Loiseau

Brilliant, Paul!  I had already tried that, but you gave me increased confidence that I was on the right track! My fault for using such antiquated equipment!  I can't find my battery-operated one, so had had to resort to the faithful Yankee...   Angela

Sorry, this is rather pathetic of me, but I can't remember how to change the bits on a Yankee screwdriver... I have found the bigger bit that I want to use, but can I work out how to get the current one out and fit the new one... Thanks in advance for any step-by-step advice Angela

Interesting about the facilities, Mjc...  I used Rochefort recently, having never used either it or La Rochelle before.  It was *tiny*!  Well OK, it had a loo and a small bar counter (though I was glad I had taken a picnic, as it was beseiged by would-be customers), and a portakabin outside that held the car-hire companies temporarily. Is La Rochelle smaller than *that*?  Angela

From this site for La Rochelle airport, it looks as if Flybe is the only one using La Rochelle.  The site specifically says that Airlinair flights to Lyon, and Ryanair flights to "London" (if you can call Stansted London!), are rerouted to Rochefort. But it doesn't say that for the Flybe ones... Angela EDIT: Doh!  Sorry, forgot to put the link  http://www.larochelle.aeroport.fr/

Anybody still there for week of 2-7 Apr? I'm not a home-owner in the area but will be over for a few days at Beaurainville, with my sister-in-law, and would fancy a visit to Le Fournil one evening (anyone know what days of the week it might be closed, by the way?). Angela

I have fallen foul of "prochain", but in a different way... A friend's daughter called on a Tuesday and asked for a bed at my UK home for "jeudi prochain".  I jotted it down on my calendar for 9 days' time. Quelle horreur, while I was out at the cinema a couple of days later, the girl apparently arrived at my house!  The (new) neighbours didn't know me by then, and were of course unaware of my whereabouts, so they weren't very helpful to her.  Eventually she managed to contact a friend who had a job in London, and went off to sleep on his floor for the night.  I was unaware of any of this until the girl's mother rang from France a day or two later! So be very careful about "prochain", and always make sure you have understood whether it refers to "this Thursday" (i.e. of this week), or "next Thursday"...   Angela 

We were in your situation (though without the animosity), as my husband had three children from a previous marriage.  We were advised by a notaire to make a "donation entre époux" (presumably the same as the "donation au dernier vivant" mentioned above), to give the survivor the usufruct (the right to go on using our two houses, and their furniture).  This does not mean that the children won't get their cut eventually; it just means that they cannot force you to sell it while you still want to live in it. When my husband died, this did indeed seem to smooth the way for the notaire.  We were in the process of selling one of the houses, so this went through.  The children then *had* to have their cut of it; I effectively received just over three-quarters of the sale price. The notaire did advise me to buy the children out of the other house, that I was keeping, as he said you never know what lies down the line in the way of divorces etc.  I took his advice, and paid out just under a quarter of its market value - though I might have been more reluctant to do this had I not just sold that first house and had some disposable cash. You have to talk to a notaire about this - SOON.   (Sorry to be morbid, but a friend in France has just died very suddenly, and it makes me realise how we never know what's round the corner...) Angela

Hi George, Sorry I didn't thank you for your interesting reply.  As you probably guessed, I have so far wimped out of trying the flashdrive on my UK PC (not the one where the problem occurred), as I am in the middle of a project on it and didn't want to "rock the boat".  How pathetic is that? I'll let you know what transpires when I summon up the courage to give it a go... Many thanks again Angela

QUOTE ...We always offer a coffee and they always politely refuse, then we think, "now what?" and stumble through the next few hours in bad french, ...   Maybe it's like in the rural Vendée (my experience), where you offer somebody a drink, or a cup of coffee, and they politely say No, but if you ask them three times then they will accept on the third.  It seems to be a social ritual of some sort.  Perhaps they want to be sure they're wanted...  (Though it doesn't sound from your post, as if they are really!) Another twist to this is the occasion when you are invited round at tea-time or whatever, and then you sit and talk for hours and *hours* with no food or drink being produced.  This has happened to me often with one particular couple, and I would wear myself out with marathon talking to interpret for my husband and keep the conversation going on all sides. Eventually we would despair and get to our feet (still unfed or unquenched), saying: "Well it was lovely to see you, we really must be off."  Whereupon they will say "Oh don't go," and will then produce wonderful home-made cake, tea, coffee or whatever! It so runs counter to our British habit of feeling we have to offer food and drink to somebody the minute they have stepped through our door... Angela www.the-vendee.co.uk

Is that the one about the girl singer? If so, I have seen it in the UK (was the title "Look at Me"?) and thought it was so-so. Angela

