hoverfrog

[quote user="sweet 17"]I know this is desperately serious for the OP but, Jane, you have made me smile (quite a lot!)[/quote] actually, no, not desperately serious at all! She made me laugh too :) Maybe I should've posted it in "French culture"! :) lol

[quote user="Jane and Danny"]"1/ in France, guzumping is illegal - if you put in an offer for a house (however derisory), then no-one else can offer for it until you've finished negotiating." I don't understand quite what you mean here (or indeed in most of your post!). It is not at all the case that making an offer, below that of the advertised price, blocks the sale for anyone else. [/quote] legally it is. What happens in practice is not always following the letter of the law (as was pointed out by baypond), however legally when an offer is in then no-one else can offer on the same property. As far as separating my 2 houses goes, I was advised to tell potential buyers exactly as I was told "...of course you can always sell on the little house later if you want to..." I just wanted to make the point that this is not always feasible, just in case someone else ended up in the same position! I have found the house of my dreams, thank-you, although it's all tiled! You will never appreciate how much of an improvement on tired lino laminate flooring can be unless you've been there :)

So I bought my house 4 years ago... 2 years ago I also bought a small stone-built house in the country with a friend, to renovate... Since then, Oh! have I learnt a lot! Recently I decided to shift camp - to be precise, I want to sell my 3 houses and settle in one new one. (Three, I hear you say? Yes, well, I bought my house complete with another one at the end of the drive. See point #3) 1/ in France, guzumping is illegal - if you put in an offer for a house (however derisory), then no-one else can offer for it until you've finished negotiating. 2/ if you offer the asking price they cannot legally refuse to sell to you. However - see 1# above. 3/ Just because your house comes with another one doesn't mean you can sell the surplus one off at a later date, even if they say that you can at the time of purchase. it will probably cost more to delineate the land than you will get for it - even if it's treated seperately for taxe foncière (so what are they charging me for then - in terms of area???). 4/ everything is negotiable - even agency fees! Now this one hurt when I found out :( According to the agency, fees are done on a percentage. When I bought this place I was told that their fees were on a percentage of the purchase price - tant pis - I had to pay. Today I queried what they put as their fees for selling my 'small stone-built place in the middle-of-nowhere' purchase - which were more than I paid in fees for my main house. "Don't worry!" she said - "it's all negotiable!". Yeah right! How many people know that? 5/ the reason houses are advertised with different agencies at different prices is because of #4 - and they all have a different starting rate for negotiations (see #4). I haven't advertised my 'small stone-built place in the middle-of-nowhere' with more than 2 agencies yet but when they advertise it at 40+ or 38 that makes one hell off a difference to buyers. 6/ moving on from #4 and #5 - the sellers will get the same price from both agencies. The service might not be the same, but if they/you want it and are prepared to push then it will happen - the price is as advertised. 7/ if you can argue coherently in French that you don't need a translator then you don't need one. If you have to do this from the notaire's office during a sale, for some poor guy's services that you hadn't asked for, then you get extra quodos :) Just because the client is English doesn't mean they don't speak French :) 8/ he who orders the translator pays him (see #7) 9/ is laminate flooring really that bad? Not all floorboards are salvageable, pretty, bleachable... - and laminate flooring is so quick to fit, insulates, so easy to clean, - why did I let all the "floorboards or nothing" people mislead me all these years! Just my thoughts - having been around a while I see the same questions coming up, and it might help someone.

when my father died suddenly I notified several of his friends by email. This was for several reasons - I did not have their snail-mail addresses or phone numbers, and although I knew of them and about them I did not actually know them so would not have wanted to have to contact them directly at that time, and it was immediate not like waiting for the post to get there. Dad used email a lot to keep in touch with his friends so it seemed appropriate, and it took some of the pressure off Mum as every time the phone rang she would have to go through it all again. Without fail all those I emailed were grateful to have been told the sad news, and that way they found out directly and not weeks later.

Dave - you were correct, the blade had slipped a bit during tightening! All sorted now (it's a bit like aligning a clutch!) - and it fair zips through even super-seasoned wood :)

I paid 23€ - which I didn't think was too bad. It's fitted properly - there's only one way/place it can go. It's a Gaubert actually (oops!) I can't even find replacement blades on the net - their website says no replacements parts are available :(

should the blade be "balanced" after sharpening - like fitting tyres? I ask because I had my 2' diameter Gautier sawblade sharpened, and now it vibrates a lot when running. Cuts a treat though :)

yes to the numbers and digits - I haven't got the manuals any more as I sold the car, but it might well have started with VF. The last four digits were the code.

not iodine, no, but it is an antiseptic. Also comes in blue and clear... they all have slightly different properties (and in my experience the clear one was the only one that worked on foot-rot in sheep!) The colour is so you can see where you've sprayed.

I'm afraid I don't know what they call the purple spray, but they do sell it here. Local sheep-farmers use a lot of it - especially when the shearer is having a bad day!!!

on my Clio the 4 digit radio code was cunningly hidden at the end of a much longer number... on one of the pages at the start of one of the manuals that came with it. I took the car to the garage and he pointed it out to me!

