Val_2

All logic has gone out of the window this year regarding the outdoor world. We had no wasps at all this summer until this week, a huge one flew towards me and it wasn't a hornet. My gladioli have just come into flower, the cherry tree started shedding leaves in July and everything has gone round once and started again with flowering and budding. Yes, my lavender has started to flower again too and roses are still going strong as are the main flowers for this region - Hydrangaea(Hortensia).  Its huge house spider season and prolific but as the saying goes, where you have spiders you have a good dry and warm house or they wouldn't be visiting. Even woke one night and a monster was 18" from my face on the side of my bedside lamp! I never light the stove before end of October usually and hopefully it will be perhaps even later than this year if the sun returns for a few more weeks. Those green shield bugs, are they the horrible stinky ones? If so, I find them on my washing, they must like the fabric softener smell or something

Just like the phone calls to say we had won a gift and needed to come to a certain furniture shop in a nearby town to collect it. Out of curiosity, you had to spend a minimum of €500 on furniture and the free gift was a set of plastic boules which cost around €3 from La Foire Fouille. However, like timeshare tactics, these salespeople know how to work on you so be warned if you don't want to end up spending money you don't have on stuff you don't need which costs ten times more than IKEA.

Well here it is maize, acres and acres of the stuff meaning combiners working the fields albeit they are very small fields and then no end of very large trailers going back and forth with loads spilling all over the roads. When we first came here, I cooked some of these OH brought home from the fields next to his work, we couldn't even cut them let alone bit into the cobs and then my neighbour, when he had recovered laughing his socks off informed us they were special cobs grown for the animal winter feed only, not for human consumption. We did not let on the car boot was full of them so we had to dump them inconspicuously all over the show. That was a lesson learned. Winter cauliflowers are also doing well but like the artichokes,not sure how many will find their way to market if the growers continue their dissent and burn everything down and tip their produce in public places.

When I heard the news headlines last night after XFactor I was horrified at yet another beheading of a westerner. However, with the risk of being kidnapped known for some time now and the latest victim told not go to Syria, I cannot understand why anyone would especially if they have a family back in the UK. I think too, anyone who leaves their home country to go and fight for these murderous barbarians should never be allowed to return or if they do, be put in prison for life,meaning no release ever. Would they not be classed as traitors which I thought carried the death penalty in cases such as this?

After months of lovely hot weather and no rain to speak of, it has finally changed with a bang this morning. Strong winds and heavy rain for three hours now with no sign of any let up and its so dark indoors too. I hate the end of summer personally as I see all the leaves begin to drop, the last of the fruit falling and the non-stop trailers of chopped maize being taken to the farms for the winter feed to say nothing of the log deliveries locally. I also means I can't cross the fields which turn into a mud bath from the tractors so its back to pounding the tarmac for a few months for me and doggie apart from visits to the local beaches.

Well I have tried again to log in to FE and no such luck. Shame really as sometimes there are some good snippets of info and some very nice members too.

My all time favourite question on that other site was someone wanting to know if they could get milk here or should they bring some pints from the UK. My husband wanted to reply at the time with something like "sorry but only the purple and white cows here that give chocolate milk, so you had better bring some with you"

Poor old BIL, stinky express broken down right at moment approx ten mins into tunnel from UK side. He is not a happy bunny!

Thats correct, AI not FE and I don't want to start a forum war on here, its the only sane place I can go to now. Richards - I, like most forum users have not limited myself to just one site, there are dozens of members on this forum who also post on many others that I know from cyberspace and sometimes, some forums seem to dry up with lack of interest and postings. I hadn't been on here for a while to post but I do log in to read threads and like most people, if I am interested in the subject I will reply where I can, otherwise I just read and decide it dosn't interest me or havenothing to say on the subject.  

