Loiseau

I am sure that there are a few other such cases but off the top of my (tired) head I can only think of 'amour' which has a similar shifty bisexual nature .... --------------------------------------------------- Yes, if I remember rightly, "amour", "délice" and "orgue" are M in the singular and F in the plural.   Angela

I use free.fr successfully when in France, and have configured it so that my outgoing emails carry my usual (UK) email address. If you know your French phone number, you can start the sign-up process on www.free.fr before you go, and hopefully the password etc that they send you will be waiting in your (real) letterbox when you next get there. As stated above, it's best *not* to use the installation disk they send you; it might upset the settings on your laptop.  Once they have given you the local-rate dialup number and password and you have selected your username, that's all you should need. You need a lead with the French telephone plug at one end, and at the other the tiny square plug that fits into a port at the back of your laptop. (I know somebody here is going to come right back with the technical term for this plug!). You could buy it at a local computer shop, or large electrical shop. Angela

What am I doing here?  I should be doing the ironing! No, I don't know the JC Dunn book, but will look out for it...  Many thanks for the suggestion. A

They've just copied my hard work ? But I copied other stuff. So what, exactly is the copyright position ? ---------------------------------------------------------- Peter, when you were compiling your list of markets surely you just looked up the day of the week for each market and added it to your list?   You could have rung each tourist office, or  mairie for the same information.  It couldn't be copyright, surely?  It's just a fact.  But when you have researched and created a list, and somebody lifts the whole lot from your page, without acknowledgement it seems to me that that is a different story.  I have compiled a load of Vendée-related links (with a few of my own comments alongside) on my website, and I have seen them copied-and-pasted into one or two other sites.  I haven't said anything, as usually the sites have already made a link to mine from some other page. However, I once found a lyrical description of Les Sables-d'Olonne on somebody's holiday-letting site.  It did have a familiar ring to it, and when I checked I found it was my own description, verbatim, from my book!  No acknowledgement, no recommendation, no link... So I did send the owners a stiff email, and they have now withdrawn it. Had they contacted me first to ask permission and offered a little plug for my book in exchange, then I would certainly have agreed. Angela www.the-vendee.co.uk

Yes, it's something like you can build a wall on the boundary, but a hedge must be planted 50cm (or perhaps 1m) within it.  Essential to check. Angela

That link didn't work for me, Dick.  From searching amazon.fr for +lettres +poilus I have found the following, which must be the one: Paroles de Poilus : Lettres et carnets du front, 1914-1918 (1 décembre 2003) de Jean-Pierre Guéno, et al -- Poche Habituellement expédié sous 24 h Notre prix :  EUR 1,90 Neuf et d'occasion à partir de EUR 1,90          Yes, "Tommy" is wonderful.  And also Malcolm Brown's "Tommy Goes to War".   Angela

I can recommend the anthology "In Flanders Fields: Poetry of the First World War", editied by George Walter (Penguin Allen Lane, 2004). The Herefordshire village of Dymock, near Ledbury was home for a time to several of the "war poets": Robert Frost, Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke, Lascelles Abercrombie, John Drinkwater and Wilfrid Gibson. The parish church has a permanent display about their lives there, and of course about their work. The Dymock Poets produced a journal, in which Brooke's "The Soldier" was published for the first time.  More info on http://www.dymockpoets.co.uk/ Not poetry, but another recommendation is "Les Croix de Bois" by Roland Dorgelès, a profoundly moving novel based on Dorgelès' own experiences as a "poilu" in the trenches. Angela (85 and UK)

Love the poem, but think Sassoon deserves to be in the Guinness Book of Records for longevity...   Angela

I did see someone at a meeting this week pour himself some elderflower cordial and top it up with fizzy water - must have tasted strange.   But that's *delicious* Dick!  Why should it taste strange?  Well, perhaps if you topped up with horrid, salty Badoit.  But with something pretty tasteless like Perrier, Highland Spring and so on it's even better than with "eau plate". Angela

