YCCMB

Hey, Mint! Among a collection of photos of Gilets Jaunes graffiti that I've just been scrolling through on Facebook: "Moins de rois, plus de galettes!"

I'm a bit ambivalent about those kinds of sweet things... Can't necessarily discipline myself not to eat them, but can't say I like them especially. That says more about my willpower than anything else!

Luckily, mince pies get phased out much earlier! In fact, there are already signs of the odd Easter egg.

It's gone beyond logic and reason now, and out the other side. It's all knee jerk emotional twiddle. Nobody who tries to apply any logic is really being listened to, sadly. Ken Clarke and a few others are voices in the wilderness. I watched a bloke who was definitely a good bit younger than me on the lunchtime news (the 10 seconds I managed to tolerate) saying how he wanted Britain to become self-sufficient, successful and yada, yada, yada "like we used to be" and I just wondered how he knew, given that from his age he couldn't have been alive when any of that was the case. I suspect that few, if any people who are alive today can remember when Britain was actually "Great" in any real sense.

It's all here: https://www.legipermis.com/legislation/comment-recuperer-des-points.html Specifically:https://www.legipermis.com/infractions/non-respect-du-stop.html#combien-de-temps-pour-recuperer-4-points-stop 3 years from your last offence.

We had pyracantha at our last house, growing up by the side of the front door. All I can say is that the flowers smell like dead people. I guess if your hedge is far enough away from your house, it's not a problem.

Laurel?

Gardian..even worse is the general trend towards "ordinary people". I hate it. Who, pray, are the "extraordinary people"? How does anyone know if they're ordinary or not? Or, more pertinently, who isn't an ordinary person?

But in this case they're not "working in France". Legitimately, international removals companies do what their name suggests. They undertake international removals. It's just that they can do them more cheaply if they are able to fill up their truck on the way back as well as outbound. They are covered/insured/operating legitimately in doing so, because they have to be in the first place. Check out any of their websites (including the French companies, cos they do the same thing the other way round) and you'll find they tell you just that.

Yep, they are. It's a bit the removals company equivalent of saying you hope Tesco know how to sell veg.

Of course...not quite got the hang of Eurotunnel after only 25 years of using it.... We normally travel at off peak times. We do. It's much easier to do on our outward journey where we have only a short drive to the tunnel. It's a bit more difficult, timing-wise, on the return leg,when we've got to time our arrival at the tunnel at the end of an eight-hour drive. Frankly, though, recent "off-peak" experience has been, if anything, worse, given that it seems pretty evident that Eurotunnel will pull trains and consolidate crossings if they feel it's not worth their while running the service. I've spent as long, if not longer, sitting and waiting for non-existent trains and being delayed by a couple of hours as a result, as I have sitting in queues at busier times. Frankly, it's not acceptable when you've got up at 3am to get an early crossing and you then end up waiting a couple of extra hours because of a "technical fault" thinly disguising a consolidation of several crossings. And, given the 25 years of using Eurotunnel, last Saturday was the first and only time I've actually experienced the level of organisation we had. Normally they do next to nothing to ease the situation at busy times. In my obviously very limited experience, of course.

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On a separate, but possibly related note, we experienced for the first time last Saturday an attempt on the Calais side to make sense of the chaos that usually ensues during "busy periods". On previous occasions, it's just been mayhem and more often than not a missed crossing slot, even arriving well in advance, as not enough booths are manned at check in, passport or security, resulting in massive tailbacks. When we arrived last Saturday, we were filtered off into a holding area, away from the entrance booths, directed to a holding car park where we were put into queue lines relative to the crossing we had booked, and in due course filters back to the check-in booths. Here, the queues were only allowed to progress once there was no longer a queue for the passport/security booths on the other side. OK, there was waiting involved, but it was a well-ordered and relatively painless process compared to our previous half dozen experiences, and indeed resulted in us getting a slightly earlier train than the one we'd booked. Who knows, perhaps this is a system which will be used to manage the process in the event it's required after Brexit, and they're practising using it now to see how well it works?

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^^^^ ???

Hahaha! Cendrillon, am still recovering from the ad for a bookshelf on one local site. Clearly the writer wasn't using their first language, for they were endeavouring to sell a "b I t ch wood bookcase" ??

@mint.. I never take panettone anywhere. I buy it and eat it in the privacy of my own home where I don't need to share! ?

ALBF, LOL!..just saying, but there are doubtless many on here who absolutely, categorically and unequivocally know a LOT more about the pain of childbirth than you can ever know. Why, I even suspect that many will tell you that it is perfectly possible to have a baby without wanting or needing an epidural! Imagine that!

In answer to the original question, mint; you could substitute "galette des rois " with "mince pies", "Christmas pudding", "Bûche de Noël" or "Christmas cake" and probably find the same. There's a good reason why we are only subjected to these things for the briefest of periods each year. On a purely personal note, I'd make an exception for panettone. That is all.

Interestingly, a French friend has just sold her house to a Parisien family who intend to use it as a holiday home. This is interesting because she had agreed a sale previously to the daughter and son in law of a mutual British friend. They subsequently pulled out of the sale, having knocked her down quite a bit on the price. The reason was that the fosse had been deemed inadequate. This in turn was purely because she's created two extra bedrooms in the roof space, and it was deemed that the fosse was thus too small. I have it on good authority that the Brits were secretly hoping she'd find it hard to sell the house and that at some future date they could come back with an even lower offer and secure the house. Since then, she has had two offers, both from French buyers, and both at a much higher price. She has accepted one and signed the compromis. It's a funny old world.

"I’m from Manchester, we are naturally cynical and don’t spend money easily" I'm from Bolton. I know ?? The other thing I would say, just cos I can, is...think hard about being out in the sticks to the extent that you have to drive five miles to get a loaf. It's lovely for a while. That's all.

Sherlocked, you're lovely. You're also super rare. Normally, people come to forums like this with a totally harebrained scheme, which they've already made up their minds to do, hoping that total strangers will tell them they're a brilliant visionary and should press on with said harebrained scheme regardless of any advice to the contrary. Sadly, over many years of trying to advise people to be sensible against their better judgment, many posters have developed a bit of a tendency to push the point home a bit forcefully. This is not a reflection on you or them, but simply the result of years of trying to be helpful whilst realising that you can't always save people from themselves. I doubt anyone thinks you're a numpty, but you have to make some allowances for people who have become used to their genuine and well meant advice being frequently ignored. If you'd been here fifteen years ago, you could well have witnessed a massive fight kick off, as the minority people with sensible advice to beware were rounded upon by the "everything in France is wonderful" contingent, who couldn't countenance any vaguely negative viewpoint, no matter how valid. Best of luck in your search.

Congratulations. You may be some time, I take it. ?

I don't know how much tv you watch, mint, or how much English language radio you listen to. I confess, now the Christmas ceasefire has finished, to being all Brexited out. Not even the fragrant Benevolent Cucumberpatch could entice me to watch a drama about Brexit for entertainment, on top of having it rammed down my throat by the media from sunrise to sunset and beyond every blessed day.

^^^^ when even the bots and spammers can't post a link ????