Poor BIL, not only running the gauntlet of diesel alley but when he uses the Stinky express he suffers more abuse from the "sweaty e.european arm pit brigade". The brit truckers hate the tunnel with a vengeance but sometimes they have no choice if they can't get on the ferries. Yes, Belgium is suffering too with truck stops close to ports a no go area now and as I said, many driv ers are putting a good few kms between them and the clandestins at the moment. My sister loses a lot of sleep when he is on the road.

If you go on some of the trucker's sites/Facebook etc you can see footage of lorries running the gauntlet to catch a ferry at Calais and how these clandestins behave, some truckers will run them down if they are in the road regardless and a lot of the discussions are full of anger at the authorities allowing them to behave in this way and just standing back and doing nothing about it!

Its been noisy here recently with the local naval airbase practising both day and nightime manoeuvers which is quite comforting to know they are ready for action if needed.

I worry about hand shaking with men, most have probably been and had a peel al fresco especially the elderly ones so you know they havn't washed them if I at a meal or something that involves food and hands. When I was working, I used to worry about garlic or shallot breath and used gallons of listerine every morning as the drivers would always give me a kiss and yet, they reeked of either ciggies or garlic but never cared. Must be an english trait to worry about bad breath or germy hands. As for kissing, its four here in Bretagne unless its a very good friend which is just an intimate one and usually a cuddle too, especially from the old duckies.

Well I keep getting notifications from FE regarding questions posed but cannot help as I cannot log on anymore. I did get on there for the first time since they changed just over a week ago now and that took five days before it would clear me and because we had a power surge again and the PC shut down, I lost my automatic login and have not been able to get on again for over six days now. To be honest I had a look at the threads and there is hardly anything new. I think there are lots of us from this forum who also went there and no way would I go on the local AI, that really is a nasty place now with stupid questions you only have to google to find out and then those who respond are adamant they are correct even if the official info is totally different. Its true if you tinker with something that is working well, you only end up breaking it.

Best to keep all your pets vaccinated against rabies regardless of whether they leave the country or not. It only takes one case to spread and then the authorities will put down those animals in the infected area if they cannot proove vaccination as happened in the SW several years back.Rabies can easily come into the country via clandestine arrivals from N.Africa via Spain on small boats or smuggled easily in cars and camper vans, dosn't take much and my vet advocates yearly vaccinations because of this and so does the préfet of this dept.

We had two of them on the main road to town for many years to represent the deaths of two people on that stretch and I think to be honest they just went rotten and were removed. I noticed the other day, a sign for a bus stop had been decorated with a brown coat, a hat and some twigs for hands, talk about off-putting when you are driving along from laughing. Signs and publicité along main routes have to be inspected once per year by the people who put them up to make sure they are still safe (we had to do this when I was on the tourist office admin board and some were on the main dual carriageway) as the owners are liable if they fall down or blow in the road!

As you know I was widowed almost three years ago now and if we had not had the joint accounts as M OU Mme I would have been in deep dogdo as the bank has to be notified within days of the death along with the sucession started. I have now just recently been summoned to the bank and the account is now in my name only as surviving spouse. Can confirm about the carte grise too if not in surviving spouses name, my car was in both names but only HIS christian name appeared and took precedence which meant my children had to write letters as well as my Notaire to the garage when I wanted to trade the vehicle in for a new car to allow me! Otherwise the surviving spouse has to re-register the vehicle again with permission from any and all heirs and pay the cost of a new carte grise and plates if old style ones. BE WARNED. Also for those not aware, if you were married in the UK and are joint property owner with a spouse who dies, the whole affair is deemed married as "séperation des biens" unless you have changed to a french régime when moving here and the survivor is also liable for all debts of the defunct as well unless they refuse inheritance as I have done.

FE- well have tried to log on yet again for five days now, even left the PC page open all day and nothing so will not be returning I don't think. Have always been on this site albeit not a prolific poster these days with so much going on in the real world. FE changing their setup has sounded the death knoll I think as it runs slower than a clockwork train.

