anotherbanana

If a couple are paxed are they treated as married if and when they apply for CDS and more; I think there is a financial requirement for married couples and single people?

What happens in the case of a couple who are paxed?

I am always amazed that government has been able to get so far from citizens; this kind of questioning should be automatic and always available.

Especially if you are condemning all of us to cold showers!

How is it sonic?

Horrifying, Dave, horrifying.

It is all the tattoos and the cig hanging from his mouth that do it!

La boite is a slang word for workplace. Cayenne was a very distant colony in South America where there were some penal institutions that were particularly brutal, see the book and film Papillion. So, it could simply refer to a distance place as in other cases and/or refer to the factory as a prison or bagne.

Me too.

The prevailing wind has been southerly, south easterly or south westerly for a long time which the grues do not like flying against but it seems now to be moving northerlyish which will push them on their journey. So, folks, maybe expect them this week.

Thank you, Betise, I was being lazy; the word occurred in this headline in Le Monde and also reminded me of ‘yokel’ “Au lycée, tous les élèves qui ne sont pas originaires d’Europe occidental5e sont qualifiés de “blédards””

blédard A challenge for Norman, maybe?

Yes, minteroonie, maybe I did go a bit far but some of the meat was in the bottom of the freezer and had been there a very long time. And there were a lot of fairly anonymous leftovers that certainly should have been drawing an OAP. However, I am stewing up large volumes of gooseberries and other soft fruit which will nearly all return to the freezer within a few hours. And I am finding other ways of storing the food so that I can get a proper rotation. Plus better labelling of leftovers. Oiseau took a freezer box of the remaining red fruits and as you have seen had a wonderful jam making session, so some good had already come out of it. The freezer is much too big for me really but I so hate to see garden fruit go to waste.

Freezer SAVED, thanks to patience and a hairdryer and some good tips. Phew, didnt want to fork out for a new one. Some summer fruits now being cooked up before returning to freezer but meat all slung as it was just getting a bit too soft. Pity. It is what hides in the bottom of a freezer, forgotten, unloved, bitterly cold!

Pop it in your mouth and enjoy the taste of egg, clean teeth at same time!😵‍

Given the two threads running here, Lori, could you not use your electric toothbrush to beat the egg whites, save time and trouble?

”this”?🙀

I will willingly send you our rain, Norman, plus the mud of course!

From Oiseau, a natural photographer.

Rain, rain, no snow, no postman to chase, Bongo, I am so bored:

Guardian, your mind in exercised by the strangest things!

Stream has fallen quite a bit thus far and is almost back in its bed, but the road is still impassable. We went to the annual 11 Novembre memorial yesterday, through a small raging torrent. But realised to extent that the rest of the village has been flooded with about 15 homes sinistrés and the main street bad. Amazing response from the village folk and the mairie; one big group were cleaning out houses, another offering all sorts of other help. I have several inches of mud to remove from the front but am waiting for the next lot of rain on Tuesday to pass first. Oiseau did an amazing job cleaning the bouandrie after the water level fell for which I thank her most deeply If anyone is interested you can look on the village facebook page; just type in Aix en Issart where there are photos of the flooding. My house is not shown but the beginning of my road is. The freezer remains silent but the washing machine is working OK, luckily as it is flamband neuf. Oiseau is going home tomorrow and will have to go over the hills and détour via St. Omer to Calais as our nearest access to the motorway will still likely be inaccessible. Route chosen because there are no valleys and blocked bridges.

Only one furry these days I am sad to say; he put one paw into the flooded garden, managed a pee and came straight back to bed after demanding a treat which he got.

Help is at hand, just in time judging by the quick rise in water level. Rain slated to start easing after 1600 hrs today. Inshallah

Rain has not stopped but perhaps a little less severe and level of flooding has dropped a little but still precious close to the house. Last night the electricity went off but I was able to isolate the problem and get it on again; the freezer and the washing machine had both got wet. Whether they will eventually dry out remains to be seen. If not, anyone want a load of raspberries and apple purée, frozen veg, meat of all kinds? We have just received yet another warning from the préfecture via our telephones telling us that there is more to come today, rugger it. Still we both have plenty of books and puzzles to keep us busy plus Airfix HMS Ark Royal. But the sky is very grey and unfriendly, the stream is a raging torrent as any rain falling flows away because the land is saturated; the main river, the Canche cannot take any more and high tides are stopping its flow into the sea. So the flood spreads; driving round yesterday on higher ground it was amazing to see how much land is flooded. This will take a long time to clear. Civil defence was active during the night on big tractors I think making sure that nothing was blocking the course of the river or bridges so that there was not a build up of pressure. When I was a kid we were travelling on a coastal road south of Durban during a violent and extended storm, crossing bridges as we went; not only did our old Austin Sheerline have a bow wave but the radio reported that the bridges were getting washed away behind us. Caused by vegetation and sugar cane waste tipped into the rivers and pushing against the supporting pillar and breaking them. One of the bridges was a combined road and rail bridge and very old; it just disappeared though a ship off the Natal coast reported seeing anstrange structure miles out to sea. Heigh ho, Xmas coming.