Catalpa

As the field presumably doesn't have to be 'active' in any way, can you simply replace the @ with at? In other words, mazandcolatemailco.com? e2a: you posted while I was writing. Glad to read you've sorted your problem. [:)]

[quote user="Weegie"]Being a mere male with a complexion beyond redemption, what about crème anti-rides or is that a step too far?[:$] [/quote]Ah, yes, well... for the face, a crème anti rides is a daily treatment rather than a concealer. Usually, it's just a moisturiser which is light enough to be used around eyes - I only use a normal moisturiser but I don't have sensitive skin or eyes that get irritated easily. There used to be some products that you'd (one would!) use before going out or the morning after a heavy night - this has been popular for years. Decades, even. I'm not convinced by it but many are. https://www.clarins.co.uk/beauty-flash-balm/C010405004.html Allegedly, a very good cream for tightening up the eye wrinkles (and I emphasise here that I would NOT try it [:P]) is hemorrhoid cream. [:-))] Try that discussion with your local pharmacist. @Mint - this thread has really brightened a rainy Friday! [:D]

[quote user="mint"]So, primer becomes either l'anti-cernes or base de maquillage, according to whether you use Norman's link or Catalpa's.  [/quote] [:D] They're two different things, Mint. (It's a long time since I had a good makeup conversation!) Anti-cernes is concealer which you would tend to use only in problem areas such as dark rings under eyes or over (say) a few age spots to disguise them. Primer goes all over the face - or most of it, possibly avoiding eyes - and is mainly useful if you want makeup to last all day or you're going clubbing (say!) and are going to be in a hot, humid atmosphere. I used it when travelling for work and I might leave home at 4am, fly off somewhere for a day of meetings and then fly back getting home midnightish. The primer did definitely help keep makeup where it was supposed to be over a long period of time. I'd never bother using it in normal circs. And then there's concealer / highlighter - like the famous and very effective YSL Touche Eclat. A light touch of that under eyes disguises dark rings.

Fond de teint is foundation and if you're fair skinned like me, Mint, you may find it difficult to get a foundation in France that suits your skin tone. I have used primer in the past (base de teint: generally it's a colourless base that goes on over moisturiser but under tinted foundation). I don't bother now. Tinted moisturiser + sunscreen is sufficient along with a blusher to make me look healthy at the times I... don't! [:P] On older skin particularly, less is more. If your eyebrows have faded (mine have) invest in a product (there's more than just crayon or poudre à sourcils out there nowadays) that defines them. You may be surprised just how that livens up your face. I don't mean attempt the whole hairy caterpillar above the eyes look that Z-list slebs seem to go for - just adding some colour and brushing into shape. If I wanted to solve a specific skin problem, I'd go and see what a local, decent-sized pharmacy has to offer and discuss with them. They often have samples relevant to your skin type which you can take home to try.

Separate applications. Some of the supporting paperwork such as tax returns might be in joint names, of course. If you've not already seen it, the link below may answer any other questions you have, depending on your exact circumstances. https://contacts-demarches.interieur.gouv.fr/brexit/brexit-residence-permit-application/

A perfect forum thread. Question asked, answered, sorted. [:)] If life were always so straightforward!

For what it's worth: a friend with a family member doctoring on the outskirts of Paris said mid-last year that Paris was labelling alsmost every death a Covid death because it gave them extra payouts / subvention / whatevers so a death recorded from Covid was of direct financial benefit to the hospital. When I registered my mother's death in the UK last November, she died from a combination of causes, the main one being 96 years of age. However, various of those causes were typical of Covid. The registrar asked me several times if I was sure that she'd not had Covid too because (she eventually explained) there was felt to be under-reporting of Covid as a cause of death / contributory cause. I doubt any country's figures can be totally accurate but in places like Brazil and particularly India currently, I can believe the cases / deaths are much higher than are being reported. Horrifying.

[quote user="alittlebitfrench"]I agree.....but I would ask them why first. [/quote]That would be an exercise in futility...