My son is on the TGV to Perpignan at this minute and has passed Montpelier OK.We were worried last evening about him being able to go today as its an 11hour trip from here which started at 03.30 for us this morning for him to catch the train to Paris first!

My BIL runs the gauntlet of diesel alley two or three times per week at Calais with his HGV. He has fitted  dashboard cameras to the front of the tractor and to the rear of his trailer after three times having illegals discovered in his unit some years back now. He never exits the vehicle for any reason until well inside the docks where the refugees can't go and all the way up the channel coast as far as Holland,lorry drivers are becoming more and more targetted. BIL when running out of hours and has to park up will not go within 60kms of the ports anywhere and to get out and check the unit, he carries a big iron bar for protection. The trucking fraternity who run the risk of being murdered every time they go to Calais are up in arms and it will only be a matter of time before a driver is killed they feel now!

Yes, any eventual court case will take years anyway to get any previous bans lifted and cost thousands of euros.

If this were my problem I would not mess around with the local mairie, notaire,DDE or prefecture but go straight to a specialist avocat dealing in such matters because I think it may be your only solution to sort this out.Government officials just pass the buck or file your dossier in a drawer until they decide to have a look at it but an avocat, and you can have a first free consultation, has more clout and can write a stiff letter demanding some action etc. Whatever you do, its going to cost but pay those who canhelp you and not fanny around with lesser mortals!

Also the other fact is that the original operation was not life threatening and the husband was told he could live with the cyst because it was not dangerous and the fact he was 84 and in fairly good health decided him to go ahead whilst he still had a good chance of recovery. It was the bacterial infection like MRSA that he caught that did for him in the end and none of us who go into any hospital whether it be here or elsewhere can guarantee we won't also catch an infection too. No one coming on holiday to France with an EHIC card would be going into hospital here unless it was an emergency or accident and even then it is advisable to have some travel insurance in play.This couple had already lived here for over 15years so were well into the system but anyone now under retirement age should really investigate just exactly what they will face should the worse happen.

Dangerous is not strong enough. My good friend's husband went into hospital in 2010 for a small routine operation to remove a cyst on his colon but the surgeon nicked the membrane surrounding the area and he got septacaemia and was in a coma for several weeks followed by over six months in ITU because he caught a nasty bacterial infection during all time and was tranferred between a local clinic and the main hospital - I know all this having to go with her most days and get garbed up in protective clothing. The bill came to nearly €165,000 which fortunately for his wife who then became a widow because he did not survive six months from the original op, they had been living here for many years and were covered by the reciprocal old age pension health cover but she did not have nor still has no top up mutuelle and luckily she only ended up with around €300 to pay off.She was then told if she had not been covered by the UK she would have had to pay that bill which would have meant selling her home and this has happened to people with no insurance or UK backup and hence why many hospitals here insist on taking your passport details and a signed but open cheque up front in some cases. Two weeks ago, she received again another bill for nearly €2000 dated 2010 and nearly had a heart attack but it was an error in that it had come from the local hospital and should have gone to the local CPAM who are fighting out it between each other to settle all these old bills. None of this is made up, I have seen it all from the entry to the hospital for the husband to him dying and finally this nasty late bill which the mairie eventually rang the CPAM for her. My own husband ran up thousands of euros of medical care but as he was ALD and eventually died, it was not applied but it gave us many sleepless nights wondering what we would have to pay for even though we were covered.

Well the President did say that if you can afford to retire early then you can afford to pay for your healthcare and not be a drain on the finances and this was aimed at all early retirees, not just french nationals. Tinabee is correct is saying that you should never take anything for granted here, it changes all to often and very quickly. I should get some quotes from private health insurers if I were the OP to see what is out there, many people have gone down this route until they have furnished enough french tax returns to be regarded as resident with perhaps some rights to the certain schemes. It is certainly too dangerous to live here without any sort of cover and the EHIC is not sufficient.