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londoneye

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Posts posted by londoneye

    Re-registering with CPAM

    in Changes to Healthcare Entitlement, CPAM, CMU and Cartes Vitales

    Posted

    Yes, thank you Clair.   I feel really stupid about this, because when I declared tax last year (earnings on savings basically), the woman in tax office said it was only from the time we had arrived in France which we had to declare income, so I wasn't expecting the earnings in Jan/Feb 2006 plus the lump sum to be taken into account for the CMU calculation.   No excuses for poor research, except that we had expected to start a business this year so had not expected to be in position of even considering the application.   Next year we will have business up and running so it won't be an issue.

    Still, I am going to be much better off just not returning to CPAM office it seems, and taking out low cover PHI for a year.   Seems a bit immoral, even to me, to be honest, and I am fully aware its my own fault, but I simply cannot afford to pay what the calculation will come out to.     

    hare found dead

    in Animal Welfare, Rescue & Protection

    Posted

    Pierre I would like to work for the same company as you !! Do you post from work ?   Sorry being really nosy..

    Ref hares and rabbits; seen 1 hare and 1 rabbit in region 87 in two years ... perhaps I am not looking hard enough but it seems very strange to me.   I used to work in West London and on the way to work some mornings it was like target practice - well the opposite for me actually, I would be driving all over the road in order to try and avoid the hordes of them skittering back and forth.      

    Is it just 87 or is it France in general where there is a shortage of these animals !

    Tough beef

    in French Food and Wine

    Posted

    Sweet 17; tried the casserole.   It was for friends (silly them) coming around for dinner.    Left it in oven for 6 hours, cooking in plenty of time for arrival.    Took it out and tried it; beef was like an old wellington boot (as normal).    Stuck in back in oven (for want of something better to do with it), and went to supermarket to buy something vaguely passable for dinner guests, due to arrive a few hours after.    Was so annoyed I couldn't even be bothered to take the thing out of oven.     Cooked up make-shift new meal; at same time finally removed casserole from oven and tried to hide it, explaining it wasn't good.      My greedy neighbour asked to try it anyway and strangely the meat had turned from rubber to tender in the last few hours!    I think I may have just had it on too low; I put cold water in with it, and it probably took about 4 hours to even get up to simmering temperature (I figured this out after as the likely explanation).   The only other thing is that I put in parsnips and it seemed very sweet in taste, so perhaps I will leave them out next time.

    Any knitters/sewers out there?

    in Animal Welfare, Rescue & Protection

    Posted

    Hi Magnolia

    Not sure if you have seen, but on the Central France section of forum there are a group discussing stich & *****.   Not my thing to be honest, but you may find some willing volunteers from the people responding on the post.

    Good luck with what you are doing.    I really wish I could take one of the dogs, but we just can't at the moment; everything is a bit too unsettled for us right now.     I could probably spare a few euros though if there is anything set up where people could donate (not many you understand !); or if not, perhaps I could buy some wool or something and post it ?? (no idea where from !) - pm me if you want.

    Re-registering with CPAM

    in Changes to Healthcare Entitlement, CPAM, CMU and Cartes Vitales

    Posted

    Well, I may as well update on our visit this morning to CPAM in St Yrieix La Perche (87).

    Armed with everything I could think of we went in and presented the form.    Nice lady (?!) took one look, pushed it back across and said we should take out private health insurance.   I asked her to please accept the forms and let me know in writing.   No, she said, I cannot accept the forms.   Stale-mate; she went back to her paperwork I sat and smiled a lot.   After a few minutes when she could see we weren't just going to go away I asked her again to look at the form.   She did so, and again went through the 'not eligible' thingie.   I told her I believed the situation may have either changed, or be about to change.   She said possibly.   Then passed her letter from French health ministry, and asked if she had seen it.   She clearly had although she said no she hadn't.   She flicked over it and say maybe, but right now I can't do anything.   Bit more stale-mate, and she offered to call a colleague.   Comptuer was down, colleague not there.   Nice big queue building up outside, at which point she caved in, took copies of various things, and then became really happy when she discovered I didn't have a habitation tax bill with me.   Absolutely necessary apparently to prove I live in France (although I had also given her our Avis d'impot and Avis d'imposition).   Then she asked for my P60 from UK for 2006.   I explained again that we came here in April 2006, and I had worked in UK January and part of February 2006.    She assured me the money I earned in UK for Jan and Feb 2006 would also be taken into account in making any assessment.   Is this true ?   I am probably stuffed if it is actually, because my company gave me a quite large 'thank you' gift when I left (not redundancy) for helping them out by working 20+ hours a day on occasion the year before, due to a particularly difficult situation which had arisen in company.

    Anyway, I am to return Monday with the P60 and my habitation tax and then I suppose she will write to me.   Not a particularly easy visit, and certainly taxing on the French, but then again pretty much as I expected.   

