seb47

Thanks Odile -will do.

Callie is mostly correct. I'd advise you not to hold your breath! We had severe flooding in Lot et Garonne in May 2007. For example. friends had the contents of their veg patch washed into the swimming pool plus lots of other damage. It was a complete mess for kilometers around.  It tooks months for them (the Departement) to formally declare a "Catastrophe Naturelle". Our friends had already cleared up most of the mess to mitigate their loss but were penalised because they should have left everything as it was - apparently you are even supposed to leave the food rotting in your freezer until the formal declaration. We came to the conclusion that much of our insurance was a waste of time. Peter

Thanks all for the quick and concise info. Judging by the replies given by Brits I've spoken to in Portugal, there must be loads of them out there without a clue! (Until they need to go to the doctors I suppose).

Thanks all - loads to go on!

I know this is a little out of order and fully expect to be moderated, but hope someone in France has a relevant contact. Has anyone got any knowledge of the EU healthcare edicts in Portugal - re those of us Brits with expired E 106s, under state retirement age with pre existing conditions, Is it a condition of residancy in Portugal to have private health insuranceI if not working, below retirement age? I 'm getting different and seemingly ill-informed answers from a Portugal Forum. No-one seems to know what is going on really.

Apologies if this message appears twice due to a server error. Thanks Cheryla, Gosub, Chas, Mikew, Powerdesal. I ran out of my GS a couple of weeks ago and have really suffered with the lower back pain since. I'm going to look now at the sites you have suggested - much appreciated. Happy hobbling!

Does anyone have a reliable supplier of GS in France? My pharmacist is charging 24 euros for a very small box!! I've seen cheap offers on the web but can't be sure of reliability/security of personal details etc. I'd be grateful for private e-mails if you don't want to advertise on here. Cheers,

Kathy Many thanks. I'll give Insurance4Carhire a try once more. Peter

Good advice Andy We are hiring via Europcar from Stansted in December. I've been advised that their daily charge for damage waiver is £12 so will be taking out the cover with insurance4carhire as we've used them before (but no claims). I'd be interested to know if anyone has ever made a claim and how they (insurance4carhire) dealt with it. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. I will take my trusty Maglite to inspect carefully for any damage! Peter 

Jako, and Jane and Danny Many thanks for the information and links. Looks like we should tread very carefully! Peter

Thank you both for the replies. Clair, a few negative comments on there which are a bit of a worry. I will telephone them next week to make sure the TV is actually in stock before proceeding. They advertise in "What HiFi Son & Home Cinema" so appear not to be fly by night....... Paul, yes that is the model and the price I've been quoted is less than any in your list. I must check that it includes TVA! Peter

To lift the current gloom of the credit crunch and Sterling to Euro exchange rate we've decided to splash out on a new LCD TV to replace our aged Philips 21" (4 by 3). We've decided on a Sony 32" with Full HD  and the best quoted price is on line by HomeCine Solutions based at Compiegne. Not sure if we're allowed to ask but are they a reliable supplier? Has anyone purchased from them? We'll be paying by Master Card. Please private e-mail if you cannot reply on the forum. Peter

Well worth a look by the sound of it Quillan - thankyou, and thanks B a F also.

We have a caravelair caravan and would like to upgrade, but want to look at some alternative brands. We're prepared to travel in this region if there are decent sized dealers around (of caravans, not camping cars). Any suggestions?

Hello - nothing from URSAF here either. Our last communication was the letter of renewal from CPAM (including notice of how much we'd have to pay) followed the following day by the letter stating they were still waiting for all our justificatifs - discussed at length on this forum. Our local office checked the computer and advised us to ignore the second letter.  

