Benjamin

One further point. Avoid lifting or putting any strain on the side where the pacemaker has been fitted (it doesn't have to be the same side as the heart). Do this until the dressing has been removed. This way the healing process is better.

I can only comment from a UK experience as this procedure is done as a day patient here. There is nothing really to recover from as the operation is done under  a local anesthetic. After the op. an x-ray is taken to ensure everything is attached correctly although before you leave the theatre tests are done to ensure everything is normal. About six weeks after discharge you'll attend for the pacemaker to be checked again and if you ask nicely they'll give an estimate of the life of the battery before it will need changing. Thereafter annual checks. Possibly the worst part is yet to come if you have a hairy chest like me.  [:D] The chest area will have been shaved but when your local nurse removes the dressing in about a weeks time it always seems that the shaved area was not large enough. Grin and bear it and tell the nurse to do it as fast as possible.  [:P] Best of luck.

A pacemaker is one of the conditions you MUST inform DVLA about. It will be noted but that is all. Don't forget, if you have travel insurance again you MUST inform the insurance company and they're likely to exclude any problems with the pacemaker for 12 twelve months. What DVLA's reaction to your foreign address will be, I have no idea.

[quote user="PaulT"] Make an offer and if accepted you sign a document that ties you in to buying. [/quote] If the property requires any work doing either to bring it to a habitable condition to to achieve a finish that you require, then do not sign anything until you have a firm, written quotation from a reputable local builder (preferably not one recommended by the agent). Whatever you need the agent will assure you that it can be done at reasonable cost. In France nothing gets done at reasonable cost compared to what we think it may cost.

First time for years but we're heading South on Wednesday. Probably wine-up at Talmont St Hilaire on our way through. Almeria here we come!!!!!!

If you go to the Hargreaves Lansdown website (registration not required) they are offering a downloadable Beginner's Guide to buying property abroad. No, it wont be as comprehensive as you'd like, but it will give you a basis to ask further questions.

The best people to ask are the ambulance/taxi company. In general you obtain the reclaim forms from the person referring you for treatment in the first place. This would normally be your French doctor but if, as sounds the case for you, it's probably a hospital specialist then you would get the reclaim forms from them or their secretarial staff. We've never used a taxi but I could imagine in such a case the taxi company would take the paperwork from you and deal directly with CPAM.

Thank you for your email, Pre-paid MasterCard due generally get refused at Motorway toll booth due to the way the Toll booth takes the payment. A pre authorisation of approximately €80.00 is taken when using a fuel pump, this is because the amount you would be able to fill up to is limited. What fuel stations usually do is  pre-authorise the €80.00 and then also take a payment for the amount of fuel you have dispensed.  The €80.00 will then take up to 15 working days to go back onto your account. Kind regards This is the reply i have received from my pre-loaded card issuer. Note the potential 15 day wait.

Aly I can't open your link, maybe it's my browser but I can guess what the petitions are saying. The queue for bleeding hearts starts here.  [:D] These people. be they authors or publishers, know exactly the deal they sign up to with the likes of Amazon and if they don't then they shouldn't have signed in the first place. I don't suppose any of them have started petitions to complain about the publicity their writing receives from being on a site like Amazon or would they be happy to be published anonymously?

[quote user="basquesteve"]I'm interested in the virtually next to nothing cost 365 days at 25 degrees How much is it[/quote] Having seen it the first time around I'd assumed it was a typo but on reflection maybe it wasn't. Having owned a well insulated modern built French house (less than 10 years old) I wouldn't have dreamed of leaving heating on all year long. I know the costs of keeping warm and comfortable with electric u/f heating so it will be interesting to see how much next to nothing is. Or is cost all relative to your circumstances?

[quote user="Aly"] Its not actually Amazon that only makes a loss its the authors of books. [/quote] Amazon and loss? Not two words you normally see together. They have a very clear plan and strategy. As for the authors..........they know what the deals are. Bravo to Clair for following the rules, just like Amazon do.

[quote user="sweet 17"]....on the unnecessary wastefulness of the French Health Service.  Indeed, I have written in the past and at some length about how wasteful certain elements of the health service are here, [/quote] I think we'll all be able to relate different experiences but the good parts of the French system, from a patient's point of view, were the scans. Mrs Benjamin has had a few in her time and to have an MRI scan lasting over an hour (brain and spine) then to wait ten minutes until the Radiographer appears with the scan and discusses any differences between the latest one and the previous one which you've taken along is truly amazingly efficient. We've still never seen the scan which she had on returning to live in England three years ago and certainly the Neurologist has never called her back to discuss the result. That is the last one she will ever have in England. Maybe the other procedure which the ladies can relate to is a mammogram. Scan taken, sit for ten minutes and the Radiographer appears wjth the scan and his written report. As she was bitten by a horse on the side of her breast when she was a teenager there is always something to discuss. The results of a mammogram in England took six weeks to arrive! That's the last one of those she'll have due to her age.