I used my PNY 128MB flashdrive to take some files with me on a recent visit to France (where I have a second PC).  Like my UK machine, it's only running W98 so I also took the driver, necessary for those using W98, which I had already downloaded from the PNY website and had installed on my UK machine. Loaded the driver;  the French PC (don't be misled here, it's actually a UK-bought PC) recognised the new hardware ok; I copied the files I wanted from the flashdrive to the French PC.  Perfect. Then I started to copy some files that I wanted to take home *from* the French PC to the flashdrive.  Seemed fine.  But a bit later on - maybe I made a slightly clumsy manoeuvre while dragging files to the flash drive (shown as "removable drive E") - the whole computer screen suddenly went blue, and some disaster message came up.  I am afraid I can't remember the words, but the gist was that it couldn't go on copying, and I should press any key to return to Windows. It was one of those vicious circles, where you can't actually get it to do anything else useful, so I rebooted the computer (still with the flashdrive plugged in).  Opened up all right.  But when I looked in Windows Explorer for the flashdrive, thinking that a reboot would have fixed the problem, that "removable drive E" was no longer shown. I unplugged the flashdrive from the USB port, and plugged it in again . . . and the screen instantly went bright blue again; same scenario! I went through the rebooting process again, and then moved the flashdrive into the *other* USB port. Same scenario... I notice a new folder has appeared in the Windows Explorer "tree" entitled "Recycled"; it doesn't show as a normal yellow folder icon, but the sort of icon bearing a little Windows logo on it when your computer reckons it hasn't got the software to open that file.  I clicked on it nonetheless and found loads of files, which seem to be the ones I had been trying to copy onto the flashdrive. Apart from that, the French PC was working OK on all other applications. I am now back in the UK, bearing the flashdrive, but don't dare to plug it into my UK PC again in case it does the same thing. Can anybody explain what went wrong?  Will it recur now I am back on the other PC (on which it was working perfectly before, by the way). Is it a fault with the flashdrive itself?  Should I take it back to the shop where I bought it?  Or is it "operator trouble"?  Thanks in advance! Angela

That restaurant sounds tempting! I am going to be exploring the Beaurainville area too, in early April! Angela

Hmmm.  Sounds vile! I'm not usually remotely neurotic about food hygiene, but isn't there a lot of concern these days over using the same chopping board for ham as you have just used for raw chicken, or over allowing any liquid from uncooked chicken to drip onto other things in your fridge.    Angela

Gosh, I think that would make my head spin too much and I probably wouldn't book at all!  Sorry. If you really want to persist with the discount/no discount idea, I'd suggest: "For an immediate confirmed reservation at published prices, click book now. For less urgent reservation requests (response within 24 hours, and offering a 2% discount on the published price), click reservation enquiry. For bookings within a month of the peak seasons (usually Easter, and July/August), it's best to use the "book now" facility (see above); even if the response (?) shows no availability, we may still sometimes be able to make a room available." ...and I would start each variation on a new line. Not sure what your would-be customer sees on hitting "book now" and finding "no availability", hence my (?). Angela

Anyone know the phone number? ------------------------------------- 08701 601 070 Booking lines are open from 9am to 5pm every day until Wed April 13.  (The paper adds helpfully that quieter times to phone are between noon and 3pm) Bookings must be made at least 14 days before departure, but not more than 60 days prior to your return date.   Angela

Slight correction to that website: it's http://www.somme-tourisme.com/uk/   Angela

Thanks for the input, folks. Cathy, I tried what you suggested, and indeed I did have the Reply slots empty, so I put the appropriate From addresses in them, but it has not made any difference  :-( So Mazan, I guess you are right (as ever!).  I just have to *always* look before pressing "send", to make sure I have selected the right From address every time I have hit a Reply button...   Angela  

.....and the wonderful Challans market, you lucky things!   Enviously Angela

OK.  I've got today's (Tues):  BEACH Angela

Well Georges Clemenceau and his dad managed it; they are buried under a tree at the family property near Mouchamps (85).  So a precedent has been set... Angela

  I have recently created several identities within Outlook Express (along the lines of [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] etc), so that when my work falls into different spheres, I can direct incoming mail automatically to the right folders as it arrives.  And I can also write to people with a From heading appropriate to the topic I am working on.  This is working well.    When composing a new email, the window always brings up the default identity [email protected] as the sender (which is fine, as that’s what I use most of the time anyway).  Of course, should I want to compose a  new email as if from one of the other identities, I just select the one I want in the drop-down "From" window.  No problem there, either.   However, when I am replying to an email sent to me at [email protected] by clicking “reply”, I am finding that – unless I am quick enough to notice it and change it -  the reply goes as if from [email protected]/  This is very confusing for the recipients, of course!  It always switches itself to the same one (i.e. always showing the bbb address), not sometimes to the bbb one and sometimes to the ccc one.   Have I made that sound very confusing?  Sorry.   Can anyone suggest how I can sort it out?  I have checked the default setting in Tools-Accounts, and it is still shown as the aaa one.  I am using MS Outlook Express 6.   Many thanks in advance   Angela    

This looks like it http://www.iaat.org/telechargement/britanniques.pdf Apparently a major reason for moving to France is "le brouillard anglais". Angela

Today's (Sat) Daily Telegraph has the beginning of a special offer for Eurostar/TGV trips to the French provinces. You have to collect tokens from a succession of Telegraphs over the next week or so.  Then you could get a return trip for £50, it says.   Angela

I've been using Primus Telecom for cheap calls abroad from France. Rates are shown here: http://www.primustel.fr/index.asp?th=2&t=1&prod=1 There's a very helpful English chap in the Lot or somewhere who acts as agent.  I could probably dig his email address out if anyone were interested. Angela

"Regarding the letter, I remember that in the early days of the forum a lady (and forum user) called Maggie Mortimer did something similar with P&O. I'm not sure if we can get anything about that from the archives - though I do recall I had something about on a previous version of our site. Maggie's campaign even got coverage in the Times, but as we no know had little if any lasting effect...." Tempting as the idea of a letter is, I believe Brittany Ferries is a *French* company.  And we all know how good customer service/relations are in France... Somehow I can't see it even getting an acknowledgement.     Angela