RogerW

The village of Chabris in the Indre lies on the River Cher, which formed the Demarcation Line in that area. Chabris itself lay to the south of the line in the unoccupied zone, and the neighbouring village of Gièvres, in the Loir et Cher, was on the northern side of the river in the occupied zone. The bridge in Chabris was an official crossing point guarded by a superannuated customs officer and one sentry. Both had been posted to the bridge in order to get them out of the way and minimise the damage they could do to the German war effort. The customs officer was almost spherical and had a very short temper. He had an uncanny resemblance to a certain high ranking Nazi (member of the ruling political party), and was known to all the locals as 'Hermann'. The sentry was very dim. They shared a small hut just north of the bridge and were very loath to leave it, especially in cold weather. The locals used a simple ruse to cross the line. If they wanted, say, to cross from Chabris to Gièvres, they would knock on the door to the hut and tell Hermann a pathetic tale about how they had forgotten their Ausweiss, but needed to cross to Chabris for some pressing family reason. Hermann would promptly lose his temper, scream that nobody ever crossed his bridge without the correct documentation, and order the sentry to escort the unfortunate applicant back to Gièvres. Coming back, the story was reversed and an armed escort was provided back to Chabris. Roger.       

I can recommend the Kyriad Prestige in Roissy. Reasonably priced and the bedrooms are quadruple-glazed to keep out the noise of the airport. Restaurant is a carvery, but the food is  good and there are a dozen or so other hotel restaurants within walking distance if you don't fancy the menu. There is a secure underground carpark and it's next door to the Campanile (part of the same group) so you can share their shuttle-bus to and from the airport terminal. Hope this helps, Roger.

Pop into the Mairie and ask to see the 'plan cadastral', and the 'plan d'occupation des sols' or the 'plan local d'urbanisme' (they will have one or the other depending on when it was last updated). Find your plot on the plan cadstral and note the two-letter code for the area it is in. Check the POS or PLU for all the planning restrictions (some of which may be specific to the area - hence the need for the code). Hope this helps. Roger.

The Auberge du Centre in Chitenay has a good reasonably-priced restaurant. The owner is a bit of a wine buff and one of the options on the wine list is a different glass of wine with each course. A good way to discover the local wines. The Lion d'Or in Romorantin is reputed to be excellent (although he recently lost one of his two Michelin stars!). This is reflected in the prices (80 - 120 euro each). Avoid the restaurant that looks like a fisherman's hut on the riverside road to Tours out of Blois. The Pat-à-Pain chain of restaurants are excellent value for lunch. They do a wide range of sandwiches, salads, pizzas and cakes. There's one in Blois on the big roundabout south of the town and another in Romorantin, plus a couple in Orléans. If you get fed up with the huge Royal châteaux, try Chémery and the Château du Moulin near Romorantin. The owners of the Château de Chémery have been restoring it for the past 25 years and you get to see interesting bits like the inside of the roof and unrestored medieval ruins. Valençay is also worth a visit. Hope this helps, Roger.

He is saying that the work would be done as an addition to your existing contract rather than as a new job in its own right. You will only have to sign a single sheet specifying the additional cost, and possibly the timescale. All the other conditions, guarantee, etc. will be as in the main contract. This is often used when you are having a house built and decide half way through to change some aspect of the design or the specification. Hope this helps, Roger.

It might be worth asking for a quotation WITHOUT offering to remove all the wood! When we were building our house, the architect told us that the groundwork contractor would remove as many trees as we wanted for no extra cost providing they could take (and presumably sell) the timber. Roger.

The nicest olive oil I have ever tasted came from the cooperative oil mill in Maussane-les-Alpilles near Les Baux de Provence. Around November/December they produce a 'new oil' that is very fresh and light and ideal for salads. There is also an open day sometime in December with lots of free food and folklore type entertainment. The whole valley is an AOC oil producing area and most villages have at least one mill. HTH, Roger.

It's open from the A71 as far as Noyers sur Cher. ViaMichelin is showing it accurately. The bridge over the Cher is in place and the tarmac seems to have been done at all the points where I've crossed it between there and Tours. It'll still take them a while to finish all the signage, toll booths, etc. HTH, Roger.

I've just got back from installing an old Panasonic digibox in France. The box and its card (blue/yellow house design) had been in a cupboard for about two years since the Sky subscription was cancelled. The free to air channels (BBC, ITV, etc.) all worked immediately, but Channels 4 and 5 only showed the 'phone Sky to add this channel to your subscription' message. I left the box connected on stand-by and Channels 4 and 5 eventually arrived about a day and a half later. However, when we left, there was still no sign of any radio channels! You should bear in mind that some of the Channel 4 group of channels are only available with a Sky subscription (i.e. Film 4 is available free, but More 4 isn't). Hope this helps, Roger.