[quote user="sid"]I've noticed that my righthand side tyres (ie nearest the kerb) are wearing very quickly. I took the car to the local garage to ask him to check alignment and bearings etc but he immediately said it was normal here with the state of the secondary roads. He said "Drive in the middle"!! Now, whilst this may explain some of the driving behaviour around here, I'm loathe to drive down the middle of the road.[/quote] I noticed that all three of my cars tend to pull to the right, so I tried the "driving in the middle of the road" approach. It works! Whether it's the camber (to be honest I wasn't aware that there was one - the roads round here seem to be a bit haphazard in that respect!) or the rough edge of the roads I don't know, but driving in the middle means all 3 cars go straight. As far as the weight bias goes, certainly on Nivas RHD means extra weight on the right - steering box, etc, to say nothing of the driver! LHD is so much easier to work on - the space under the bonnet is evenly distributed instead of all the components crammed on the RHS.

catch & eat mice - yes they do! I'd read somewhere about this, and yes - it's true - I've seen it! My chickens are bulk-standard layers from the local market (apart from the Limousin one that the rest shun like being grey is a disease or something!!!) The sole remaining duck is something else though...

[quote user="Beemer1150"]Sid wrote: 'I will in future change left to right though, to even it out.' I'd thought of that, but mine are 'uni-directional' and marked with the direction of rotation - they would then be rotating the wrong way? Incidentally I saved more than the fuel and ferry fare by taking the car on a visit to the UK and changing the tyres thereirEffectively a free trip... [/quote] uni-directional tyres turn one way. You can swap them, but it's not easy if your garage charges. I bought my (M&S) tyres on ebay - well cheap! Finding a garage that would fit them was something else though :) Can't say I'm unhappy with the result though - or the price! I'd rather pay fitting on my tyres that i chose and imported than corkage on my wine that I chose and imported - at least I know the garage has done something to earn it's fee!

ask your local bank manager. YMMV - actually your mileage WILL vary! :) Done both - depends on their mood on the day usually... Ask, it costs nothing.

[quote user="Scooby"][quote user="sweet 17"]What's missing in our local supermarkets are things like Kaffir leaves, Tahinni sauce, satay sauce, parpadelle shaped pasta, decent soy sauce, sesame oil, Hoisin sauce, etc, etc.[/quote] I so agree Sweet....[/quote] we can get all of those things in deepest Limousin - and so much more! Didn't have them in Wiltshire - have learnt to love them since moving to France. Why lament products from other countries when one hasn't fully appreciated what's available from the local region? BTW - for those of short appreciation, try Grand Frais in Limoges - sure to find all the 'exoctic' stuff and then some! Try the local markets for really 'exoctic' stuff - your taste-buds will reward you. It's France - try some French stuff. Saucisson... huitres... fromage de brebis.... whatever your region offers! A country of over 300 cheeses is never going to agree on anything (De Gaule?) - but they do know how to eat well :)

you're not suposed to give them meat, nor onions or citrus. Daft really, when they will catch and eat mice, but it's the food-chain thing. Can't say mine object to the odd bit of bolognaise clinging to the spaghetti, onions and all! They go mad for rice and pasta too! Good point about bird flu - overfeeding them is probably the most important factor in having wild birds visiting their run, along with their payload of pests & diseases.

IMHO it's best not to read the books - the diseases they can get just frighten you! Common sense is the best thing - food, not too much or you feed all the local wildlife; clean water, at a reasonable distance from the poultry house; adequate space for them to roam so they don't poach the run; reasonable cleanliness and adequate ventilation. Oh, and don't have a cockerel unless you must - their main aim in life is to shout out to all the predetors "we're over here!" :)

it depends what you want from it... I have pretty much the same as you, and that's only because orange pro was the only one to offer a fixed IP address. We're in a region that has a lot of power cuts - I like the security of knowing that my telephone line still works!

snow on and off all day in Limousin - this morning the world was white but now it's just wet (and dark!)

personally I would be wary of leaving them with the roots immersed in water for that long. If you really can't heel them in, then what about wrapping the roots in damp sacking or raiding the sand from the builders pile/kids sandpit???

black, black hairs in tufts (i.e. not hairy all over!), and I think orange spots down the sides.

my hands are actually quite large - and I was wearing big (men's) leather gardening gloves at the time. Sorry - didn't have the camera to hand, and I can't find any pictures on the net as I'm not sure what species I'm looking for! I was told they were just as dangerous as the pine processionary, and what really got me was the size of them - made me wonder what they hatched into! They were 2X bigger than the stag beetle grubs I've been finding in Limousin.

after strimming overgrown grass in Aveyron lots of enormous black hairy caterpillars started emerging. They are apparently extremely toxic (like the pine processionary) and I was warned not to let the dog near as if he ate one the vet would not be able to help him. Any idea what they might be? With thick gardening gloves on I could just get 3 on my hand, they were easily 6/7 cms long.

you can get them frozen from Casino and also tinned. Why can't you eat the ones in your garden? Haven't you seen the french picking them in the hedgerows after a rain-shower? Snails with garlic&parsley butter in flaky pastry - yummy :)