Coco
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Posts posted by Coco
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Thanks Miki
They've just gone out for the day but when they get back I'll ask if they're happy with one night of whether they want somewhere they can spend all four nights.
BTW how long does it take to get to Rennes from you? It's just about an hour from here, it can't be much less from your place. If you get any overspills next year we'll take them!!
Not with GDF yet Gay - still weighing up the options and costs.
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A year ago you could have looked in the B&B forum to see Miki and me tearing strips off each otherand hurling abuse left, right and centre. A couple of weeks ago I had a phonecall from a lady asking if we had vacancies because our place had been recommended to her by ....... can you believe it, MIKI! Well now it's time to return the favour. As if he needs MY help
Miki, we have a French couple staying with us at the moment who feel they may like to move a bit further west into Brittany. Do you have a double room available from Wednesday for anything up to 4 nights? Evening meals as well I think. They don't speak a word of English but that shouldn't be a problem for you.
Funny how things change isn't it?
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Well thanks to Gay I believe I have half a dozen boxes in the post. I also had another forum member email to ask if I wanted some brought over when she came to her holiday home and we had yet another forum member stay here the other night who brought some completely unsolicited. How kind you all are!
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"Let's hope France Telecom speed up the installation of Broadband and that it reaches all of la France Profonde soon. It would be terribly sad to lose all you nice people."
Margaret, I don't think it's France telecom that need to gt Broadband to us, I think it's LF that need to sort out their site. I don't have a problem with speed on any other sites. Even TF is faster than LF. I personally don't like the new layout but I could live with that if I didn't have to spend so long waiting for each page to load
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Can you opt out of UK NI contributions then? I ran a UK payroll for seven years and never came across any paperwork offering this option.
I paid NI in the UK for 27 years and my husband paid it for 29 years. We've never needed more than one or two visits a year to a GP and the only time we ever wanted hospital treatment we were told that fertility treatment was not covered under the NHS. That's life. If everyone who could afford or chose to pay for 100% private health care or send their chldren to private schools chose to opt out of those parts of NI and income tax the country would be in even more chaos than it is.
You pay Council tax whether or not you use the local police or fire services, whether or not you use the local sports centre, swimming pool or library. Shall I go on?
If you send your children to private school you don't get a rebate on income tax.
In fact I don't HAVE any children but I still paid the same amount as people with half a dozen - in fact MY income tax was paying for THEIR child benefit. It's the way civilized societies work.
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The first year we rented our house as a gite we included bed linen in the rental cost. The following year we gave people the option but I kept forgetting who had asked for it and who hadn't so half the time the people who looked after the gite made up beds when they didn't need to. Also, it was inevitably the ones who wanted the gite for the £10 less a week that it cost them by bringing their own linen who were the ones who had any gripes. Following comments on this forum, plus my own gut feelings, I returned to providing all linen and charging for it for our third season and if I was still renting the house as a gite I would continue to do so.
Personally I think the place looks much more welcoming if the room looks pretty with linen to match it, and all made up on arrival than if people turn up to a stripped bed and then put their orange bed linen in my cream and raspberry bedroom
When I used to rent gites I would much rather have had a "proper" holiday, paid the extra few pounds and not had the hassle of making up and stripping beds and taking dirty linen home with me - the clothes washing was enough, without bed linen as well
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Sorry, can't help - too far away. However, couldn't your gardener double up. We often open houses up to give them an airing whilst my husband is gardening. And as he visits the properties every 10-14 days he is also able to do a security/maintenance check at the same time. Cheaper than paying two separate people to visit the property as well
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[quote]Spiders, blinking great monsters they are too. An old builder once told us that to have spiders in your home is the sign of a well constructed house, so don't moan if you have them. Salamanders often ...[/quote]
My granddad told me that spiders in the house is a sign of a happy home - I can live with being miserable!
Last September we had some fairly massive ones. Only had one so far, which thankfully wasn't too big as it ran across my back from the towel I used in the batroom but I shall expect many more over the next few weeks. I've already started scouring every room from the door before entering. The current problem is the worst invasion of flies we have ever experienced. Literally hundred of them!! We also share our home with quite a few mice (several of which get brought in from the garden by our useless cat and set free once inside - I don't think he's quite grasped the idea yet, still, he's only 14), a barn owl in (you guessed it) the barn and a stone marten in the other barn - still with us after 4 years! Oh and of course, a garden full of moles.
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Lucky you Cerise. After a summer of "French style" cooking we had an empty week last week and we had three curries and a chilli ..... heaven!!!
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I've tried and I've tried and I've tried. Now I realise why I have always come back to LF when I've visited other Forums. They are all in this style and it is NOT AS GOOD (imho) as the old layout. I only have a dial-up connection, adsl, broadband etc etc haven't reached this part of rural France yet. And this new layout is SOOOooooo frustratingly slow that I am about to give up.
If a thread has more than 2 pages I don't even bother to look now because instead of being able to just scroll down the page you have to wait for each new page to load and that takes forever.
I don't believe it is just teething problems either because thinking back that is why I have never stuck with TF or other similar forums, they are just too slow. It's not just the cost of being online for longer, it's the frustration of thinking that I have better things to do with my time. I used to be able to spend 15 minutes scanning the forum and seeing if there was anything that interested me. Now it takes me that long to look at a couple of sections. I'm afraid I have more important things to spend my 60 hours a month on.
Unless it speeds up I shall have to stop using this forum which I have enjoyed since it's inception.
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I certainly agree with the statement that there is not a lot of money to be made out of it. However, the way I look at it is that I am offering added value to certain people's stays. We have had several French visitors who were only interested in CdH who ALSO offered TdH and we have had many Brit visitors who are on a first visit to France and a little nervous of eating in a not such touristy area where the locals don't really speak much English and the menus are certainly not printed in English. There are also those who are coming straight off the ferry, en-route south and don't want to have to spend time looking round for a restaurant. The reasons people want to eat in go on and on and on.