Whether you keep your landline is up to you. You can keep the land line phone number (or everyone I know did) but it becomes part of the fibre package. This part of Manche (perhaps the whole of Manche) could select from a range of packages from about 6, maybe 8 service providers who all used the same infrastructure managed by (I think) Manche Numerique. We made our choice, got rid of SFR but kept the land line number and the service provider we contracted with managed the switchover with SFR. This was about 2 years ago. We consistently get upload / download speeds of about 90 Mbps and apart from one infrastructure failure that affected a number of the providers and lasted about 2 weeks, it has been very reliable. The outage wasn't a disaster because we both have mobile phones too.

Can you get a photo of the bird, Mint? I've not found any indication that it is present in the wild in France - or native to Europe generally. https://www.oiseaux.net/maps/house.finch.html Perhaps it's an escapee from a local aviary and it is singing in the forlorn hope of finding a mate.

Our local supermarkets have the automatic photo booths in the entrances - that's where we had ours done. And supermarkets should be open.

[quote user="Martin963"]TF1 suggested it was the panacea for those wanting the best search system for vaccines but maybe they were exaggerating...[/quote]If it was featured on TF1 a day or two ago, that may be why there are no appointments atm. If I were in need of a first vaccine appointment, I'd check daily - after the first 'rush' is over, in a week or so, say, it may be a good source of appointments. e2a:I've just checked Manche and Calvados and while I'd have to travel between 20 mins and an hour depending on choice of venue, there are appointments in Manche available this week and in Calvados from 17 April.

It's obvious from the experiences outlined in this thread that applications and swaps are working differently in different regions and départments. I'm sure that shocks us all. [:P] CeeJay, if I had been waiting for 3 months from the date of the initial paperwork interview*  I would do a polite follow-up email just to check I hadn't been parked in someone's in tray with some query on the documents provided. After applying online for our 10 year, permanent TdeS 'swap' last November, we received confirmation of application (by email), waited... but did not receive a 'swap' rdv. Others in the same situation (and who applied after us) did receive appointments. We chased after about 10 weeks. We received a joint rdv by return and the new TdeS 15 days after the appointment - where we gave back the existing card, produced new photos + our passports and autographs. While I have no idea why it should be so, I do think our enquiry prompted retrieval of our files and the rdv. * where ID, proof of residency, 5 years of tax returns, birth certificates and all that jazz is produced for scrutiny, fingerprints taken, photos handed over

[quote user="Catalpa"]John Lichfield, used to be the Independent's France correspondence (in the days when the Independent was worthwhile) and has been a French and Europe commentator for years. He now does a round up of Covid and vaccinations in France generally, twice a week via Twitter. Even if you're not on Twitter, I think you can still read his contributions. They're invariably concise, factual, blunt and worth reading. This is today's. https://mobile.twitter.com/john_lichfield/status/1377202470611472385 [/quote] Here is today's Lichfield vaccine roundup from Twitter. It makes better reading... there's no doubt that France is (at last) increasing its daily vaccination rate. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1378288902314856452.html

That's tiny. Perhaps Mama Boar didn't recover well from the birth. Is hunting still taking place in your departement? Post end of Feb, we* still have a few specially licenced hunts in local forests for sanglier control purposes but they're rare. Entirely possible that the youngsters got separated from their family group by some other form of disturbance, though - farm vehicles, groups of walkers, dogs, etc. * though I accept the Gard area is a different country compared to rural Normandie.

I heard on the news yesterday that SNCF have thoughtfully put on extra trains to get people out of Paris (and presumably other cities) and away to friends, family, résidences secondaires... And that although the restrictions on travel would be from this evening (Sat, 7pm) the restrictions would be enforced 'lightly' until Monday evening to allow people to get back home after their weekends away. So very French. [8-)] I suppose more trains = more space so travellers aren't (as) over-crowded but encouragement to travel still seems daft to me. Having said that, I (further) suppose there's a tacit acceptance by the gouvernement, police nationale, gendarmerie, etc, that some people will do as they choose anyway at times like Easter and they can't realistically manage to enforce / police half the population (otherwise they'd have stopped people leaving Paris in droves last week) so they hope to at least make people think before they get into cars or catch trains and then gradually enforce the rules. ps: driving past an acquaintance's holiday home yesterday, we saw they were in residence. They're German, have driven from home which is Cologne in DE and I assume (based on their other visits) they'll be there for a week before driving all the way back again. I wonder how often they were stopped / will be stopped.

