Gail Smith

I don't know whetehr it was due to the poor weather in May this year, but I am completely free of the little blighters this year. Previous years they have been there the moment the first leaves break the surface. I too have found that picking off the adults is the only organic control for the adults  but there is an organic product made by Fertiligene available in our local cooperative called Cuberol - its derris based i think. Its in powder form and has to be applied by a puffer. I use it when the inevitable missed eggs hatch into little beetles; it kills them within 24 hrs on pots and aubergines. It does not really work on the adults when they first appear; hence I still pick off/squash eggs as much as I can in the early stages.

Lynda there is no need to put the jars and their contents in hot water.  Brandy/gin/vodka are all sterilising in their own right.  Dont forget they put Napoleans body in Brandy to bring it back, or was that Nelson?  Can't remember now. What I do is put the oven on at 100 degrees and put the washed but wet jars in there until they are dry, usually about 15 minutes.  Then take them out and allow them to cool but stand them upside down on a clean tea towel.  Dont put the cold fruit or alcohol into them until they are cooled or they will crack.  If you heat the alcohol then the alcohol content will evaporate off and you end up with non alcoholic/low alcohol fruit. If you were bottling vegetables in brine or meat products then you do need to totally immerse them and the contents in boiling water for up to 2 hours but that is a whole different thing. Gail x  

Last year and the years before I made sloe gin, plum vodka, cherry vodka, fig gin, blackberry vodka and cherry brandy. I made them all by putting the fruits into a large 2L fizzy drinks bottle and adding the sugar and then the alcohol.  Put the lid on and shake every day for 2 weeks.  Then shake when you remember.  If you are doing sloes you need to freeze them for 24 hours first so that the skins split or else you can pr-ick them first which is a tedious job. I decanted it into glass bottles through a filter paper and we ate the cherries etc with ice cream. (Dont try eating the sloes though as they are horrible when eaten).  Store in a dark cool place and get it out around Xmas and enjoy. We have just finished the last of what I did last year and it was wonderful.  Put them in some nice glass bottles and give them as xmas pressies too. I wash everything out with hot water and a tiny drop of bleach before I start and then rinse well.  We never had any problems doing it this way. Gail xx

I was in a similar situation last year and again this year because my business has made very little money.  When I got the first demand last year I immediately wrote to URSSAF and told them that my income was very low and what I expected to make during the year.  They immediatley sent me a revised bill for Nil.  At the end of the year there were a few things I had to pay which were obligatory but this was a very small amount.  This year is the same and I have written again and am waiting to hear whether or not I have to pay.  My income is much less than the cotisation demand. I think that it evens out in the 3rd year.  If I had paid the first 2 years demands without query then in the 3rd year I would get a rebate for the overpayment.  I would also have been destitute by then! Dont worry about claiming, once your business is successful have no doubt that you will repay it, and then some. It is so scary when you have a new business and are trying to get on your feet and the first thing that happens is they send you a massive bill.  They expect you to hit the ground running I suppose. Gail xx

Whereabouts was she thinking of working cos I have 3 little dogs who are desperate for a hair cut?  I took them to the local parlour but wasnt too impressed with how they came out considering what I paid. We are in N. Dordogne Gail x

Hi Get in touch with Perigord Developpement at the Chambre de Commerce in Perigueux.  They are set up to help UK nationals set up businesses in the Dordogne.  Speak to Alex Thevenet as she speaks fluent english.  She will put you right with what help you can get etc.   Gail xx

We keep pigs for meat and take them to the abbatoir for slaughter.  I can only speak about our abbatoir and our experiences. Our neighbour takes them to the abbatoir on a monday morning at 8am in his small and very ancient Citroen lorry.  The pigs go into the van quite happily with a little help from a bucket of feed. The journey is about 20 minutes.  They are unloaded by my hubby at the other end and are placed into a holding pen which has fresh straw and water.  The pigs go in quite happily and snuffle about in the straw and by the time my hubby has done the paperwork and gone back to see them they are lying down having a sleep.  There is no squealing, no stress. The men at the abbatoir are very good, there is no shouting or sticks to move them just a series of gates so that they can only go in one direction and the gates are shut behind them.  All the pigs are seen by the vet on the monday.  On Tuesday morning they are killed.  The neighbour goes down to the abbatoir on Tuesday morning to collect the blood as he makes boudin noir with it and he told us that the workers at the abbatoir love it when our pigs go there as they are so amenable and friendly and just follow the men around and into the killing room with no stress at all.  They are stunned first with electocution and then are bled. My pigs are raised very humanely and they die humanely.  They have a wonderful, stress free life and in my book if they have a minute of fear at the end then that is a very small price to pay for the lives they have led.  They have never had a minute of fear in their whole lives up to that point.  I dont believe that they do suffer stress at the end as pigs are not like people and have no idea what is going to happen.  Pigs meat that you buy so cheaply in the supermarket has never known anything but stress in its short life and you rarely will find supermarket pork with a tail on the carcass cos the other pigs have eaten it. I dont want them to be killed at home for a couple of reasons.  I would not be sure that they died a good death ie being stunned first.  Often (not always) with home kill they just stick them and bleed them.  Also there is a lot of guts with a pig and I dont have the means to dispose of it all and also I dont have a facility to deal with it.  I dont have the facility for dipping and scraping the carcess.  I dont have a cold room to hang the carcasses for a few days like they do at the abbatoir and one cannot rely on the weather to be cold enough as sun and flies can appear in January in my experience. I dont know what your local abbatoir is like or how far you have to go to get them there but I think that sometimes the abbatoir can be better with such a big animal. It is a personal choice but I honestly would have a look at your local abbatoir and see how it is done and what the people who work there are like.  This is what we did before we took our first pigs there. The quality of the meat is amazing and the taste is the best you will ever taste.  I think people have forgotten what proper free range, organic pork should taste like.  Good for you for raising your own pigs and also for taking the time to consider how they are going to die.  I am sure you will make the right decision, one that you can live with and that at the end of the day when you sit down at the table to eat the meat you can thank your pig for giving you this wonderful meal and also feel happy that it had the best possible life and death. Gail xx

