Loiseau

Wonderfully romantic place, but I am finding the programme incredibly s-l-o-w. Endless dreamy, swooping drone shots, much verbal recapitulation, same ol' images of cracked windows. I reckon it would have made one programme, maybe two; but at three, the padding is showing. I am warming to her, though. I thought what she did with the old wallpaper pieces was charming - though any male of my acquaintance would have flatly refused to let me embark on that before the structural stuff like building the window seat was finished! And her method of kitchen-tile decoration was amazing (though would it stand up to wiping down when necessary?!). Angela

Yay, mint! ReSULT!

Now I come to think of it, Chancer, I have not had one sales call during this week I have been a-gardenin' in the Vendée. Usually I get two or three a day, and it drives me mad when I have dashed indoors in case it's something important. Maybe, as you suggest, it's the demise of Pactel! Angela

??? LOL andy! Don't suppose they could be bothered either!

Oh dear, well I can expect to be clapped in irons any moment then, as I sometimes drive to France with obvious bits of greenery and cuttings en route from one garden to another. ? In fact when we planted up the current French garden 25 years ago, we brought £1k or more of plants from a Cornish nursery, layered on trays in trailer and car, and with all relevant paperwork in triplicate certifying everything free of disease etc, and nobody at Roscoff could be bothered to look. Angela

Mmmmmmm. With sirop d'érable! Must have been delicious!

I would have thought - not having any experience in this matter, I hasten to add - that some selective watching of French TV would aid integration, as it would give some common ground for discussion with his schoolmates. Angela

Mint, I wonder if you could have been confusing "pleine" with "à peine" years ago?

QUOTE Hoddy "I don't think you can necessarily draw that conclusion, ... a better clue would be the man's rank in the army. " END QUOTE I absolutely agree, Hoddy, and I did qualify my statement by saying "may not"! According to FindAGrave, the gravestone is at: Saint Andrews Graveyard, Mount Holly, Burlington County, New Jersey, USA. On his widow's applications for a miltary pension, Francis's rank is given as "Pte" and "Corporal". The 1850 US census is the only place I can see that Francis's place of birth is given as "France". I have tried to follow the lives of his 1850-appearing sons William and Edward through some later censuses, to see what they say about their father's origins. Assuming I have the right William and Edward, they say that their father was born in the US - except for once, in the 1880 census, where William says his father was born "at sea"! Likewise, I followed Samuel Law Durand, who accompanied the widow to the lawyer in 1866 to apply for the pension - and whom I take to be another son. He in later census states his father was born in the US. You would think they would have been aware of their father's foreign accent, wouldn't you? If you have Ancestry, I can PM you the link to the pension application by the widow of Francis Durand. Iit's a huge long URL, and I don't think it will open if you are not a subscriber yourself, otherwise I would post it here.) There is no mention of a birthplace - so one cannot be 100% sure it's the right guy; and the widow gives a different 1814 date of their marriage from the one shown in the Philadelphia church records - but maybe if she could not read, she also was not too good on dates... It does say she was in necessitous circumstances, and that her only livelihood was assistance from her children. (On a brighter note, it looks from a handwritten note that she got $60 right off, and was due to get more.) Angela

An "idea hotter"?! What on earth is that idun? Sounds like some kind of project development to me...

John, given that his widow was obviously illiterate (she signed her request for the army pension with an X), I fear your ancestor may not have been out of the top drawer, socially. :-( Angela

Better work out a route that takes in Belgium, idun...

Doh! Of course I was translating "PAS rentable"; so sorry for the confusion. (I have added an edit to my earlier post to say so.) Agreed, Betty, it always seems to be used with a negative qualifier. I have usually heard it in casual conversation, hence my slightly less formal translation, but of course "not financially viable" nails it exactly! Or even, mint, you could say "à peine rentable" ! (BTW, can "à peine" mean "plenty"? I don't think I have ever seen that sense of it.) Angela

For "rentable", I would say "not worth it", "not worth the cost of doing it", or "it doesn't/wouldn't pay". It's not the same as "not worth the money" referring to a purchase price, of course. [EDIT: Thanks Betty for your later post! Of course I meant "PAS rentable" in the above] As for "viabilisé", I always imagine that it means that they are plots with all services installed: water, electric, drainage. Angela

A friend in the Vendee tells me that drivers were yesterday limited to 20 euros-worth of diesel per vehicle. Angela

I thought the US census would be a bit more detailed, but his place of birth was only given as "France". I did find on Ancestry a document from I think 1866, in which his wife was claiming an army pension on the grounds that she had no other means of support and that her late husband had served at least 10 months in the US army. But it had no further hard information, aside from the fact that his wife had to sign the document with an X. I could find nothing on the shipping lists, either. Angela

Great to see you again, twinkle...

I had a quick look on Ancestry, pomme, and saw at least three François Durands born in 1790, in Saône-et-Loire, so it could probably be a bit of a needle in haystack situation without some more to go on. It's not too uncommon a name, unfortunately... Angela

Welcome to the forum, John. I think Hoddy may have meant to ask if you knew whereabouts in France your ancestor came from. It might be a good starting-point. I have some British relatives who were living in France in the 1850s and 1860s, and I managed to find them in the online census for the Calvados département - but then I did know that that was where they were living, and it was not a very big town, so I could fairly easily skim through the names of all the residents till I found them. (Mind you, my task was easier because they had a thoroughly British name, whereas Durand is probably fairly common so it will be harder to be sure you have the right person.) I also found entries for the births of three of their children and the death of one of them during their time in France. (Unlike British records, the French births and deaths records do not give precise addresses, nor a cause of death; I don't know if you get this information in records in the US - where I am guessing you are based.) This looks to be a useful website: http://genealogy.about.com/od/france/tp/France-Genealogy-Records-Online.htm with a link to the archives of each département. Good luck with the research. Angela

Hello Vidrone and welcome. I too am a happy 3 customer, having been delighted to find a provider that allowed use in France as part of the monthly package. (NB for calls and texts, the free ones are those to and from the UK when you are visiting France, not ones you make to French mobiles and landlines - though maybe the new rules have cut those too.) I did look into it for someone who actually lives in France, but in the Ts and Cs there is something about "fair use" which I took to mean that too much use abroad only would be a no-no. Angela

LOL mint! When I read that, having never seen that word before, I immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion too until I read the rest of your post! It's like "inhabité", innit? Looks like an easy one, but means the opposite. Angela

Er, "...just fine" and dandy, perhaps, mint?! In fact, thus being France, why do you not pick the younger leaves and pop them in a salad, WB? Cheaper than rocket, and similar taste. Angela

That's true, GG, now you mention it. It's usually been older people who I have heard use époux. Angela

Oh yes, there's "dérogation" too, isn't there? I can't remember what it means exactly, but it's encountered in some official documents. Is it cancelling a request for something? There is that Latin verb rogare(?)=to ask! I seem to recall! and then there's Rogation Day, which I think is to do with asking. A faux ami that caught me out once was when I said in French that a friend and I were having a "contretemps" - and although we say it in English with a bit of a Frenchified accent, it turned out that that word has a TOTALLY different sense in French. Angela

Ha ha! Just seen this headline in Le Figaro online: "Royaume-Uni: Boris Johnson, un ex-maire de Londres à la langue bien pendue" It's a wonderful image, I must say... I suppose we would say "has a good turn of phrase" or "has the gift of the gab" perhaps? Angela