Joanl

you are wonderful, brilliant.......    how stupid of me, I have been going mad trying to get sorted & you hit the nail on the head. I thought I was losing my sanity , can now get on with the rest of my life, sounds sad, but I am one of those people who has to finish what I have started before getting on with the next thing.        thank you, thank you , thank you, to both you and Ecossais for leading me to such a succesful conclusion. joan

thank you for your reply, yes I have Vodaphone 3g with a uk contract, and the roaming facility enabled. I changed the outgoing server in Outlook express to send.vodaphone.net but it did not work. I have phoned the service department but they said they had no information on sending emails through outlook express, my laptop is not wi-fi but I was thinking of buying a dongle or whatever it is called, we are travelling through Spain, and will not know whether I am going to be near a wi-fi hotspot, people say I should pick the phone up, but my dear old Dad likes to receive my twice a week email, bless him. Is the vodaphone 3g datacard wi-fi as well can you tell me. I can get on to the internet & receive emails but still no luck in sending them. I have looked into writing them online but with the speed I type will still be online after an hour. I would have p.m. you but I don't know how to do that. I would very much appreciate you sending me down the instructions on how to change my settings, great idea about switching off the virus and Microsoft updates, I would have been in a right tizz if they had kicked in. thank you for your help,  joan

Is it possible to use Outlook Express for sending emails via my english 3g modem card connection on my laptop, normally I just use dial up connection at home here in France with my wanadoo isp. Will be doing a lot of travelling and will not be plugged into a phone socket, thought the 3g would be the answer, ,but at the moment it is not allowing me to send via outlook express , happily lets me receive my emails though. I can also access the web with no problems. Having to go online to write my emails would be a very expensive hobby methinks. I must be doing something wrong, but what ?? please help me , am getting in a right old tizz, thank you,  joan

Can anyone please tell me what the regulations are for towing a small car behind a french reg Hymer motorhome, we have discovered a car would be very handy to have on our trips here in France.             joan

I have been able to source shelled peanuts in the Uk. Thank you all very much for your suggestions, in the end I was lucky to find someone bringing stuff over from Uk, they kindly offered to bring me back 2 x 25kg sacks of shelled peanuts, and a bag for themselves,  which I had delivered to their address in England. The peanuts were just under £25 a bag, and that included delivery to any address in Uk. If anyone is interested the link to the supplier is http://www.wildbirdfood.uk.com/acatalog/Plain_Seeds_and_Peanuts.html     joan

Does anyone know where I can buy shelled peanuts for the garden birds, it is prohibitive to have them shipped out from Uk, I usually buy 25kgs at a time. My birds have already got through the stock I brought from Uk,  although I also buy sunflower seeds in bulk from my local co-operative, the birds prefer their peanuts. We are not going back again this year , so getting desperate. My co-op can only supply me peanuts with shells, I don't fancy sitting shelling them all, and can not face the idea of clearing up after the birds have pecked their way through. Thanks, joan

please can you share your recipes with me, it is so hard to find chutney here, I am good at jam making, but need chutney more, thank you joan

please could you let me have your recipes, I need to make chutneys, which are hard to find here. thank you,  joan

Have you tried Leader Price poitrine fume, it is the nearest you can get to waterless english bacon, it is streaky, but oh it is so tasty, and the left over fat is really good for roast potatoes.  Joan .

I have found this site www.flogit.ws recently, it is France based, english, & works along the lines of ebay, very new with not a lot on offer at the moment, have bought a couple of things & the whole procedure was very easy.    no personal interest or otherwise ,    joan  

I bought a windows english xp from ebay with legit key, loaded it on my laptop, then after reformatting the hard drive on my desk top (which I had bought with french xp) loaded the said english xp with french key, went on no problem & working well. joan

Hya, Swiss Life Group ( France ) ( Societe suisse ) have their own offices & their policies are also sold by brokers. I live in 24 & used a Swiss Life Office on the outskirts west of Perigueux. Swiss Life  used to sponsor the Meteo on T1 before the 8p.m. news,  they are a national company, headquarters in Paris. They also do motor & house insurance at very competitive prices, we aim by next year to have all our insurance with them. They have different formulas for health to choose from, also formulas for seniors..61 to 80. I also received Swiss Life health quotes & actual policy details in english from a broker in Bordeaux.  Prices vary for the type of cover you need or want, we were quoted between 71,39e for the cheapest formula  up to 105,65e for the dearest formula per month for the 2 of us aged 57 & 62. These prices include the discount offered us, & it is up to us to choose which formula we want.  The broker in Bordeaux was slightly more expensive, but feel sure we could have got his prices down to the same as the actual Swiss Sante office.      Hope this helps.   joan

