Missy

Mary Seacoal (Seacole?) anyhow... Ms Florence Nightingale eat your heart out, Mary was there before you!

[quote user="TWINKLE"] Almost forgot! Missy is in Paris - computerless!  So best wishes from her too[:)] I hope she's not anything elseless!!![:-))] [/quote]   No Twinks! I behaved [:D] !... so boring to behave!..  Thanks too for forwarding my greetings to Gay on her bathday.... At the mo, I am babysitting my little nephew,  my parisian bruv and his wife are having a romantic evening somewhere... so poaching the computer.... Return to Wales tomorrow morning!

In no particular order (and you may think some odd choices) : Madame de Sévigné Simone Weil George Sand Aliénor d'Aquitaine Hilary Clinton Jackie Bouvier-Kennedy-Onassis Marie Curie Josephine Baker Maria Callas ..........

[quote user="Dick Smith"]Bring the Bourbons back. Why not? After all, they were such a success last time! [/quote] [:-))]   Which Bourbon dya want Dick ?... Jack Daniel ?... Sorry he ran out chasing a Wild Turkey with his buddy Jim Beam. They were missing out on a bit of Southern Comfort [:D] If that story is truly believable then I TOTALLY TOTALLY  believe that His Excellency, (Democratically Not Elected) President for Life, Field Marshall Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin (Dada), VC (for Victorious Cross), DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular was truly the Last King of Scotland!! [:D] Oh dear! how many [B] have I had today!? [blink]    

[quote user="5-element"].....and Boots wax earplugs please?[/quote] In France they are found at the chemist's and called 'Boules Quiès' Little round pea-size balls of wax with a slight fluffy pink covering. My Father travels nowhere without these... it stops him listening to my Mother's snores!! [8-)]   so he says...... [:D]

[quote user="Cassis"]This seems to be one of those rare occasions when running a B&B is an advantage!  [/quote]   I can't see the advantage.... These 'friends' come to 'see you' ...You end up not seeing much of them as you are so busy otherwise with the business... They know that you run a B&B therefore know that you will have plenty of rooms to accommodate them and your other guests.... and furthermore in my experience they expect you to give them that room free of charge for the duration.... What is the fun of losing valuable income for 'friends'...... You could have paid a little bit more off your mortgage if these rooms had been made available for kosher paying guests....

[quote user="Will"] ..... Too many vistors think that because they are on holiday then you are as well, they don't seem to realise that we actually have to work during the week in order to provide them with a place to stay..... [/quote] I remember when Southern Rhodesia was about to become Zimbabwe, an endless stream of OH's friends came to visit us to suss out life in UK and/or Wales.... (My OH spent all of his childhood there) Nice to them, to see them nice! BUT.... back home they had servants to do the laundry, cook meals, washing-up etc... Here I was on my own to do the lot and run my little B&B and self-catering business. OH would take them out during the day to visit estate agents etc.. and the area which sometime meant travelling from Mid-Wales to the far end of  South Wales and back in a day, same in the other direction or venture to the Midlands or wherever took their fancy. To them a journey of 200miles one way to see something was just like dropping on the next door neighbour!.. This would go on for at least 2 weeks at a time per group of friends that came over.... After one long summer of this, I really went very grumpy and sulky that I decamped to my parents in France for a month. OH was not amused in the least to have to cope with it all..... My grump was that not one of them ever once offered to pay for the petrol used, to take us out for a meal one evening, even fish&chips! or even offer a bottle of wine for supper! I know a few of them have settled in UK since and I am waiting for an invitation for the weekend from some of them[:)].... which never comes in the annual Xmas card with their 'how well we are doing now that we are here!' round-robin letter!! [:@]

[quote user="Russethouse"] Japanese proverb, my foot ! Its Benjamin Franklin, 1776 [:)][/quote] Whether Japanese proverb or Benjamin Franklin or Oscar Wilde it all comes to the same that these people speak of experience.... Maybe they shut down the water supply to their home that their guests couldn't wash therefore started to stink after a couple of days... All of you DIYers... ain't that a good idea?.... I can see the situation : Oh Dear! we forgot [8-)][;-)] to pay for the connection to 'le service des eaux et égoûts!!all these letters arriving in a foreign language which we don't understand!... They've cut us off!!...[Www].....

