Jeremy

Dear Michelle, Sounds interesting, but you will find shops reluctant to hold your purchases in storage for you. Best would be to see if you can ask who you are buying from if you can store stuff in a garage/store or part of the house? Or ask on the forums, this and others if anyone has dry storage in the area for a specific term. Beds here are a pain and more expensive than UK. Good furniture( though not antique) can be found by trawling Brocantes and at a reasonable price.Antiques tend to be over priced. No one delivers either for free, so beware that one as if you purchase from a lot of places you can be asked for a lot of delivery charges, typically 45 euros a go... Anyway, think it through as it does all take up a lot of time.Good hunting, Jeremy.

For the size you say, approx costs, Charpente, around 10.000 euros and tiling, assuming new, around 15,000. Good luck.

I am not sure where I posted the last request, but will try again here. I need a small boat/dinghy for the large pond we have. I have promised my boys I will get one before summer..... SO, ANYONE out there have one for sale at a reasonable price PLEASE. No motor needed, just oars, no sails either, but it must float! Thanks Jeremy, near Caen.

Good morning Brits, I have been asked to let all my English friends know of a house for sale, near |Flers Normandy.I know not a lot as it was a casual remark which got taken too seriously so now I have to act upon it. I will state that I have NO financial interest in this at all and so will be short, but pleasant to anyone who wants more.... I have some plans which show about 45m carre of building, stone, tiled roof , one storey with do-able loft. Looks reasonable, but no photos inside? Detached, in garden and land about 5000M +. (2 fields look like they are paddocks.) The FRENCH owners, are selling privately and are asking 122,000 euros.No agent involved so you would have to deal direct. I have a phone number and address etc so if you want these e-mail me and I will pass on what I can. OK, Done, Hope this is in the right place, too tired to really be bothered, so goodnight Jeremy, Caen.

Call in an artisan, it will be only about a 1 year wait... No not really; but you can DIY as long as you have a bit of common. First the spur can be extended but each  line should feed no more than 5 sockets... so if you have 4 then continue your spur by an additional 1. Soooo easy n'est pas??? But more than that and then yes you do need to put in a new line from the board ( and a seperate fuse!). Be safe though..... Best wishes Jeremy

we have used Andrew Booth. Very good chap, English, but with all the French qualifications and a French wife. So he maybe uses her to do all the translations. Anyway he has been good and at reasonable costs. He seems to travel all over France so may be worth an e-mail or call. His e-mail is : [email protected] and phone number: o2 33 71 9755 Hope he is free.... Regards, Jeremy

we have considered the geothermal system as our French plumber reckons it would cost at 2 euros per metre square per annm to hear our 400 m 2 house. Trouble is he has already installed the new Oil fired boiler at a cost of 10,000 euros.. Thanks a lot. He has said a soil heat recovery boiler and bits and bobs would have been about the same cost..... But he is very sorry to forget to mention it. He will change the system if we want, for 10K euros..... Good Luck.

to add a note, we bought a range cooker in UK 110 rangemaster, and got a 5 year warranty covered by DARTY in France as they are part of curry  group in UK.Also being  rangemaster all the jets for lpg were supplied gratis. For the electric double ovens, we put in a 20 amp supply from the fuse board to JUST the cooker..Works very well. On the cheaper side, when we first came here I bought a really cheap gas cooker from BUT in Caen, and it was a lifesaver. It now serves the family guest rooms very well and is cheap to run. Happy shopping whatever jeremy.

Wanted, small boat or dinghy, preferably one that floats, our old one now sinks very rapidly... Does anyone out there (near Caen), know of any for sale as the children are getting fed up baling out the old dinghy..I have seen loads in UK at very reasonable prices,secondhand, but its the logistics problem.. So ,anyone??? Thanks, jeremy and children.

I think that says it all n'est pas? Jeremy

Well what a surprise. French plumbing being a problem... To stop your Gurgling you will need to somehow retro fit a soil vent system of some type.There are many. A GOOD plumber will be able to sort it and if it is internal can fit a balanced flue type vent which can be boxed in ( to hide it) and wont allow smells back in the house... Good luck. Jeremy

it must be your approach then. the rest of us are too nice and trying not to upset anyone.

I have to agree with Teamedup and others who have had mostly negatives in customer sevices here in France.On the whole the service ( serving) staff are polite, if not curt when they realise you are a rost beefy.BUT when u try to return anything most will wriggle and wriggle till the cows come home, and not pay back a centime.. It shows in the sales where you see all the notices pinned up saying, (translated roughly).NO refunds, returns or exchanges on sale goods for ANY reason. So get stuffed all of you. That to me is their attitude, and I am not sorry to say it; just sorry to see it.France is where UK/ USA were about 20 years ago in customer relations, taxes and a lot of other things. VERY shortsighted.A bit like the pensions crisis really...... Getting uptight now so will go and cool down,

We have been here for 14 months and still have not had a water bill, (Caen). We did get a proposed bill, which I queried as it showed a charge for waste water as well as water supplied. We are too low to be on mains drains and have been on Fosse since year dot! They sent a chap round within 2 days to check out wether we were telling porkys or not and he confirmed there and then that he would be reporting back as NOT on mains drainage.. Since then,4 months, not a peep, so we will wait and see.I will post the cost per CM when I find out. Jeremy

Lleylandii would not survive , or would for a while, then would look awful if they got scorched by th ewinds.. Eleagnus would be a much better and nicer alternative, i agree. Spelling is terrible I know but wot the heck...