Department71

Jon, have seen them in Brico depot, I suppose most of the DIY chains would stock them.

Chancer. Totally understand what you say about having treatment on your eye, we have a friend who has/is going through the eye treatment at the hospital, he is going blind due to age and the last time we saw him he had just had the needle in the eye treatment to try and help him.  

Jon, its not by any chance a Samsung is it? lots of good reviews in the UK on the 40" model, one even has a freesat tuner built into it as well as a normal tuner. Agree about the lousy websites in France it seems as if they don't want you to bother them with questions. Good customer service. Have you tried the internet based firms, we got our fridge freezer from one of them, no problems apart from not accepting a UK credit card, but we managed to bypass that.

Its still in "the complete french post bag" Don't worry I get senior moments too.

I am using  a manky old 14" portable in the uk as a spare in the office that is not a digital one, only received the old PAL signal, I hooked it up to a freeview box that can show HD and normal definition tv, like the problem you are facing, it is connected by a scart lead into the tv. No problems with receiving tv, it sometimes asks if I want to watch in HD but I just say no. The shop may try and sell you an new HD TV, that's your decision if you go for it. EDIT. Forgot to say the box I use is freeview not freesat.

Betty, Not sure if it was just our bad luck but it seems hard to believe it could have gone walkabout on a tracked and signed for package before it arrived at its destination. Even though the cancellation letter arrived safely in the same envelope, does make you think. If it was just a return to base and no deposit due I would have done as your hubby did, and let them argue the toss if it didn't arrive. As we have heard scare stories from our French friends about company's swearing blind they haven't received this letter or that parcel I wanted to be sure I had proof of posting. In the end it proved valuable insurance.

If you have one of those French Sanef telepeage (not the UK ones) and you decide to cancel the contract, they will ask for the thing back so they can refund your 30 euro deposit. We have just done this and I would advise anyone doing the same in the future to be very aware of their underhand tactics. They ask that it is sent by registered post, fair enough. So went to the post office with the telepeage plus the form requesting cancellation all put in the same envelope and sealed properly, spent £8.10 on international tracked and signed for delivery. Tracked the thing on the post office website and a few days later it shows as delivered. Good I thought I'll soon have my deposit back. A week or so later I received an e-mail from Sanef we have received your letter of cancellation but can you now send the telepeage to get your deposit back, now when we exchanged one a few years ago when the battery was getting a bit low we popped into the office at Amiens toll, the lady there as soon as we gave her the thing scanned it into her machine bringing up our details, she then scanned the new one in to our account. Now I don't 100% know how they do things at the main office when Sanef receive these back but I would hope the procedure is the same. If so either the telepeage got lost in the trip to France highly unlikely as the form would as well, or they are trying to get out of paying  the deposit back. In any event if you send anything back to them make sure it is secure in the package and make sure it sent by recorded delivery as they will try and get out of it and KEEP the post office receipt. Us, we sent them a scan of the receipt and have had confirmation of the return of our deposit, but don't send it as an attachment as either they can't or won't open attachments. In the end I had to scan it into Word and cut and paste that into the e-mail reply so the poor little souls can read it. So unless you can prove it was sent they won't refund, even if they receive it.

Well she arrived safely and no problems. At St Pancras she used the card I made the booking with and put that into the self service machine to get her ticket, she got the Eurostar section to Lille and the TGV section Lille to Le Creusot, no problem there. Info:" make sure the person travelling uses their card to make the booking, saves our problem" At Lille she went up to the main platform in the station, looked on the big screens for the train time and platform number, she then had to go down to another platform in the station to wait for her train, although she was concerned about the small amount of time between the trains (35min) there was in fact plenty of time as long as Eurostar haven't any delays. Note to Idun: Thanks for the compostage tip. she was able to spot a machine quite easily. In fact this was probably the calmest part of the day, as she tells me that we had a gas leak outside our house, and the gas people found a seepage leak in our house. She spent the morning biting her nails about when they'd be finished repairing it, and consequently left in a hurry ........ without her mobile!!!!!

We had a cathode ray tube sony tv years ago that came with surround sound built in and with the magic centre speaker, yes it made a hell of a difference you could actually adjust each speaker to get the level you wanted, bring up the vocal if you wanted or drop it down for all the swearing. If you watch some of the old programs Lovejoy etc you can see the difference between todays idea of having lots of background sound, it is supposed to create atmosphere!! they think it is better then being able to hear the dialogue. Just like the mentality of BBC sport where you can often hear the kick of the ball or the sound of the cars in F1 better then the commentary. I swear the mixing in the studios is done by YTS trainees.

Easter egg?  they get earlier every year.

[quote user="Araucaria"]  It would be nice to hear from D71 after the trip about how the tickets were produced. [/quote] Will do when and if she gets there, might be a few days delay as we have to use Mc donalds to get a broadband connection.

[quote user="Gardian"]Not true actually. [/quote] Gardian, Oh dear I stand corrected. You are not a relative of Mrs D71 by any chance are you

One of the major problems with the SNCF website is you have to give them a time period you wish to travel, if no trains run at that time you are out of luck, they don't suggest earlier or later trains what they need to do is make the search more flexible. One other little gem we have been told by the locals, you will never find any cheap deals at our local TGV station from or to Paris, as Le Creusot is the first stop from Paris. Thanks for that tip Gardian will tell her.