[quote user="Suninfrance"]Ah ..... maybe in one of the drawers.   But do you know exactly where your phillips screwdriver is or your square and tape measure? [8-)] [/quote] Don't ask too many questions. Men can't cope with all of that AND finding their tools!! [:D][;-)]

I just want to make sure that France and Wales were fighting it out on the rugby field this weekend.... Or were they[8-)]?.... Well ... not according to the Sunday Telegraph Sports Editor!... 1st page of the sport supplement : England humbled!... ahhh poor you my heart cries [:'(] 2nd page : Scotland.... well... lost the game[:-))] ?... I think more of a lost the plot! ...... less said about that.... and the rest of the pages....... footie, footie, footie, footie, footie, footie, cycling, ski-ing, etc.... etc.... [blink] Now .... I, moi[:$]! was in my armchair, in my house, in Wales, in the United Kingdom, on this earth, watching ALL of these matches! I am sure I was! eventhough I had a few [B]!!...... So why wasn't there a post mortem editorial on the France v Wales match?.......... Did they play that match on Mars and the reporter miss the shuttle flight back to the newsroom?...Did he lose his mobile that he couldn't dictate his piece..... Dangerous that place Mars is...The Brits did lose an exploring robot there once...so maybe the Telegraph has lost a reporter too...[8-)] 

[quote user="Cassis"]The mice get the blame for a lot of things around here ... [Www] [/quote] They need to be employed gainfully : Blame supporter! that's good on a CV!!....[Www]

[quote user="Clair"]Eating one is fine, but would you eat two? I believe it to be a big no-no... [/quote] Definitely a no-no hence the fights we had as kids to eat it [:D]

[quote user="Teamedup"]Well that is what it is called around here. Do any of you pull it off to eat on the way home.[/quote]   Always!! how can you resist the temptation!! When I was a kid, on hols at my Gran's and fetching her shopping round the village, my siblings and I would fight for the quignon! and my Gran would look at us straight : 'Elle s'appelle comment la petite souris qui a mangé le quignon?.....' Confronted with that it was not easy to keep a po face and not blush of embarrassment which showed who was the culprit........

[quote user="Sprogster"]As most French in the UK probably live in the greater London area and most expatriates don't bother to register with their embassy, the figure of 300,000 is probably therefore a gross under estimation if 270,000 have bothered to register with the French embassy in London! (The French Embassy would base their figures on French nationals who have registered with them as resident in the UK.)[/quote]   Well.... Moi[:$] lives in God's Country... and I am registered at the Consulat Général in London.... When I first arrived in UK (not quite when the dinosaurs roamed but nearly enough![Www]) I had to have a work permit on which was writ in bold letters that 'the bearer of this permit must report to the nearest police station on changing his/her address...etc...' which I duly complied to. When I moved from Banbury to St Albans, I went to register at the police station and with utter amazement on my part, the policeman there did not know what he was supposed to do with me wanting to obey the law of the land..... He called a colleague and neither had come accross that task before but they did in the end register my name on some piece of paper and I wouldn't be surprised that it got lost in the pile of paper which was on the desk at the time..... So when faced with this kind of reception, I am not surprised that many faringers, from wherever in the world! they may come into the UK, never do bother to register. As to Sarko coming over to find a few extra votes... he has yet to woe me on his charabanc.... I much prefer being allowed to vote in UK that I can have some kind of say on where my duly paid taxes to Mr Brown's coffers! are spent....  [:)] when is Father Christmas coming again? do remind me...[;-)]

Those box type cupbaord with the fine mesh are called : garde-manger. Literally keep-eat... They are about 2ft tall by 16/18in across and deep (approx) and have at least one if not 2 internal shelves. The door just has a little bolt. There is a hook to hang it from a beam and they should have 4 little stumps of 'feet' to rest on a shelf if not hung... So when on your next trip to the wonderland of Bricotruc-machin or Jardiland. Another place where I know they sell lots of 'retro' stuff for the home is Résonances. They have a few shops in France and a website. Pheww... took a while to find the website... It would have been much easier to go to that shop I often go to, situtated in the shopping precinct below the Louvres Museum!!... Anyhow there is an english page! be it mostly in French!! where you can discover the delight of  : 'Bath of Pleasures' ...and... 'The Culture to be Well'........[Www] http://www.resonances.fr/index.php?main_page=products_all&cPath=758&level=6&oldlevelID=70&disp_order=1&page=8&language=en After browsing the site... no such thing as a garde-manger in the kitchen department... Sorry[:$]

Those of you that are blessed with the best FREE dryers in the world : The Sun and the wind.... haven't you tried to hang out thin strips of meat inside one of these larder type boxes which has fine mesh sides so that the flies don't get to what's inside. (I remember those boxes from my Gran's home, she used to keep her cheese in it, in the cellar of her house) Hang this outside in a very sunny place and you should have dry meat after a couple of days. I remember going through a small village/town called Lion's Den (on a trip to Zimbabwe) where the local butcher was hanging strips of beef meat to dry in the sun and his wife was selling it. The nicest biltong I ever tasted!

[quote user="Hoddy"]I once asked a man at a party what he did for a living and he replied, "I married a Thornton's chocolate." [/quote]   What a waste of a good chocolate! [:D] Men don't like chocolate ....

