Motorhead

You will not be able to do this single-handed due to the French safety legislation. My advice would be to bring a couple of mates over with you. That way you could really be tree fellers.

I bought the stuff because of its sulphate resistance but it is vary quick drying (the warmer it is the quicker). Don't know if it's in mrbricolage but it's 10 euros 90 for 25kg in Brico Depot which is rather dear especially when you consider that it's supposed to be mixed 1:1 with the sand. BTW the sugar works!

There is no direct translation of mesnils into English but there is, sort of, in Scots. The old Scots word mensal is from the same root. It means the part of your land that you keep for yourself rather than rent out (which is the hirsel).

If it's the bare knuckle stuff your after forget it. The French are far too soft for that sort of thing. Now cockfighting - totally different situation. There's a fight on in most places every Sunday with loadsamoney changing sides.

Not a lot of lapins in the fields here. The local chasse gets most of them well before the end of the season. But why bother.Most of the locals keep a few round the back in concrete hutches that have absolutely no locks on them. What's more, these bunnies can't run as fast as the wild ones so ideal for training dogs to do the badger baiting

I wouldn't say exactly ,Nick.  If the employees take home pay is lets say 1,000 a month and, if as you say, the employer pays twice that then the whole lot comes to 3,000. However if Babnik is on that 1,000 a month nett wage which is 50% of the total then that total must be only 2,000 - quite a big difference! Now don't quote me on this but I remember reading that the employers contribution in France was (only) 40% and if you add this to the employees contribution and then take away an allowance for UK NI not having to be paid then it leaves you with about the 50 % that Babnik mentions.

I can third that, mega pics indeed. I've already printed them up as an inspirational poster. But, that does look awfully like cement round the edges of a lime mortared wall. To hear some folk talk, this is a complete no-no but I've never thought anything wrong with it myself as long as the stone was hard. Can you confirm this?

Has anyone ever used Bati Prompt made by Vicat before. I’ve just bought some mainly because it says in the Brico Depot catalogue “utilisable en milieu humide et marin “, which was just what I was wanting. However it’s very quick drying stuff , perhaps too quick drying for me. It says on the bag that the drying can be retarded by anything up to 26 mins by the addition of a liquid called tempo but doesn’t explain what it actually is or where I can get it as Brico Depot don’t have any. I’m tempted to throw in a bit of PVA instead to see if it makes a difference but before I do, does anyone know any better?

A French tourist was on a walking holiday in Ireland. He came up from the beach one day and arrived at the graveyard where an old man was digging. He asked the old Irishman  "do you bury people often here monsieur?". The gravedigger scratched his head  and replied " oh no sir oi usually find dat once is enough".

There's usually 3 or 4 trains a day to Montlucon but only 1 (at about 12.20) is straight through. The others change at Vierzon which is no great hassle. The only problem I've had on this line was when somebody jumped in front of the previous train in southern Paris. We all had to get off and get on another line which ended up at Gare du Nord. 

I've been out of the pet food trade for a couple of years now so am not totally up to date but I can say for certain that paticular dogs can have particular reactions to particular food. This is why I've always given folk a funny look when they've sought my opinion on "the best". It may well be that a change will do the job. Another thing you might want to investigate is a bacterial skin infection. If you can rule the food and the microbes out then there is a food suplement (can't remember the name) that changes the dog's smell. It's made by an Irish company Mark & Chappell and it's actually for fooling fleas into thinking that it's not a dog in front of them but it might just work in this situation.

 Last year, there was a particularly small and stunted cauf in a field beside the road into the next village. I called her vacance for that very reason although the locals seemed to think it was something about no chance of becoming a vache.

Previously Kingfisher weren't all that bothered about delivering accross the channel BECAUSE they already had Brico Depot and Castorama. However, it now looks like the UK side of Kingfisher is being taken over by Home Depot (American) with the French operation sold off elsewhere. As B&Q/Screwfix then won't have an outlet for their stuff in France it's no wonder that now they're investigating other possibilities Don't hold your breath though, if the takeover dosn't materialise I can see it all going straight back to square one.

Q:  Why do so many Polish immigrants work at furniture restoration  in  France.   A:   Because they're natural French Polishers.