We knew from the email accompanying our appointment info that we would be handing in our existing cards so we scanned and printed them then asked the Mairie to stamp them as authentic. OH also kept a copy on his Smartphone. The new ones arrived in the post (signed for) after about 3 weeks; we had the scans of the old cards in the meantime. It didn't seem a big deal. Maybe it would have been if I'd needed to travel to / back from the UK in that period but I doubt even that would have been a problem providing such travel met Covid travel regs.

https://www.interieur.gouv.fr/Actualites/L-actu-du-Ministere/Attestations-de-deplacement Might be worth checking for updates on Saturday afternoon.

[quote user="idun"]Catalpa, have I misread or do you seem to be  defending how this is being dealt with. [/quote]Misread? Or did you not read at all? I stated clearly (well, I thought it was clear and unambiguous)... [quote]I'm most appalled by the abysmally small quantities of vaccine that are being delivered across the EU. [/quote]So, to clarify:I am definitely defending the efforts of people like our two MTs and their team doing their best in these current circumstances. Of course it's bleddy obvious that two doctors doing the vaccinations just for their patient lists is not enough even with similar efforts being replicated across this rural region. But that's how it is. And from the sound of it, there are plenty of over 60s elsewhere in France who'd be grateful for that level of effort - Judith's OH being one, I suspect. As I outlined earlier, we're both mid-60s yet in the last 3 weeks we've been offered two appointments from different sources for our first vaccination. What I am not sure you are grasping even now is there are two steps to a successful vaccination program. One is the infrastructure to administer the vaccine but that is dependent (obviously!) on the availability of doses of vaccine. France and other EU countries do not have the latter - not compared to the UK, Israel, etc. The EU's purchasing / ordering strategy was wrong. I damn them for that though hindsight is 20/20 and similar clichés. France's vaccination roll-out made a three-legged tortoise look hyperactive but the EU's / France's delivery of the vaccines from suppliers has been unreliable. For that, as I've said elsewhere, I trust at some point OAZ will be held accountable for over-promising and persistently under-delivering to the EU and other countries. The whole world is looking for vaccines and the UK, after its appalling management of the pandemic pre-vaccine, has struck lucky with its vaccine purchase plan and investments. And for that, Matt Hancock thanked the script writers of 'Contagion'. Unless the vaccine delivery - ie, orders fulfilled - improves across the EU, not just France, infections and deaths are not going to diminish. Yes, large pharmacies and small hospitals could no doubt be mobilised but for what? I say again - there isn't the volume of vaccine doses available across France to make it worthwhile at this time. Your idea of taking large pharmacies and small hospitals off line when there are few vaccines to administer would just further cripple the 'normal' delivery of non-CV health care - which, I'm happy to say, is still taking place in this region. The need for larger centres in rural areas may change from 16 April (though logistical challenges of getting rural arms to centres won't) when the Janssen (J&J) vaccine starts fulfilling orders and that vaccine requires one dose only to be effective. The downside is the predicted efficacy which is substantially below that of P-BNT, Moderna and OAZ.

John Lichfield, who used to be the Independent's France correspondence (in the days when the Independent was worthwhile) and has been a French and Europe commentator for years. He now does a round up of Covid and vaccinations in France generally, twice a week via Twitter. Even if you're not on Twitter, I think you can still read his contributions. They're invariably concise, factual, blunt and worth reading. This is today's. https://mobile.twitter.com/john_lichfield/status/1377202470611472385

[quote user="idun"] Two MT's giving the vaccines?  [/quote]Yes? And? They are the two 'resident' MTs from the immediate locality, supported by local infirmières, providing vaccinations in an easily accessible place for those of their patients who qualified. Judging by the number of A4 laminated centres de vaccination signs I see popping up in even small villages (pops <500) plenty of MTs are doing something similar, particularly at weekends. It is not ideal, of course, but that's the way - France being generally vaccine resistant for reasons we've previously covered - it's being done here at the moment. Bear in mind not everyone drives and with public transport being sparse in rural France (not to mention not entirely advisable in the current circs) it's better than only using large vaccination centres. I'm most appalled by the abysmally small quantities of vaccine that are being delivered across the EU.