[quote user="sweet 17"]Benjamin, is that also like cough medicine? [/quote] It's just that I find all of these sort of apero drinks a bit on the sweet (no offence intended) and sickly side but I am a savoury person all the time.

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]The big, purpose-built transit buses that used to ferry passengers from aircraft to terminal at Algiers airport bore the name " ENEMA" across the front. I wonder who thought that was a good idea.[/quote] Surely the pilots weren't that bad Betty?

The equivalent on La Vendée is Troussepinette, red or white. Equally foul in my opinion.

Just as an add-on to Racerbear02's question here are the opening times of our local surgery in a largish country village. Monday 08.00 to 18.30 Tuesday 08.00 to 18.30 Wednesday 08.00 to 19.45 Used to be closed on a Wednesday but now open with an extra 1hr.45 added on. Thursday 08.00 to 12.00 and 14.00 to 19.45 Recently added the 1hr.45 in the evening. Staff training 12.00 to 14.00 Friday 08.00 to 18.30 Saturday Closed Sunday Closed None of the several GPs at the practice work all of these hours but it's impossible to work out what hours individuals work. As Racerbear says "over to you Mr Cameron".

[quote user="Hoddy"]Just when you think the Daily Mail can't get any lower ..... Hoddy[/quote] I take it you haven't read the link in Norman's opening post. This is all pretty tame stuff. I used to enjoy the old style Labour Party annual conferences (think Michael Foot and the Beast of Bolsover) when you were guaranteed a very unseemly bust up. Happy days.

Rechargeable batteries do not go on forever. Their life will depend upon usage, how many times they've been recharged and their initial quality. Telephone batteries are constantly being recharged so when the things start to play up they need replacing.

Thanks for the link Betty. We were "travelling"  at the time which I guess is how I never saw the thread. Pickles' sub link to MSE is also interesting although for the life of me I can't work how they graded the cards listed. We've decided to go with I C E as they provide the second card at the same time as the first one. If the first one is lost/stolen/chewed by the dog, it's a single 'phone call and your balance on the first card is transferred across. Much better than waiting for a replacement card to be sent. Any other experiences still welcome.

For our forthcoming Winter trip in Euroland we will be taking a combination of credit and debit cards together with some €uros. For the first time I'm also thinking about taking a pre-loaded €uro currency card. I've chosen the company I want to go with but would welcome any feedback, negative or positive, from anyone who has experience of using these cards.

Thanks for all your comments and recommendations although some of them passed over my head!!!! I have no knowledge of the quality/speed of the wifi connections I may get so the memory stick still seems the best bet for the moment. The cheap as chips Kogan TV has a USB port (as well as other interfaces) although it will probably fail at some point in time. As for other devices with storage (Android, tablet etc.) we have none except for a Kindle Fire HD for the occasional 'net access. If all else fails we'll just go back to our normal means of amusing ourselves i e we talk to one another!!!!!!!!

dave21478 If you only have USB 2 slots on the TV will buying a USB 3 make any difference in using the memory stick to play back films and TV programmes in the way we want to?  

A star again Clair!!!!!! The first option using the delete key seems to have worked. Many thanks.

Having recently had a scare over our email account being hacked I've had to change our password system for everything we access via the 'net. Fortunately nothing else untoward seems to have happened (banks, insurance etc.) I decided not to be permanently logged in so that each time I access our hotmail account I put the first letter of our email account into the box asking for the email and a drop down brings up the full address. Not particularly worried about that as our email address is in the public domain any way. However earlier today I brought up the email address when signing in, thought I'd clicked on the password box, and typed in our new password. I hadn't clicked the password box and we now have a drop down under the email box which is our actual email plus our password. Anyone know how to get rid of this please as it compromises the whole of our password system?

Never bought one of these in my life. A friend is offering to copy films, TV programmes etc. from a hard disk they have (yes they all currently play back) to a memory stick for us for out Winter stay in Spain. There is a bewildering choice out there. Any recommendations for a good quality 16/32GB brand to buy?