Did you know that dogs can have a hard time with harvest mite bites, my poor little westie is suffering again this year, another trip to the vets for some treatment to soothe her paws & tummy.  joan

I had a very good one in 16, at La Rochefoucald behind the town hall, 6 Rue de L'Aumonerie,   tel. no.05 45 63 02 55, I only had to wait a couple of weeks for appointment. She speaks good english.  joan

We have had an interesting year comparing prices between most mutuels offering "complementaire sante", We have been with Axa 2 years, they are not health insurance specialists. We have found Swiss Life to be the most competitive. make sure you get a reduction for being British, our agent informed us that "english people very rarely make claims & thus they could offer discount". Beware!!! a lot of insurance companies like Axa want 3 months notice, when we went for Swiss Life they presumed 2 months was the norm, & did not get the notice to terminate out in time, we have had to make do with a policy for another year that gives us less than half the cover we were offered by Swiss Life.  joan

I also suffer from this condition. My french doctor wants me to have a blood test every 6 months to make sure that the pills are doing the job,& whether I need more or less medication. The doctors in France cannot give repeat prescriptions for longer than 3 months at a time, & for certain drugs only 1 month at a time, they can be brought up in front of a tribunal & fined heavily if they do not abide by this rule. joan

I told the Eurotunnel Points phone person that I wanted my son to use my points for a return trip, no problems at all, he just took my son's name & I think I emailed the booking confirmation to my son so he could present it at the check in booth. I gave my son my points card just in case he wanted to buy anything at the terminal. joanL

I would not advise anyone with a beloved pet dog to skimp on the tick treatment, we use Frontline Combo pipettes, last year our pet contracted the tick disease, we had only just moved to 24 & had not been warned to Frontline every month. we were so lucky our vet was able to test the blood immediately, which diagnosed the disease, antibiotics & injections followed, we were fortunate, once the disease takes hold a dog can be dead in 3 days. I use the spray on the paws & under the chin in the summer, as it is also common in this area for dogs to pick up a red spider mite which causes a lot of problems. Our vet also suggested a vaccine which is 70% effective. That will be a yearly thing, I am not skimping on any sort of treatment available after seeing how my pet detiorated so quickly. joan

LAST EDITED ON 06-Jul-04 AT 12:31 PM (BST) LAST EDITED ON 06-Jul-04 AT 12:30PM (BST) We brought over our Ifor Williams power tip trailer 2 years ago, did not need any paperwork for it to be towed on the back of our car. We phoned a very nice lady in France for certificate of conformity which was necessary for the carte grise. The chap at Ifor Williams in Wales, tel no 01490 412626, gave me the phone number to ring for this. If you give him the serial number he should be able to look up his records to give you a duplicate invoice. I needed a security number as well, but don't remember where this came from. To get in touch with the agent in France Tel. No 03 214 700 60 they needed a copy of utility bill, copy of purchase invoice, and a cheque for 100 euros before they could issue the certificate, which arrived a few weeks later. The carte grise was no problem after that, just went to the Prefecture with the documents. good luck, joan

LAST EDITED ON 18-Apr-04 AT 05:31 PM (GMT) My Westie has been getting ticks most days (24) we give the monthly frontline combo treatment but she unfortunately picked up a nastie one, and caught the piri... disease, signs which we did not take seriously, lethargic, not eating, then on the 2nd day, very feverish , 3rd day took her to vet who took a scrapng from her ear, had it lab tested, and confirmed the disease had taken hold, loads of injections & tablets and told to hope for the best, signs not good, next day back to vet as there was no improvement, more blood tests, confirmed the disease had gone to kidney, more injections & tablets, and told 50/50 chance of recovery. She recovered much to the amazement of the vet. But be warned, the disease once caught will kill within a matter of days without treatment. I discovered that there is an annual injection which will further protect against the disease, but you need to ask for it. Our mistake... we had been giving frontline for dogs up to 10kgs, my Westie weighs in at 9.5kg, really on the borderline, we now treat her with the higher dosage, and so far not 1 single tick has attached itself whereas before they were always attaching & needed to be detached with the hook. Good luck to everyone in the tick areas, & I hope you do not have to go through the same experience as we did. Joan.

Thank you for that, I have sent a copy of this to my West Highland Terrier magazine, it will bring comfort to so many who have lost there well loved pets. Joan