Saira

Hello, I was looking only yesterday and website was fine. Perhaps the dates didn't match up because you clicked on a link or site for a previous festival? Anyway, it starts on this Thurs 22nd and runs until the evening of Sunday 25th. Loads of free concerts and some big names that you pay for although even some of them do free sessions as well. Fantastic... hope the sun shines, see you there!

Congratulations....message in your in box.

I'd like to have gone but had to work. I don't think it is always held in Cognac though and so it might well be somewhere else next year.

We were wondering how to go about the same thing, a few years ago. First went to medecin generaliste,feeling slightly silly and that we might be laughed out of the surgery. He immediately phoned a colleague urologist. Appointment a couple of weeks later and reversal carried out with no fuss or payment (other than usual SECU and mutuel formalities of course.) We got the impression that as vasectomy was seen to the French to be such a weird thing to have gone in for in the first place, they were only too happy to help any man get everything back into to working order! 4 months waiting afterwards (while spermatozoids 'in the pipeline as it were' get to the right area - that is how long it takes, and then, wonder of wonders ...it worked!

LAST EDITED ON 22-Apr-04 AT 09:16 PM (BST) Having had babies in both countries,I would prefer the UK for flexibility and being more relaxed. However France is very good technically so if you need help for complications then things will be dealt within much the same way wherever you are. It is when things are uncomplicated that the differences are more apparent. Mostly it is just that things are very slow to change here, but they are changing slowly! Where I work we run lots of ante natal classes and we have just begun postnatal sessions too for mums and babies to meet up again. Obviously you need to be able to speak reasonable French though to be able to take part properly. I think it would be easy to feel isolated having a first baby in here if you don't speak the language and are not lucky enough to come across midwives and doctors who can speak good English. It isn't really for the important issues, but it can make a big difference for the little things.