    So, add habitation tax to portfolio to take with you everyone !

    Can anyone translate this for me please ?

    in French Language

    Posted

    Thank you again all.    Someone is going to complain soon because this is nothing to do with French language anymore!

    I take the point about DC, but since the technical department have been advised that I require a DC output I had assumed that the transformer would have some kind of internal rectifier (gosh learning new lingo all the time here !).

    Anyway, I think I have taken up enough of everyone's time on this one, so many thanks again.

    Hopefully someone will soon post a question on the French language to bring this section back on track !!

    Wood burning stove (again) novice - help please

    in House Renovations

    Posted

    Also, do not just check the wood-burner prices in local stores, eg M. Bricolage.

    A friend of mine just purchased and had a wood-burner installed from a local supplier/fitter.   Even though the same wood burner was on sale in M Bricolage, because the installer was doing everything he only charged her trade price for the burner, which was still around 150 euros cheaper than the same one in M Bricolage.   Thus, although you may instinctively feel it might be cheaper to shop around and find yourself a wood burner at a good price, do check with the installers, as this may not always be the case (it may be the case on occasion I am sure, but clearly not always from the experience of my friend).

    Can anyone translate this for me please ?

    in French Language

    Posted

    Exactly - and he is not a he !!   Could you not pick up the girlie terminology???

    We also felt transformer acted like it was not powerful enough but, briefly :

    pump is 1.5 AMPS at 13.6 VDC ; fuse 2 AMP

    transformer is :   230 to 12 V, 36,0 VA

    Don't understand why that wouldn't be powerful enough (only because everyone has told me it should be you understand, not from any personal knowledge, although I do know a lot more about transformers than I did two weeks ago !)

    Can anyone translate this for me please ?

    in French Language

    Posted

    Hi all

    thanks for translation.

    Transformer is Weiss (bought from Conrad electrics); after contacting all and sundry in terrible french, it has been decided, even by the company who sold us the transformer that it is the correct one for the job (to attach to our bilge pump which requires a 12V DC power source) and thus the transformer is not correctly functioning.   We have decided we can't bear any more transformer investigations now and are going to buy a battery !!   Defeatist, but I don't have any more time available to spend on my transformer quest !!

    For info Anton, pump works fine when hooked up to battery, so definitely not the pump at fault here, transformer buzzes and sort of turns pump over but not sufficiently to make any water come out of pump.

    Mobile phone

    in French Satellite TV, French Internet and Telephone

    Posted

    Similarly I unlocked my (other) mobile on internet before coming to france, but have not got around yet to actually sorting out french mobile as i currently use my tesco uk one in dire emergencies (eg car broken down, that sort of stuff).    Trying to sort something out for OH so he can use the unlocked phone when I am not here.      Would prefer something like the leclerc deal for obvious reasons.   Perhaps I shall have to try and seek out the nearest store and just go there after all.

    Can anyone translate this for me please ?

    in French Language

    Posted

    Nous vous informons que cet article répond parfaitement à vos attentes.

    I think it means that the article I have ordered corresponds to what I have explained that I require.    Which doesnt explain why said article (a transformer) doesn't actually work.

    If my understanding is correct, then can someone help me with

    'can you please explain to me how to wire up this transformer, because we cannot get it to work'

    or something similar.

    sorry to be a complete pain - have gone into 'lost the will to live mode' over something.

    Any help appreciated !!

    Re-registering with CPAM

    in Changes to Healthcare Entitlement, CPAM, CMU and Cartes Vitales

    Posted

    Now that the rules have been changed again and those such as my partner and myself  with recently expired E106's are once again eligible for affiliation to the french health care system (yippee); what is the best course of action now.

    We sent back our cartes vitales as requested in December and have heard nothing since.    Not that we expected to actually.

    Do we just visit the nice lady in the CPAM office with our old attestation, and all the normal paperwork we can lay our hands on, and ask for cover, or is it more complicated than that?

    Has anyone actually done it yet, with any success by the way ?

    has this cat...

    in Other Topics

    Posted

    oh crumbs, just played the first one, and the dog went ballistic; she has now gone racing out into the garden to look for our cat, to see if it is in severe difficulty - scared to look at second one !!

    My cat's scared...

    in Pets

    Posted

    Very strange you should say that.   When our cat was a kitten in UK he was runt of litter (from Battersea found abandoned), and was never the most confident cat.   A few days after we started letting him out in the garden he was attacked by next door neighbours rescue cat, which although domestic had been feral for quite some time and was not high on the friendly stakes.   Anyway, our cat was going to the toilet when the attack happened, and although he wasn't injured, he was clearly a bit shaken up, and we had similar situation with the toilet thing and 'mummy' (!) having to go out with him for a while.     So, strange as it sounds, maybe they do have some kind of memory of those sorts of incidents and when it happens again they lose confidence big time.   Who knows - would be lovely to know what goes on in their heads though, wouldn't it ??
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