I have got exactly Cathy's recipe for elderflower cordial, BUT it also has 2 ounces of citric acid in it! Last year when I made some in France, I did manage to buy "acide citrique" in a nearby pharmacie.  As already stated, it does come loose in France rather than in those small pre-packed boxes, so you have to say how many grammes you need.  I wanted to make quite a lot, and the first pharmacie couldn't let me have much.  So I had to get the rest from another chemist's. Each one chatted quite a bit about what I wanted it for, and I merrily told them about the cordial, and exactly how it is made.  Only later did a friend tell me that drug-addicts use citric acid nowadays to "cut" heroin, or something - so the quizzing was no doubt to screen me for that, rather than out of what I took to be a genuine interest in elderflower cordial! Angela

We once stayed in an antiquated hotel in rural Chile, and were surprised to see a number of clear polythene bags of water (each about the size of a large freezer bag) suspended along the lower edge of the verandah roof, about 2 metres apart. The owner told us that it was an anti-fly measure; apparently flies wouldn't fly between the bags. Weird or what? Angela

As luck would have it, I happened to pick up a map of French golf courses at the French Govt Tourist Office in Piccadilly yesterday! The closest courses look to be at : - Vire (N of Mortain) - Condé-sur-Noireau (midway between Mortain and Caen) - near Messel (E of Mortain, and perhaps the closest) - and around Bagnoles-de-l'Orne (SE of Mortain) And there seem to be a clutch of three near the west coast of the Cotentin, north of Granville. I am afraid it doesn't give their names or any other details though. Angela  

Just to go back to the baby-listening devices (though I know Coco has decided against going down that road now)... Some friends of ours who had one many years ago used to place a ticking clock near the baby's end of the alarm. This meant that at the parents' end you could always hear the ticking, and therefore know that the device was working - even if the baby didn't cry. Angela

Glad that it twanged the right cord, M! Is there a large collection of Etaples paintings in Melbourne then?  At the NVG perhaps? Or maybe they were just touring exhibitions that you saw? A

There was  a "School of Etaples" - quite a flourishing artistic colony there from 1880-1914. It included Eugene Bernard (the Musee Quentovic at Etaples has some lovely sketches of sailing smacks, and of men climbing rigging).  Also works by Hilda Rix Nicholas (Australian, 1884-1961) http://www.deutschermenzies.com.au/cgi/dmcatalogue.cgi?rm=display_lot&item_id=3722 and by another Australian, Baker Clack (Arthur). http://www.zip.com.au/~pounder/jean_claude_lesage.htm Rather prosaically, it seems the artists were attracted by the convenience of the Paris-Etaples railway line, as well as by the light and the picturesqueness of the Etaples fishing industry (now based at Boulogne) There are some works by painters of the same period at the Musee du Touquet (in Le Touquet). http://www.mincoin.com/php1/touq49l.php The excellent museum at Berck, a bit farther south, has a wonderful collection of paintings of the same period, including examples by Ludovic Le Pic (1839-89), a friend of Degas. http://membres.lycos.fr/cradc/art_et_histoire.htm Also, today at the "Boston Impressionists" exhibition at the Royal Academy I saw a Boudin painting of Berck, lent by the Fine Arts Museum, Boston.  Angela

I stayed in a French B&B recently where a young Belgian couple also staying there had a baby-listening device like that. The bedroom where the baby slept was a considerable distance away, on the first floor at the far end of a wing of the house situated at right-angles to the part where the dining room was.  Seemed to work fine.  Angela    

