Missy

[quote user="Just Katie "]  I will be travelling from the Alps to Calais at the end of March and am looking to stay overnight in either Reims or Troyes.  Our main priorities are central and clean.  Any ideas? [/quote] I have stayed at the Campanile in Dizy which is just outside of Epernay near Reims. Clean, affordable, teenagers proof, restaurant on site and some other quick food type outlets nearby. Big BUT (or was it Champion?...) supermarket next door and petrol pumps. Bonus is that if you go into Epernay (i.e. not pressed for time AND you are not the driver) you can go and visit the champagne houses. I went to Moët et Chandon and toured their cellars and a little dégustation [:D] after... well.... my son did the dégustation that day as I was the driver [:(] and in MHO it was strawberries to pig!

La personne qui appelle : Je voudrais parler à Madame B.?...    ou : Je voudrais parler à Monsieur B.?... Moi : Ah oui! Vraiment désolée. Madame B. (ou Monsieur B.) a déménagé!....    [:-))] Voilà! Problème règlé...[:D]  

These two links are Most interesting! Having married a Brit and collected a French surname in the deal (my parents were tickled pink! about this)  I have been quite interested all these years where did that name came from. I think I have just found out... Question of revising the family tree, cross referencing with other documents and OH's knowledge of his ancestors : 'What do I know? I was brought up in the african bush!' he will say ....[:D] Actually he does know a lot on his family as far back as 1650. So it's a matter of perservering through the mist of time....  

Thank you  Mods for putting my photos the right way up! [:D]

Maitresse! maitresse! Cassis il écrit des gros mots!......            [;-)][:D]        

What a larf!.... Of course there would have been a second revolution! and as we demolished the Bastille, we would vent our republican frutrastions on the Tower of London!... [:D] Anyway you won't need that upheaval as you have an almost republican government with Mister GB at the helm soon!... Not been a keen royalist in any sense, being born just a few days before la 5ème République was proclaimed, I don't view the Royal family as useless as portrayed. To me the Royals are the best advert for GREAT Britain PLC in term of tourism and trade that Britain has. The grass root certainly could make them earn their keep a bit more as I think that Civil List is a heck of wage packet!

[quote user="Ruth"].............being a Frenchwoman means having to wear matching lacy undies and that the Brits don't do so. ............[/quote] HAHAHAHAHA!!!  [:D][:D][:D] About 5 years ago I started in the company where I still give it my 100% to this day, that is 15 % on Monday, 26% on Tuesday etc...  but it is another story... Back to the undies one.... This particular woman in the office, I took as a really anally retentive from day one. She was about 55ish and trussed up like a turkey. She never laughed or smiled in case her china doll make-up would crack at any of the habitual Email jokes that went/go around. To her I was just a subversive one!... Anyway that one Friday evening we went to the pub for a drink and a meal as another colleague of ours was moving on to greener pastures so we bade our fond farewells, etc... and it was the first time that this 'AR' lady had dared herself to join the party, evidently ... About 1/2 way through the party, she came over to me all shy and quite coy she asked me : 'Is it true that French ladies always wear matching bras and panties?...' to which as po-face as I could, after one too many glasses of plonko collapso, I lifted my T-shirt and just lowered my trouser belt to show her the answer to her question!.... [:-))] Yes boys! that day I had a matching pair of undies and bras! a black M&S number!! Some French women swear by M&S the-elastic-does-not-snap-lingerie! and were much forlorn when the M&S stores closed down in Paris!.....  [:$]  

[quote user="Cassis"] I have to admit I'm a bit ambivalent about the one with the girl and the rings around her neck.  Is that normal?  ... [8-)][/quote] Cassis that girl was certainly real. She was weaving in front of me and her attention was taken away from the loom as children were shouting and playing nearby. I guess her child was amongst the group. I just went click!. It was taken in North Thailand almost at the border with Laos. I don't know the story about the African giraffe women but the story that our guide gave us about these women was that they were an ancient tribe from the Laos/Burma region and that their land had been taken away from them and they came to refuge in Thailand. The women had these rings put around their neck to remind them of the fact that their homeland was in 'the enemy's hand' and only when the land is restituted to their tribe that they will no longer have to wear these ringneck things.... Little girls of 10 or so also had these rings but not so many. They also wore these metal bracelets just below the knee. Now I am no feminist by any mean but if there ever was such a believable story ... then fine... I just saw it as man keeping woman by his feet and under his thumb to tender his every need. A woman laden with all of that metal is not in a hurry to run away even if she really wanted to.... but then that day I was a European and I had to accept that this was their culture and who was I to interfere....

[IMG]http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r116/Missyesbut/Thailand2004part2077.jpg[/IMG] Hopefully this is the right way up.... if not back to the drawing board...   Thanks Fluffy Kitten and Bugbear for writing such 'blonde-at-the-keyboard' proof instructions!!

One more for this evening.....   [IMG]http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r116/Missyesbut/Thailand2004part2077.jpg[/IMG]     got to get back to my studies [:(] ....   Edit : Sorry got uploaded sideways.....

Thanks Girls! So relieved that I can 'now be with in crowd'   .....    Sorry Mama Cass....     [:D]

[quote user="Russethouse"]Parfait, Missy ! - look forward to seeing many more of your pics [:)][/quote] Can you see my avatar?... I don't think it is uploaded properly....?....

and this one....   [IMG]http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r116/Missyesbut/Thailand2004part2012.jpg[/IMG]   There is no stopping the girl and her camera!.... now that I have sussed out the technology!... [8-)]not sure about my avatar though.....