I've been back in Scotland for the last week so I've missed all this. I'm not all that surprised about David's son. Where I come from there has never been a great shortage of belligerent old guys that cause their sons grief. So, I've got another story and this one is 100% true. I knew this old guy called Andy who was 92 or 93 at the time. He was actually in great shape for his age. His hands shook a bit but his only real handicap was deafness, you had to shout into his ear a few times before he got the message. Andy lived in quite a rough part of the town and on his daily dodder back from the shops he would have to pass the corner boys. Now corner boys are a bit of an institution in that part of the world. Their average age is actually about 55 and they are men who have already been thrown on the scrapheap. The men's wives put them out in the morning like you would put a cat out for the night and with no money they congregate on a street corner to amuse themselves as best they can. Now, one of their major amusements was that as soon as Andy passed by they would hurl all sorts of insults, safe in the knowledge that he couldn't hear them. So this day started like any other but what the corner boys didn't know was that the day before Andy had been fitted with a new hearing aid. As soon as the abuse started Andy turned around, marched back and the first of them got a tin of beans in the face. However before things could escalate a passing police car stopped and pulled Andy off to the station where his son (who was 70 at the time) had to go and bail him out. Andy passed away about 10 years ago but he still has the record for the oldest man ever to be arrested by the local constabulary.

What on earth are you on about Dave. Single vehicle type approval or reception de tire isolee as it's known in France can only come from the respective government. Manufacturers can't approve anything they can only submit their vehicles/components for approval.

Pan european homologation - after either 1996 or 1998 all vehicles legally sold new (apart from specials under single type approval) in one EC country are automatically OK for all other EC countries. However. not all DRIRE (what the servis des mines are called now) fonctionaires know this. There may also be a problem with the interpretation as to whether a trailer is a 'vehicle' it certainly is so in France but the position in UK is a bit ambiguous. Is the 750kg shown on the plate the actual weight of the trailer or the gvw ie. the max permitted weight of the trailer + load? If it's the latter (which seems a bit light to me for a horsebox but I could be wrong) then you won't have to register it at all and you can use the same plates as the towing vehicle but will have to get separate insurance if it's a French policy. If the gvw is over 750kg you will have to register it separately at some point and with the position of the exit I can see problems and I wouldn't think it was worth the bother. I think you are right to keep a UK licence if you are going to tow big trailers. It is not my experience that the category for this is automatically carried over when you exchange licences but then interpretations vary from prefecture to prefecture.

I've just been barred for life from all the Brico Depots in France. It was all a misunderstanding really. There's this guy who works in the local Depot who fancies himself as a bit of an English speaker. Anyway he came over to inform  me of a new promo they had for the summer. However what he actually said was "you need decking" and I just happened to think it prudent to get my punch in first. 

  Gerard Depardieu was once asked why he spent so much of his money buying and he answered quite simply "because I can walk on it".

If you keep you UK driving licence you will have no problems towing it, however a standard French licence needs a separate category for towing a trailer over 750kg gvw ( which it will be ) and you should bear this in mind if you are considering changing licences. If you are insuring it in France it will need a separate policy as it is over 500kg gvw. Also as it is over 750kg gvw it will need a separate reg doc/carte grise to be registered in France. Doing this is quite straight forward as long as it is young enough to have pan european homolgation or the manufacturer/French importer is reasonably helpful, otherwise expect problems.

Here's my tuppenceworth as I haven't heard it mentioned yet. You don't actually need a domicillatory address on a UK licence. Years ago when I was still at school I had a part time job in a petrol station and one day one of the "travellers" who were encamped a mile or so away came in to borrow a can of petrol. I took his licence as security and I've always remembered that the address on it was c/o Johnstone Post Office. After checking with some "new age traveller" contacts I have found that this still applies so it would appear that going NFA is an option for keeping a UK licence without  a UK address. 

Don't know but changing from UK to French is like going to the license laundry.

And drain the old petrol out of the carb as well. If it still won't start there's a place called Richard & Bourqui near Brico Depot in Domerat.

I had the same problem tracking down powerlifting facilities. Back then I didn't even know that it was called force athletique in French. What I did was to go onto the BAWLA website, there I got a link to the EPF site which has another link to the French governing body. The French website gave me just  about everything I needed to know - calendar of events, records, club list etc. So, if I were you ,I'd start with the BAA website.

No, but check your insurance.