With Navigator 3 I cannot choose ‘via’ locations therefore my TomTom may suggest a different route to what I would choose – I think rectified with ‘TomTom Go’. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ecossais, to go back to your comment on page 1: I find that I can program any route I want with TT3, by using the "itinerary" option (see below).  I can weave through the countryside using the most twisty back roads.  I know it sounds a bizarre requirement, but I am researching a guidebook, so it's an extremely useful facility. I use my TomTom 3 with an HP ipaq, bought 12 months ago in the UK.  I needed the France maps too - and of course had to fork out £100-plus for the *whole* of Europe just to get those.  I had a lot of problems learning to use it properly, as the instructions are minimal, and I do seem to have to reboot it quite often (several times a day, sometimes). I originally intended to have a built-in navigator in my car, but the model I ordered could not take it for some reason. Now I am glad I have the freestanding device, as I can take it indoors to program it for the next day's journey, or can shove it in my bag and take it to France if I want to use it in the car I keep there (or even in a hire car). Once you have selected "itinerary" using the drop-down box near the top left of screen, you get a screen saying that no itinerary is planned - but not giving you any idea how to go about it!  I have finally cracked it, though! First, you set your *final* destination by clicking on the chequered flag with + underneath it (at bottom of screen); then from the next set of icons select "home", or a "favourite", or an address. Next, set the penultimate location by tapping the chequered flag again, and selecting as before. And so on. Instead of tapping on the ch.flag, you can tap on the word "map", and then pinpoint a location manually, press and hold that point and then select "add to itinerary", and it should show up on the itinerary screen. (Be careful that you have pinpointed it accurately, though; I have sometimes had "Jane" carefully navigate me into a farmyard, just because my "selection" was a tiny bit off.) If you have any of the locations in the wrong order, you can highlight that entry and then use up or down arrows (at bottom of screen) to move it to the right position. Once you have fed in all the waypoints you want, you click on the word "navigate" at the bottom of the Itinerary screen, and off you go.   No question, "Jane" is now my best friend on my travels. (I have just come back from a weekend in Yorkshire, during which she has faithfully navigated me over hill and dale, motorway and single-track country lane.)  Angela  

Just to be pedantic, I think it's written "stère" (though of course pronounced exactly like stair!) Angela

Thanks CK!  I have just signed up with their annual Europe-wide breakdown service for about £15 less than RAC. Angela

Oh dear. There are so many ifs and buts... - I would take the Saga deal, but I need my car insured for my daughter as well, who is in her 30s... - I have seen the Eurotunnel offer, too; will consider that when I next make a booking. - Shall probably go for using the Lloyds Platinum (free) for the travel insurance, plus an RAC European breakdown service (not at all free!) for the car. Thank you so much, everyone, for the input.  I hoped someone had found something like the now vanished Rescue France Direct, but plainly it was too good a deal for anyone else to copy! Angela (UK, 85 and sometimes 59/62/80 !)

I'm OK once I get to France as there are no high bridges from Boulogne to the Charente apart from a couple of short viaducts which I have learnt to avoid, ... -------------- Don't like to worry you, Zeb, but there is a colossal viaduct at Echinghen, just east of Boulogne, on the A16!   But maybe you have found a way to avoid it by perhaps keeping on the N road until you reach the next junction south... Angela

Good thought about RAC, Dick.  I'll check. I do have the possibility of Lloyds travel cover too, but I think it's valid only if you pay for your holiday using your direct-debit card, and I usually use my *credit* card (which picks up a few Air Miles).   A

For the last few years I have organised cover with Rescue France Direct, paying an annual premium to provide medical cover AND vehicle breakdown cover for visits to France. During the last 12 months, during the validity of my policy, RFD was taken over by another company, which claimed to be offering the same cover on the same emergency phone number.  However, now that they have sent a renewal form, I see that they do not cover the vehicle. Can anyone recommend a company that offers the same deal as Rescue France Direct used to?  (If this is deemed to be advertising, perhaps you should send me a private email...) Thanks in advance Angela (UK & 85)

Hi FA Your instructions were spot-on, except that in paragraph (a) it didn't say *what* to type in the box (hence my question higher up this thread).  I know it was semi-obvious from what it said later, in paragraph (b), but we non-techies do need a LOT of hand-holding when we are doing intimate things to our computers... (For the record, I used the first of the two options) It was also obviously necessary to restart the computer for the changes to take effect.  I thought this would be the case, but didn't bother to restart yesterday as I was using it a lot.  So only this morning can I appreciate having all your lovely names restored... Thanks again Angela

Phew!  I've got them back again now, after following those instructions, and now that I have restarted my computer. Thanks everybody - especially Dick, for the helpful spelling correction Angela