Definitely not France !!  [IMG]http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r116/Missyesbut/Indiapart1004.jpg[/IMG] I hope everyone will see the photo as it is the FIRST photo I upload following the (hopefully) foolproof instructions from Fluffy Kitten and Bugbear......   

Just been to my local newsagent to collect my Sunday papers and the town Xmas lights are still up! and well battered from the strong storms of late.... The chap behind the counter says that later today they should be down... will see if that has been done, tomorrow when I go through town on my way to work.....

[quote user="powerdesal"] Just dont go into a Welsh pub wearing an England shirt when its Wales vs England, at least not in Ceredigion. My son and son-in-law were "ejected" in horizontal mode for doing just that. I have to say it was not an unexpected reaction from the locals. (the pub was the Crymych Arms) [/quote] Ceredigion is a whole little foreign count(r)y which even the Welsh are afraid of !! [:-))] We are a bit more civilised in Montgomeryshire, we support the French when the English are playing Wales  [:-))]  [;-)][Www]

[quote user="Clair"]Could this have been a fouace? There are many regional variations of this sweet bread and I have tasted some pretty awful ones in village fêtes around here! [/quote] The best fouace I have ever eaten was made by one of the bakers in La Mothe Saint Héray (Deux Sèvres) and it was always made especially for the Easter week. Not before and not after.  We would rush there that week in order to buy a fair supply! It had a lovely scent of orange flower and was best eaten still warm from the oven YUMMY!! Don't know if that baker still makes them. If any of you are living in and around La Mothe?....

[quote user="RumziGal"][quote user="Missy"] Oh! [:(] you don't like pain d'épice .... It's only a ginger cake. [/quote] I don't know ginger cake.   But I do know gingerbread, and that is a universe away from pain d'épices.   Gingerbread has got super-yummy things in like treacle and syrup to make it lovely and moist mmmmmmmm, and is just deeeeeeeeeeelicious. [/quote]   I mean like the gingercake as in Tate&Lyle Jamaican ginger(bread?)cake not the flat gingerbread man biscuit thing....  [8-)]  

I went there in 1987 (really?...so long ago...) OH and I took the 2 kids (then 4+1/2 and 2 yrs old) on holiday to Cornwall, in a very old caravan pulled by a well battered ex-army LandRover ... We looked like gypsies but the kids loved it ! singing away ! waving happily to the other drivers on the road.....What a set up!.... the mad things you do when you are young!... We stop there for lunch and the kids were mesmerised by the big blue&yellow squawking parrot which lived in a very large cage in a corner of the pub. Could not pulled them away from the place.... I am surprised the bird didn't take their fingers and hands off!! for all the warnings they had not to put their hands on the cage!..... Is the parrot still there ?...

[quote user="Mister Fluffy"]........My bugbear (sorry G) is pain d'epice. [/quote] Oh! [:(] you don't like pain d'épice .... It's only a ginger cake. My mother used to put every day a few slices of pain d'épices dans mon cartable, to eat during the morning and afternoon school break until I got so fed up of it that I traded it for other 'delicacies' like malabar, carambar (do they still make/sell them?), chocoBN or that little tetrapack of condensed milk ! Aaaahh! Heaven that was! Enough sugar energy to power the national grid! And la Galette des Rois! I awaited with much trepidation for my turn to have 'la fève' [:D] Queen for the day!! What fun! but when the whole class had to go through the ritual... after 30 of them ...[+o(]... I do miss it though now that I live away from it all.... I just make do with Cadbury's Easter Eggs, Hotcross buns from Boxing Day onwards [:-))]  

Plee! Have a look at this thread. As Iceni says STOP feeling sorry for them and galvanise yourself for the long battle ahead...... http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/798740/ShowPost.aspx  

[quote user="Just Katie "]Bugbear, I would never turn my back on my country just because I am surrounded by the opposition.  [/quote]   Katie quite right!. I have been in pubs in Wales (when Wales play France) and I am waving the Frenchflag, with my French shirt on, singing away in French and giv'em the Welshies a real go when France is winning and I receive the same when the table has turned in the course of one same match. We all end up having some real fun time after! Win or lose! That's what I like about rugby! Bugbear you must be a fluffy cat [:$] if the French burley farm boyos intimidate you....  I had to edit this! because it ***** out the word p u s s y c a t [:-))] as in 'The owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea green boat !' ...... and I am sure it will now as I push the post button!......

[quote user="chris pp"] The leaves don't look like Juniper, they have sharp pointed needles and a very strong scent when crushed. [/quote] If the berries when crushed do not smell of neat gin then it is not a juniper. Safe and simple way to find out ...

[quote user="Bugbear"]j'aussi......................................................  [/quote] 'Moi aussi!' you should say Bugbear!  (don't mind me correcting your French. Just helping you to mingle in the crowd with a little more local lingo[;-)]) Anyway what's your American football smiley doing here?.... Wrong sport. Which nation will I support?... Well France of course ! but when France is not playing Wales has my voice (Gwlad! Gwlad! come on Boyos!)  and when Wales is not playing, England has my support (sucker for lost causes I am !) Then for the World cup I will wave for the Sprinboek, on account that OH spent a lot of his childhood in the southern hemisphere, then the Aussies and Kiwies, don't know why... they're just arrogant...  and yes! my money is on the Kiwies to win it[:(]! unless the XV de France comes up with some genius moments and derail all the predictions from the pundits....

Sorry Bugbear ! [:$] Wearing my very wicked mood today... [6]