[quote user="hoverfrog"]...... I had to love the thread recently on another section - social do's and don'ts. If you have more than 1 apéritif (as a female of the species) you're either alcholic or an Englishwoman!! sigh, that's me :)[/quote]   ...so in my case [:$] not being English that makes me an alcoholic...[:'(] ...... Oh well! Let's enjoy it while it last[:D]!!

I like a hedge with lots of dogroses, hawthorns, blackberries for there will be plenty berries for you and the birds in the autumn, honeysuckle for its lovely scent on a summer's evening, beech, hornbeam and copper beech for the variety of greeny colours in the spring and the variety of gold/red/russet colours in the autumn. Nothing like it to please the eyes when you wander round the country lanes...

It struck me through this thread that, there we are, mostly British and a few other nationalities and moi [:$], and none have come forth in the conversation with the question : What do you do?.. Why? Because none of us are interested in the least at pigeon holing each other. What is of interest to us is our experience of life, travel etc...  So you could consider yourselves French for not raising the question![:D] OK for some of us, we know what give them their daily bread and poison but that has only come through in the forum to relate anecdotes of their experiences of whatever subject it is that we want to know about and for others we can guess and make a wholly big whopper of a misguess! [:D] 

[quote user="Gardian"][quote user="Missy"] c'est dégueulasse..... [/quote] If there's one thing this thread has taught me, it's how that word is spelt.  It's not too dodgy is it, i.e. can be used in 'polite company'? [/quote] You could .... but it is really a word in the 'gros mots' category.  It's like saying in UK : 'That stuff is minging' .... not really in very polite company would you say so .... Children use it a lot to mean either something is physically dirty/mucky or someone has played a dirty trick on them or someone else. Really I should not have used here but couldn't think of an alternative in French to describe my disgust of Marmite other than the Welsh word which is (phonetically) arr-a-vie! The a as in Apple.   Don't ask me to spell it correctly!

[quote user="LanguedocGal2"] Missy, I strongly suggest you get yourself a gigolo c u m carpenter/plumber/builder because by the time I finish with Georgie, he’ll be at least 70.[:D] [/quote] Gigolo ?... Moi!  [:-))] Nah can't afford them....  MUST have a Sugar Daddy as I am veerrry HIGH maintenance [;-)] [:D] It should have been MOI with that Mr Marshall the 500th! and not that common Anna Nicole Smith... The ignomy of her bearing the same name as me...... (won't tell you which one[:P]) Failing a sugar daddy then a rich toyboy hence Georgy Swooney Clooney..... Big HUGE sigh!... Wales is very much away from the center of his world..... [6][:D]

[quote user="Christine Animal"] .......It's discretion, they will never ask you anything personal, but wait until you may say it yourself during a conversation.  Whereas my American friend said she felt she should ask people these things as otherwise it seemed she was not showing any interest in them, to be friendly. [/quote]   Discretion..... That's a concept that my M-I-L was always at pain to tell me off about.... Whenever I had to go out with OH and his parents to these kinds of drinks party, she was for ever asking on the return home : These people you spoke to, what do they do?....   My answer was : [8-)]Dunno! ... Her : Well aren't you interested in them?... Me : Yes I was, but we talked about a lot of other things... Her : You Must ask what do they do for a living!... Me :[8-)] ...really?... Her : Yes, it shows to them that you are interested in them and they will invite you again....        My dear F-I-L would be such a gentleman in these cases and gently tell his wife that it really didn't matter and that perhaps discretion was the better part.... Well ... of all these parties I have been to, the most memorable ones are those where I never asked 'What do they do' and where I have made good friendships with the people and been invited again and again....

[quote user="Tresco"]......Straight on to 'What sort of music do you like?', then......[/quote]   A couple of months before I was married, I remember being at a party with my OH and his parents at their 'neighbours'. One of those evenings where this young French lady who was about to marry one of the local squires had to meet the 'neighbours'. Read that as the place was about 20 miles further than next door but the people were of my parents-in-law's social/political circle. During the evening, the lady of the house asked me : 'Are you musical?' [8-)]...  My english was still not that perfect and very diluted with a strong french accent,  my husband could see that I was at pain to answer the question as my taste in music were very much further than what was on offer at that party... Couldn't see Janis Jopplin, Crosby Stills Nash & Young a topic of conversation when the background music in that room was Mozart!... Anyway quick as a flash he replied for me : 'Only when she eats baked beans!'  Until that very moment I had not been so [:$] embarrassed in my life!.... The lady's bottom jaw was ready for the butler to sweep off the precious persian carpet. Quickly getting over my surprise I turned around to OH who was sporting the largest grin [6] ever and winking at me that I discretely left the room for a monstrous attack of the giggles!..... Still waiting for an other invitation to that house ....  [:D]

[quote user="Pierre ZFP"] ...... how could you be sure he's Welsh?[/quote] I'll sew a Welsh flag on the front and back of the jacket for you not to miss! [:D][;-)]