I'm sick of seeing Macron, Merkel and even Johnson castigated for whatever actions they (or don't) take currently. Criticise the EUs vaccine purchase program or the rollout, sure (and I'd also criticise AZ for selling the same vaccine production several times over)  but I'm not going to whine about < insert politician of choice > delaying lockdowns or whatever when I believe I need to take responsibility for my own behaviours. A year on from this being declared a pandemic, anyone with a functioning brain knows what we need to do to stay safe until we are vaccinated - and afterwards. I do not want A Leader to be forced to tell us once again that another lockdown / curfew / whatever is necessary because there are still too many idiots who believe it is their right to behave in a way that continues to spread this bloody disease. If it's a sunny spring day and you arrive at a beach or a national park and the place is already packed, don't join the masses, just exercise some restraint and go home. It's really not difficult to figure out. Politicians - governments - should now be focussing on what happens this time next year - booster vaccinations? A new type of longer-lasting vaccine? Better, early treatments for those who can't be vaccinated. An international scientific task force to rapidly identify variants and how to modify vaccines quickly to fight them. Routes to safely start up economies again. That's what should be the focus now.

The number of vaccinations delivered per day is going up but I can't see it reaching 500,000 per day any time soon not least because of doses available in France. This is a useful site though it is not always updated daily. https://covidtracker.fr/vaccintracker/ According to my interpretation of that information, France has only had slightly over 12m doses of all vaccines available for arms so far. If France did achieve 500k per day, they'd have ripped through the remaining doses within a week. Getting an appointmentWe (both in our 60s) hedged our bets:- regular contact with our MT who is young and proactive - OH's company has a médecin du travail so he phoned and signed up there- we used Doctorlib though never found any appointments available - we also kept in touch with our pharmacy as she's a small business but well-connected so tho' she wouldn't be setting up to administer jabs, she'd hear about who was The MT phoned with appointments for 10 days ago so we both had our first AZ vaccination then. Second is scheduled for 9 weeks time (phone for appt in 8 weeks). Médecin du travail also phoned this week with offer of vaccination for next week which we declined, obvs. The appointmentLocal mairie (not ours) set up as vaccination centre. Timed appointments and from chatting in the queue they weren't all for the same time! People were turning up early for their appointments as they didn't want to miss out. No one seemed to care which vaccine they would get, just pleased it was happening at last. - our two local MTs had separate tables + separate sides of hall + separate sets of infirmières administering injections- brief chat with MT re vaccine, side effects, any questions, etc, and to provide carte vitale, get printout of instructions personalised to me with details of the vaccine, batch nr, etc- queue for jab, producing cv again so the infirmière gets paid- wait for 15 mins after jab before blood pressure was taken and we were released into the wild It wasn't a fast process. OH and I were processed together but from sitting down with MT and leaving it was just over an hour. However, hearing about people's experiences in some parts of the UK, they don't always get issued with paperwork (though there are tales of smiley stickers being handed out - to adults!) so I do prefer France's methodical approach to delivering vaccine into arm and giving me the details. The aftermath- OH had a sore arm for several days but no other symptoms- I had a sore arm + mild shivery / hot / cold symptoms for about 36 hours but not bad and more like a feverish cold than flu. I didn't need paracetamol (and ibuprofen not recommended, said MT, because there is evidence ibuprofen and asprine + similar may interfere with the reaction of the body to the vaccine. If you get a bad reaction at the injection site, take antihistamines. The main thing I take from this is there is an element of a vaccine postcode lottery going on and if you don't want to sit and wait to be summoned, do some phoning around and express your interest in getting vaccinated as widely as possible. @Chessie, are you a registered 'carer' for your OH? If so, I know some carers (who are simply 'present' in the home as opposed to actually hauling their partners in and out of a wheelchair, for eg) are prioritised. Congratulations to anyone who's read this far. Have a sticker. [kiss]

[quote user="BritinBretagne"]... I’m fairly sure that the term U.K. variety was first used in the U.K. to identify it as being a different mutation as the South African and Brazil mutations have been labelled. Nothing malicious here, just an accepted system.[/quote]On the odd snatches of Coronavirus News at 5 I encounter, I hear the UK variety being referred to as the Kent variant. Presumably the B117 variant is too difficult for the population to remember especially when you include the B1351 (South African variant), the B1128... [8-)] As you say, BinB, nothing malicious, just convenient.

The O-AstraZeneca vaccine has re-started in Normandy - as of Friday afternoon. The period between first and second vaccinations of O-AZ has been pushed out to 8-9 weeks.