I can recommend the Kyriad Prestige. Large soundproofed rooms (two double-glazed windows, one on the inner surface of the wall, one on the outer) and an acceptable 'carvery' type restaurant. I can't remember the price we paid, but it was not much more than an ordinary Kyriad. They also run a bus shuttle service to and from the airport in partnership with the Campanile next door which I think is free. The open carpark is free but they also have a secure underground carpark for a few euros a night. Hope this helps, Roger.

All is revealed here: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6319873.html Roger

Sorry - it doesn't mean that. 'Hors eau' means that the roof is on and the site is sheltered from the rain. The next stage is 'hors air' when the windows and external doors are in and the site is secure. Both normally trigger stage payments. Roger.

Although you can probably get them cheaper elsewhere, they are available from QVC in the UK. They will ship to France, but I think you have to call their call centre rather than order on the website. Go to www.qvcuk.com and typw 'durgun' into the search box. Hope this helps Roger.

There's a lot of links to information on French scouting organisations on: http://inter.scoutnet.org/units_fr.html Hope this helps, Roger.

There are a whole load of user reviews here: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/terrestrial/reviews/ The consensus seems to be that Nokia and Thompson should be avoided. Sony and Humax are supposed to be good. If you must have an RF modulator, check the specs very carefully as only around 10 - 20 % of boxes have these, but they all have 'RF feed-through' which is just a connection to pass the analogue aerial signal on to the TV. I am just about to replace my one-year-old Haupaugge 1100 which overheats and has developed a tendency to lock up. Hope this helps, Roger.

France 2 has remade Maurice Druon's brilliant story of 14th century France and is showing the first episode on November 7th at 20h50. Should be good! Roger.

Hello Molly, They are 'lames de terrasse'. Hope this helps, Roger.

I find that taking one Boot's Allergy Relief tablet (chlorpheniramine) every morning during the summer not only keeps my hayfever at bay, it also stops insect bites swelling up and itching. You still get bitten, but you don't notice it! This is only a quarter of the recommended dose and it's not enough to make me drowsy. Roger.

Take a look in Leroy-Merlin (near to the Auchan supermarkets in Boulogne and Calais) and Lapeyre (opposite the Auchan supermarket in Calais - not sure if there is one in Boulogne). Both are national chains with a vast choice of stuff. L-M have a series of brochures and 'how to do it' guides for each product area that can be picked up in the store and Lapeyre have a big three volume catalogue that you can even grab from a dispenser outside the store when they're closed. Both have internet sites and you can order stuff from the Lapeyre site and pick it up later from your nearest store. I don't think you'll find a bidet though. They are now considered seriously old-fashioned in France ! Hope this helps, Roger.

Have a look at the Yorkshire Building Society Offset Tracker Mortgage (Bank of England base rate plus 0.75%). www.ybs.co.uk Their minimum loan is £25k and there are no fees and no penalties for early repayment. If £25k still leaves you with a surplus, you could either put it in the offset savings account as 'rainy day money' and save the interest on your mortgage, or repay it immediately with no penalty. The only snag is that the mortgage has to be secured against a UK property. Hope this helps, Roger.

This is my understanding of the rules: When planning permission is granted, the Mairie puts up a public notice to that effect and you are obliged to display a huge panel at the site with information on the extent of the work and the address of the Mairie where the documents included with the planning permission application can be viewed. Once both these requirements are complied with, third parties have two months in which to appeal against the planning permission but only on the grounds that the permission has been granted illegally i.e. that the proposed work does not comply with the POS/PLU and the Mairie should have refused it for that reason. No-one can appeal simply on the grounds that they don't like the design or would prefer it if the land wasn't built on. Hope this helps, Roger.

It's a mis-translation of 'longère', a long, low farmhouse originally with a semi-detached barn and hay loft in the roof. Anyone over 5' 6" tall standing on the ground floor has to be careful to position their head between the beams. Upstairs the ceilings are lower. It joins 'hair paté' and 'heart attack flats' ('résidence coup-de-coeur') as an excellent illustration of the touching French belief that a bonne note in l'anglais thirty years ago and a battered Larousse qualifies you as a translator. Roger.

You can usually find two or three books on how to write formal letters and CVs in the non-fiction part of the books section in most hypermarkets. Some of them consist almost entirely of examples which would give you an idea of the sort of thing they expect. Roger.

If I remember correctly, there are also at least three villages near to St-Amand Montrond in the Cher that claim to be the exact centre of France. The problem is that the borders have changed several times in the last few hundred years (Flanders, Alsace-Lorraine, Savoy, etc.) and each time the borders change, the geographical centre of the country shifts by a few tens or hundreds of kilometres. Some conveniently ignore Corsica and I'm sure there are others that include Réunion or Martinique in order to just nudge themselves into position! Roger.

Bear in mind that the FR3 news programmes broadcast from the satellite don't have the regional and local opt-outs. Instead, they have a couple of sections made up of selected stories from all over the country. You can, however, view the all the local and regional sections for the past few days on the FR3 website: http://videojts.france3.fr/. Roger.