My sisters dog has an allergy to house dust mites and she scratches constantly and has ended up with sores all around her ears and head.  It has cost my sister a small (well actually a large) fortune and she is now waiting for a vaccine to arrive from Holland which the vet assures her will fix the problem.  I have my doubts personally but we will see. Diet is important in making dogs sensitive but I am sure you have checked all those things first.  Many processed foods can cause reactions in dogs as can milk.  You could try just rice and chicken and see if that improves things if you havent already tried the diet route. Gail x

We live full time in N. Dordogne and when we were looking for houses it was a strange combination of events that led us to buy here.  I was adamant that I didnt want to live in Dordogne because of the concentration of brits here. I was very wrong and am happy to admit it.  It is truely beautiful here and we love the area where we live.  When we travel around we have rarely found anywhere as beautiful as the Dronne valley where we live.  I would hate to leave here.  We are quite isolated and there are Brits around but we are about 5 k from the nearest village and so we dont really know many people there.  We have British, Dutch and French friends and I am not ashamed of them!  They are friends and race doesnt matter. I think there is a kind of inverted snobbery that people can say 'We live somewhere that has never been seen by a British person'  Well good for you.  What is the matter with people?  Is it a kind of oneupmanship that makes one feel superior to Dordogne dwellers?  The French people around us have no problem with British or Dutch or Germans or whatever.  I reckon that sometimes Brits are voicing some stereotypical racist comments and if you substituted the word British for black or Muslim the thread would long ago have been deleted.   Get over yourselves. Gail x

We pay 80 cents a bale for wheat straw although I have no idea whether or not they are suitable for building.  My animals mostly lie on them.   Gail x

Our dog is fantastic at catching moles.  She stands for hours watching and watching and then suddenly she pounces and there is a mad scrabble and she emerges from the depths with the said mole.  She then spends an hour or two 'playing' with the body which is a bit grim.  We have never managed to rescue one from her alive but we have got one or two unmutilated.  They are beautiful creatures. There is a problem with this though and that is that she digs big holes in the lawn when she finds them.  I dont know which is worse, the mole hill or the dog excavations!! We never had one mole hill last year because she did such a good job. Gail

Judging from the picture...its remarkable how little they have changed!!!

We're not too far away from you and would be interested in a couple.  Let us know.   Gail

hi  SD. Don't have a BMW, we have the 1300 Pan as you know, but i did test ride the BMW 1150RT a couple of months ago. It didn't actually feel lighter when riding it, and the 'throw' from the horizontal twin accelerating out of corners would, i think, take some getting used to. If its a lighter ride you are looking for, I suggest you have a test ride yourself. The BMW dealer in Perigueux was more than happy to let me ride anything in the showroom.....perhaps there's someone near you who would do the same. Though I did not choose one, there is no doubt its a great bike and, I am told, a vast improvement on the 1100RT it replaced. mike

I am interested in this...  Are you allergic to penicillin by any chance?  I make my own cheese, cheddar, stilton and soft goats cheeses too and I am allergic to penicillin and have to be careful when innoculating some of the milks for certain effects. Gail

Tea tree oil is a natural flea repellent if you can stand the smell.  I have used it on a very susceptible dog and it worked brilliantly.  Obviously it isnt any good to satisfy the PP rules for returning to the UK. Gail

Hi jpe Great news, get in touch when you get over here and we'll get together. Gail

They are at Riberac market nearly every week.  Usually they have a tiny piglet, way too young to be away from its mum.  Of course all the soft Brits (me included) go up to it ohhing and ahhing over the piglet.  They then give you the spiel about buying the sweets for the animal sanctuary. I was worried about it and thought it was a scam but the local Police who collect the payments from the stallholders didnt take any notice of them.  They must have paid their dues! I dont know what you could do about it as it seems to be accepted but it is cruel to the piglet to say the least. Trouble is here that the french have such a different attitude to animals, nearly every other stall has a tiny wire cage containing terrified rabbits crammed in for people to take home in a bag and kill for dinner. Gail x