BB We had an open fire and whilst sometimes it worked a treat, at other times we had smoke filled room syndrome - very frustrating. After a particularly bad spell, and an incident when the fire spat a burning cinder over the fire guard onto the rug (luckily we were sitting in the room at the time so extinguished it immediately), we decided to fit an insert - a Supra in our case with a secondary heat chamber. These have a number of benefits - tax relief at 50% of the cost of the appliance (if it has the Flamme Vert label); a built in 2 speed fan (one speed thermostatically controlled); a lever to adjust air flow for drawing - you can set this  low so that if you pile up the wood before you go to bed it will stay in through the night, also there are 4 extra outlets apart from the one to the chimney stainless steel liner so you can connect the fire to 4 other rooms via inox conduits for secondary heat. In practice we only use one to heat our adjacent bedroom. The glass door stops cinders flying all over the place (you can safely leave it burning fiercely when you leave the house or the room) and the fire gets so hot it consumes the ash to the point where we only really need to empty the tray about once a week. Total cost fitted about 1500 Euros less about 675 Euros refund on the tax. We find on the few coolish nights we've had so far this autumn we have to limit the heat flow or strip down to t-shirt and shorts! We realise it's quite a costly option but haven't regretted our decision at all. Peter

Thank you both. Agen CPAM have had sight and (several) copies of full birth certificates, passports, utility bills, all ustificatifs. avis d'impots etc etc 'til we are blue in the face but we still seem to be temporary! We'll get there in the end .............(as Sue said) Peter

Thanks for the quick reply Clair! Sadly the formula doesn't seem to fit us. We both have the same SS number under my husband's name and apparently we are sex no. 7!  99 doesn't figure anywhere though we were born in UK. They seem to have a poor opinion of us! Not to worry though - we keep saying "we'll get there in the end ....."

Hi Clair - I've also had difficulties setting up the Ameli account - mainly I think because it asks for a 13 figure SS no. ("sans cle"). Our no. is 15 figure, but still isn't accepted by deleting either the first or last 2 digits. Did you get anywhere with it?

We have replaced 2 capacitors like this in 3 years. Not sure why they suddenly fail but we hadn't had any thunderstorms at the time so am sure that wasn't the cause. Ours both oozed the same grey gunge which solidified on the surface of the capacitor. Otherwise there was no damage to the pump. Ours have the same rating as yours and I got them replaced at a local plumber/pool shop - cost about 10 Euros I think. Peter

John Thanks for your comments and advice. We don't have dogs or other animals so apart from the possible danger to friends and neighbours animals (and us!) we will take care. I wore lots of protective clothing, especially strong leather gardening gloves. I understand that they are a big problem in Les Landes where they are sprayed from helicopters. Pads No they look somewhat different to the Oak variety, they are yellow/brown - see the link in John's post. I should have tried to take a photo but otherwise had my hands full hanging on to the ladder and bits of branch! The cocoon is quite "pretty" until you get close and realise what is going on inside. Peter 

We noticed more of the cocoons today, one quite low down but the remainder at about 20 feet on one of the two pine trees which have been affected before. The caterpillars seemed to be alive but have now been destroyed on a bonfire. We normally have this problem early in the year and cannot remember having to deal with them in October. We are resigned to the fact that we will probably lose the trees eventually. Peter

Thankyou to all especially SD for advice on renouvellement of CMU de Base. However, we are now sure that this year is a new process for local CPAM offices. They will do their best to make us (ex E 106s) jump through all the hoops!! We sent a photocopy of our revenue fiscal for 2007 to Agen CPAM (despite grumblings from the local CPAM lady that we would need justificatifs of income - we argued not). Went on holiday and sure enough on return yesterday, had a letter waiting from CPAM Agen asking urgently for : proof of identity (3rd time so far);  proof of residence such as EDF bill; proof of 'capitaux meme etranger'. Not a relaxing end to the holiday. We took all requested evidence to Agen and appear to have appeased them. Are they looking for stress candidates in the health system?  Not so easy to renew as it seems in our case. Awaiting confirmation that we are still in the (paying!!) system as of 15 September!  

Thanks SD - we hope so. As you said earlier somewhere, it will be so much simpler when the tax is automatically linked in to health - hopefully next year.

So - armed with our avis des impots on a bright sunny morning and confident with your advice SD, we set off to renew our rights. However, Mme le CPAM in Fumel had different ideas. She was adamant that we needed all the justificatifs of our revenue for 2007. Fortunately we had brought along our Declaration of Revenue.2007. She mumbled and grumbled, took a copy and said " well you must wait for a response from Agen". Our problem is that we'll be on holiday on the 15th (due date for return of info for renouvellement), so we are hoping that all will go well ...