Opalienne

Indeed, the Wazemmes market is great and all the restaurants round there will be open.   There are plenty of non-French ones in that area if you want to try Thai, etc, and also one whole street of ethnic shops - great for spices etc that are sometimes hard to find in France. Monday lunchtime you would do better to look in Vieux Lille or in areas where there are office workers.   Outside these areas restaurants are often closed on lunchtime on Mondays.

He actually suggested that his former wife should work as a cleaning lady.   She took the most wonderful revenge by posing nude in Playboy with an assortment of vacuum cleaners, brushes, soapy buckets etc.

It wouldn't be the first time there has been English foxhunting in Pau.   It was well known in the 19th century.   (Not that I'm approving of it).   For example:  En 1837, les Anglais achètent un terrain pour construire la Christ Church, temple protestant ; la chasse au renard s'organise avec la création du Pau-Hunt qui défrayera la chronique pendant plus d'un siècle ; un magnifique terrain de golf, le premier du Continent, est installé dans la plaine de Billère, jouxtant le terrain de polo ; l'hippodrome voit le jour, des courts de tennis et une piste « cycliste » sont inaugurés au Bois-Louis. De somptueuses villas parsèment la ville : Pau ville anglaise n'est pas un mythe mais une réalité bien solide.

I'm a bit surprised by this.   We live between Calais and Boulogne (an area where you would think there might be a big problem with bouncing cheques from Brits) and have never had cheques refused in Carrefour or anywhere else.  If asked,we have shown a passport and a driving licence, both British,and they have always been accepted.

We've already had the firemen, and gave them €30.   We would give the same to the dustmen and postlady, though we usually give the dustmen a couple of bottles as well and invite the postlady in for a drink.   I guess when they come varies from place to place, but where we live the dustmen ring the bell around mid-December and the postlady just before Cristmas.

Leave a note on the gate asking for them to come up to the house?

And don't forget the dustmen either

If you bank with the Co-op Bank you can transfer money each month for £8, irrespective of the sum.   It is usually in the acount within 4 days.

If we are asking them for the evening a meal would be much better.   If it's just drinks make sure you make this clear in your invitation.  What we used to do is ask people for drinks if we didin't know them very well, and a meal if we did, but the former group often ended up hanging around and I had to cook anyway, so now I ask everyone for a meal.

I bought a jar of coq's testicles in the Auvergne a few years ago.   And very nice they were too (though my husband refused to eat them).  

We bought one years ago in the UK.   Unless things have changed, you have to soak the paper first, so it's a messy process and the bricks take days to dry.   We ended up drying ours in the gas oven, which negated any economies we might have made by burning them.

There are plenty of places to buy watercress near us, mainly at smallholdings rather than supermarkets.   Recently I was just south of Paris and came across a huge watercress farm.   You probably need to look around a bit but I am sure you will find it without any problem

Tintin is Belgian, not French - and he was always called Tintin (pronounced the French way) and Milou came ages before he was translated as Snowy........

How on earth are the authorities in any country expected to know what you use the TV for?   I really can't see what your use of your TV has to do with common sense........  And watching French TV will improve your French no end, even if a lot of it is rubbish

We have them in 62, which is almost as far north as you can get!   I found a baby one in the kitchen the other day (they are brown when they are babies and get their more exotic colouring as adults).

I think it's great that people are managing to get by and enjoy themselves, too, with limited French.  But I really do hope that you are doing this on your own, and not relying on English neighbours to help you out all the time.   Sorry to sound an awful old grouch, but we are really fed up with some English people who arrived in our village 18 months ago and who still don't speak French.   They just haven't tried, and one of the reasons is that they have found us! We are asked to act as interpreters and general guides when they have problems with builders, electricity, TotalGaz, fosse septique, CPAM - I even accompanied her to the gynaecologist!   We have tried saying "It's time you did these kind of things for yourselves" but when you are faced with someone tearful on the phone saying no-one understands, you give in rather quickly.   They are nice people and they probably don't realise how much of our time they take up, but how to get them to stop relying on us I just don't know.    

Near which port?   There are several near Calais, but I don't know where you want to be......

Any garden centre will be able to get it.   But it's very expensive.   We were quoted 5 times the price of seeding for it, and the seeding worked fine.

Unless there are lots of British customers in your area I honestly don't think you stand a chance (and even then, I wonder whether they how often they will want to eat that kind of food).   As others have said, English food has a very bad reputation in France - deservedly or not, that's how it is.  The chances of French people stepping through the door are very slim indeed.   Where we live, even Italian restaurants have a struggle to keep going.........

We got ours in Leroy Merlin.  They are called 'sani broyeur'.   I think we paid around €250.  However, ours went wrong a few times and eventually we called a plumber who fitted a new one - don't know where he got it from - that cost rather more  and looked more substantial (I think it was about €450 including the fitting) and we have had no trouble since.

Put an ad on the board in your local supermarket.   We had the same problem and didn't like the look of any of the local kennels.  So we advertised for someone who liked dogs who could board in their own home.   We had six replies, and chose a lady who lives in the next village who has a dog of her own and a huge garden.   Our dog loves it there and her price is very reasonable (€7 per day including food).

They can only take penalty points if you have a French licence.  However, they may up for this by imcreasing the fine for those from whom they cannot deduct points.......

My favourite is an English one:   "soft verges".  I imagine it must have been responsible for any number of accidents caused by French drivers laughing uncontrollably! 

The lady who used to run the cafe in our village (it went bust) worked for a while for a company called Lexel selling skin care products.   She would come to your house and give you a mini-facial in return for which you were expected to buy some products (though this wasn't obligatory).   The products were fine and I wanted to help her out, but she gave up after a few months because the company argued about her commission and then didn't pay it on time.  She's now selling scented candles, but she does it more for the free gifts (candles) than for the money, which is practically non-existent.

I read Plateforme by Houllebecq a few years ago, before the Bali bombings which it anticipates.  It's an interesting look at how tourism exploits less developed societies.  I agree that he seems an infuriating man, but have enjoyed his books to date, though I haven't read the most recent one. Nothomb I have never been able to get on with.   I quite liked Stupeur et Tremblements, but that was all - the rest left me cold.