For years I had ordinary irons with the usual small resevoir.  They always failed before the guarantee ran out and so I would take them back to the shop every 8 months or so and add a little bit of money to the cost and buy a more expensive one.  I used to do a lot of ironing in those days so they just wore out.  After about 4 years of doing this I was mightily fed up and had just paid well over £100 for the latest iron which after 3 months went wrong.  In the end I bit the bullet and paid about £150 and bought a Tefal resevoir iron and it is fantastic.  I have had it now for about 6 years and it is so efficient.  Loads of steam and the resevoir lasts for at least an hours ironing.  I still do a lot of ironing :( Gail

Christine I have pmed you Gail

I will be faced with this option in 2 years when i am 50 and have decided i will not take the lump sum as i don't want to pay tax on it here. I have the choice. There is an option if you need the money though; it won't suit everybody but it does allow one to have a lump sum on retirement and is a good option if you are still (relatively!) young when your pension appears.  Go to your french bank and get a loan for the equivilent of the lump sum. The interest you will pay on the loan will almost certainly be less than the tax bill. Even if it isn't (and for my circumstances the saving at current interest rates for a loan taken over 10 years is 5000 euros)  you still have the advantage that after the loan has finished, your pension is back to the full amount as you will not have had the reduction in annual pension from commuting a lump sum. Whether this will work will depend on your circumstances. But provided you can get the loan ( and if you commute 25% of your pension for a lump sum, the repayments on the equivilent loan would fall below the limits in france for lending) this option is great if you get your pension early and live a long time after the loan has finished!!!! mike

I have changed the web address on my profile so that you can see our web site.  We have another site which is linked to the frenchfarmgites one and we use that to keep things really up to date, more on the smallholding side of things. I dont actually make a big thing of the acupuncture/healing etc for our guests.  There is a leaflet in the gite all about it and guests are more than welcome for a treatment. We have been successful and we dont want to be choc a bloc all year round.  As I said we have an ever expanding smallholding to run, goats to milk, cheese to make, etc, etc.  We quite enjoy the peace and quiet when the guests are gone and it's just me and him.......lol What I have thought about since posting on here and reading your comments is that we might just create the second gite over the next year or so and if we dont rent it out it will have added value to our property and it is there for our families if they wanted to visit in the school holidays. It seems to me the thing that most people worry about is exclusive use of the pool which they dont have here because we use it too. Gail

  We got 10 weeks booked for 2007 because people tried to book for the summer of 2006 in February and we were already booked.  We got nearly all our bookings for 2006 between 26th december and 1st Jan 2006 from the Chez Nous brochure.  One family who had enquired for 2006 and were unlucky then booked 4 weeks in 2007.  We then contacted the people who had enquired and been unlucky in 2006 and told them that we were already getting bookings for 2007 and if they were interested they could book then by paying a small deposit to hold it and the balance on a full deposit in August 2006. (This was so that we could save a bit on advertising).  They then paid the full amount as usual. We got 2 more bookings for 2007 in the past month from Chez Nous web site.  We also have a good web site of our own and get some enquiries and bookings from that.  People find us through google although we dont pay to be up high in the ratings.  I think they find us through our attachment to Chez Nous. One family who found us through google last year and put us in their 'favourites' so that they could book for this year.  They were too late when they looked at our booking calendar.  They then tried to book the school hols next year and were unsuccessful so they booked 2 weeks in May school hols.  Great for us! We already have provisional bookings for 2008 from people who stayed this year and enjoyed themselves and want to come back.  If people say they are interested in returning we advise them to book using a very small deposit so that they wont be disappointed.  They have to pay the full deposit a bit earlier than normal but they are usually happy with that. We use Ebay a lot as well and usually have ads running on there for the spare weeks and out of season offers.  We now have a shop on there.  We do get the odd booking through it and it more than pays for itself. Gail  

I have advertised my horses for sale but I suppose that it's not the best time of year to sell although it's the best time for riding now that the days are cooler. So.... If I am going to be keeping them for the winter I need to excercise them. Is there anyone interested in coming over a couple of times a week and riding out with me? We are in the north of the Dordogne between Riberac and Perigueux. You must be a reasonably confident rider although a rusty returner would be welcome. Send me a pm if you are interested. Thanks Gail x

Thanks for your replies there is plenty to think about.  We wouldnt be changing anything until 2008 anyway as the bookings for 2007 are for the single gite.  We already advertise with Chez Nous although we have been 70% booked for 2007 since July this year! One thing that occurred to us today was that if we put our income up too much then we will move from the tax regime we are in into a higher bracket which is not good and has to be taken into consideration.  We already pay cotisations through my registration with URSSAF for my acupuncture. We live on site so sorting the pool etc is not a problem. Thanks again Gail