with a jug of Sangria with fruit in and then out on the table I put jug of red ussually out  of the plastic barrels, couple bottles of Mucadet and a box of Rosé not a plastic barrel as I find the barrels of Rosé bitter and  a few bottles of rough champagne which I pour into Jugs and add syrop de fraise and add few chopped strawberries and the guests love it by the time the champas comes out, obvously the soft drinks for the kids and beers for the non wine drinkers. I find that guests like Galliac and Minovous (dont know if the spellings ok) as well and the normal bordeaux what I do I look for offers in the supermarkets and buy a few at once after a couple of years i have built myself up afine collection! Liz

hi there, I was on about doing a fresh fruit salad about being expensive and time consuming as you have to do it fresh on the day  and I agree with you about cold meats they are very dear and thats what I thought you gave to the europeans esp french for breccy but I might drop that from my list and maybe give them a fruit bowl instead thanks for the advice  

hi there, in answer to your question " I thought all bandbs do this, Yes I thought most bandbs put out cheeses cold meats etc not full english, we had that many british asking for full english we thought we we had better charge as we have to get our bacon from England or if desperate off the internet at a price! When you say you put fresh fruit out, is this just fruit or in salad form? as I used to do this and found it to expensive and time consuming and people were not really fussed and I dont now and knowone has ever asked for it. Also re the tea and toast thats already provided with the continental as I still put it all out with the full english, the good thing about doing the full english is I always do extra and I and hubby and mum sit down afterwards and enjoy ours ( well you cannot cook one without having some yourself says me being a bacon addict!!!)

We give cereals the little boxes of kellogs or weetabix or museli cereal bars, yogurts, toast and jam marmalade, choc spread, croissants (3 for two people), honey, butter and boiled eggs and cheese( little breakfast cheeses babybel for eg) and for the french and Belgins a varity of meats Tea and coffee and fresh fruit juice, we also do full English  breakfast or bacon sarnies or poached eggs on request people always comment on how good our breakfasts are but I thought all bandbs provided this.

I can recommend piscine plus we had one of theres installed last year service great pool great local man in haute vienne installed it called Micheal lovely man! have alook at it on my website

Hi there why dont you try the pheonix rescue in the dordogne or the local SPAS ( same as the RSPCA) [email protected] is the pheonix e mail  

thats wonderful! its not often you hear good news regarding lost animals and I understand the pain the family must have gone through I just recently had my wonderful precious cat killed on the road and am going through hell at the moment so to hear good news has cheered me up so much, as I went on to the website and had a little cry last night after seeing the photo, it makes you realise how special and important little animals are in our lives and until they are lost or die sometimes we just don't realise! make the most of Saffie and don't let her out of your sight! all the best Liz

hello there, I think our place is pretty special! and so do our guests! Take a look at our website and decide for yourself, cheers Liz www.holidaybandb-limousin.com

hi there, dont have a gite but a wonderful b and b with all the comforts of home and excellent food have a look at our website: www.holidaybandb-limousin.com cheers liz