The station that we use in Burgundy is Le Creusot TGV, there is one train per day that goes through Lille  to our station and that is the Brussels to Lyon service, it also stops at Charles de Gaulle airport so we also have the option of Easyjet to Paris then the train. The train gets into Le Creusot at about 10.30pm, this suits us. When booking it asks what time do you want to travel, as I know when it gets in I put "evening" that way it will show the Lille option as well as the Paris options. The only problem is the return back to Lille that train leaves Le Creusot at 6.30 am.(commuter special?)  Still SWMBO will be coming back with me in the car but its a pain when friends return to the UK by train. Yes we could go via Paris there are loads during the day but Lille saves the hike across Paris.

[quote user="idun"] Did she book online???? IF this was booked on line, then you deserve a medal, of the highest order. [/quote] Idun, yes we booked online, was not hard did it via Eurostar's website. Hope those ticket machines work ok when she gets her ticket, The ticket was paid with my debit card, after the booking was made the web site said the tickets would have to be collected at the station either at the ticket office or at the machines with the card that paid for the journey and the person who's card it is has to be there as well. Trouble is I am going to France a week earlier and won't be in the UK. Bloody system. She will be taking my card with its pin to stick in the machine to get her ticket, don't want to open the can of worms she may get with a jobs worth if she talks to a human because I'm not there. Its a warning for other people. The TGV arrives at Lille at the same station, above the Eurostar line. That's what we have been told. Thanks all

At the end of the month Mrs D71 is travelling to our place via train, ticket has been booked and paid for but we have a small problem as she is unable to print the tickets at home she has to wait until she gets to  St Pancras and use their ticket machines due to her using both Eurostar and TGV. She is going London to Lille then onwards by TGV to Burgundy.  When she gets her ticket in London will it show the whole trip or only the leg to Lille, will she have to do anything when she gets to Lille as there is only 30mins between trains  Don't want the boss to have any problems on the trip.

Thanks Mint, it must be my warped sense of humour to do this. I have even thought of getting one of those premium rate numbers and putting that as my number, well at least I would make some money from those calls. What spurred me on to do this, we used to get calls from our local bank (C.A) wanting to call and discuss our accounts, in the end I changed our number in our profile on their website to their own. As we don't have any of their cards and the account only pays direct debits I thought it was fairly safe to do this.

I know it may be awkward for folks who have to register for business purposes but what I do (in the UK or France, we are not particularly bothered by these calls),  if a web site wants my phone number I usually put ex dir, if that is not acceptable to their systems I put their phone number in place of mine, so if they sell it on they will be the ones plagued by these calls,  after all they have my e-mail address if they want to contact me.

If the weeds you wish to control is moss, I have been told if copper wire is stretched along the top of the roof, the drops that hit it when raining will fall down the roof and the copper element will kill the moss over time and stop it in the future. Mind you have never tried it.

Same thing happened with NRJ with their mobile phone tariff, they changed from use it once in six months and you won't lose your credit, to use in a month or lose it. Well we had quite a few euros credit on it. Lost quite a bit when they changed, still it spured us on to get a land line installed. never looked back since. We have a APRR doofer best thing to come out of France. But knowing our luck one day in the future there will be farmers/ lorry drivers at the toll booths waving everyone through without paying and then us hearing the bleep as we pass through. Peirre totally agree with your comment.

We don't seem to be plagued with calls in the UK or France. In the UK we are ex directory, if any web sites want our phone number I enter their business number, anyway they have my e-mail address to contact me. ( although it is a disposable one) so if they sell on my number they will only be plagued at their end. All the rubbish that the postman sticks through the door gets put back in the post box, did ask the postie once to stop but he said they have to deliver it, no option. Mail,  especially the Virgin media ones, usually at least one per week. I now redirect them with a freepost label back to Virgin, plus I try and put something heavy inside the envelope, old Screwfix catalogue or something similar to bump up the cost of postage. In France the only problem I had was e-mails via our French telecom/orange email account, I have now blocked that completely as I never used it. Bet they love me.

So I take it the French government are going to put fences and alarms around all the open lakes etc that the public can access, plus of course the Med!

[quote user="sueyh"]Any news of firsthand info on the situation. We are going over via eurotunnel Saturday morning, returning Sunday evening. Traveling to Ramsgate. Thanks in advance. Suey[/quote] I know its a bit late now but we came back on the shuttle Tuesday evening, and no problem there, the only problem we had was getting through the English immigration, it took ages and the queues were horrendous. God knows what it'll be like on a Sunday in August.

Should be good as a financial adviser. Lots of knowledge and has a way of putting over his view.

Just had a look at a couple of items in the UK website and the French one, prices seem to be compatable between the two, ( but depends on the state of the pound) Maybe apply for the French catalogue on their site and have a look for yourself. Was told once that the guy who sold Screwfix to Kingfisher then went and started up Toolstation, don't know if its actually true or hearsay.