Some neighbours we have started doing TdH but have given up because they say that they can't make ANY money out of 12€ for a 4 course dinner and daren't charge any more because some restaurants only charge that. Well I started off thinking like that and was a little concerned about charging more than the restaurants. However, what people tend to forget is that the menu may be 12€ and if that's all you want, then best go out for a meal. BUT... if you want an aperatif, some wine, water and coffee you add quite a bit to that 12€ basic price. I charge 20€ per head and make VERY little profit out of it, apart from us just about getting a meal out of it too. Some people tell me that this makes it worthwhile, which it does occasionally, but then we wouldn't eat a 4 course meal every night if we were on our own. Apart from the fact that after a run of 10 nights in a row eating with guests during August I sat down on the 11th night, ate the starter and thought I would throw up if I ate another mouthful of ANYTHING! Like Chris though, we often find that it is a very pleasant way of passing an evening, to the extent of feeling guilty about charging!!!
The other problem we sometimes encounter is people who say they just want one or two courses. To those people I say that I will still have to charge 12-15€ because, again, as Chris says, it's the main course that costs the money with gas and electricity and time involved. they then take the choice of getting less value for money or going out to eat. So far it's probably been about a 50/50 take-up.
Oh and of course, I almost forgot the most important reason of all for doing it.... I ENJOY IT!
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We're with Miki's neighbours here. We (or rather my husband) drives past three other boulangeries to get ours. We never have them ourselves, they're only for the guests. The boulangerie actually closes TWO days a week so we have to go to the next closest on Wednesday and Thursday mornings. If people have arrived on a Tuesday or Wednesday and are staying Thursday night as well they ALWAYS comment on how much nicer the croissants are on Friday mornings. We don't heat them though. They're warm when my husband buys them (if people have requested breakfast early enough) but we find that they lose their heat so quickly that it's not really worth it.
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I'm with you on that one Chris - I now ALWAYS check the sell-by dates. IN the UK everything was reduced within a day of the sell-by date. Here I frequently pick things up and discover that they are a couple of days PAST the sell-by date. I'm often tempted to point it out to the manager, but then think about whether my French is up to a long (which it will be) debate on the subject.
As for living on £60 (90€) a week - well I think I'll probably start getting a reputation on here for extravagant living (what with my grossly over-priced cheddar:blush but a couple of times I have forced myself to go shopping on Monday and then not go for the rest of the week and keep my bill under 100€. I can do it quite easily (but there are only two of us) and that is if I substitute fresh pasta for the dried stuff and buy a few tinned pulses to put in "big" soups where I only have to use half as much meat than I would in a "meat and two veg" style meal. And of course that doesn't include wine, loo rolls, cat food or cleaning products!!
But normally my food bill is in excess of 150€ because we do like our fresh fruit and veggies. There again, I spent on average £120-£150 a week in the UK, so I'm still better off!
And it does all taste a lot nicer here!
Coco
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Currently experiencing the same problems Gill. Don't seem to be able to take a section from a quote. YOu have to start at the begining and take the whole thing! Not necessarily what I want.
However, back to the subject of the thread - improved September weather seems to be working wonders on the bookings - that's one of the advantages of being near the UK!!
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Well, I was about to say that I have been rather disappointed with this year compared to last (when we only started in mid-July with little advertising).
However, if Chris's comments on formula are anything to go by then we are doing OK. From January to date we have had 147 days booked for 2 rooms, therefore exceeding the 70 days per room figure by 7 days and we also have 16 days booked for September.
Our local tourist office phoned on Friday and asked me how things had gone (as far as they are concerned the season is already over) and when I said that it hadn't been as good as I anticipated they told me that it had been the same for all their other chambres d'hotes listings, so I am not alone.
If the average occupancy rate is only supposed to be 19% then for a first FULL season I am doing exceptionally well! Especially as I have only internet advertising and no roadside signs (yet!) and our tourist office is closed three days a week, including, would you believe.... Saturday afternoons! (so not a lot of help there!!)
I've cheered up now
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Well I'm not having this!!! It would appear that Miki has more to say for himself than me - and I used to be 2000 posts ahead of him
So like Dick, I shall just have to start answering anything and everything, just to let you know that I don't know the answer to the question or I have no opinion on the statement
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Anne, If you're going down to the Alps why not spread the net a bit further and see if there is anyone on your route that could give you a good deal. Possibly even somewhere near to where you will be working, then you could go and visit them!
Coco
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This is quite interesting because last year when I registered with URSSAF for working for a company in London, via the internet from home I got bills from anyone and everyone you can think of but no one once mentioned the fact that I was working at home!!
Coco
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Well, I thought they were getting a bit carried away with the Cheddar. Today they have parmesan - and not the sawdust in little foil packets. Perhaps they've got a new cheese buyer - still, I'm not complaining! I even saw some epoisses today as well!!!
Coco
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How much would you expect to pay for this in the UK?
Before we left I used to pay about 8 a pound for a particularly nice unpasteurised one in Waitrose. My mum thinks she used to pay somewhere between 6 and 6.50 a pound for the ordinary stuff.
Our local Champion has just started stocking a really nice mature Somerset Cheddar and of course I was expecting to pay a premium for this "exotic" produce. However, it is 15.50 a kilo, which works out at somewhere between 4.70 and 5 a pound, depending on which rate you use. Can it really be CHEAPER here in France than in the UK? In which case, it really IS rip off Britain!!
Coco
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LAST EDITED ON 20-Aug-04 AT 11:48 AM (BST)
Sometimes, when things get nasty, my husband asks me why I bother with this forum. However, in the last two weeks he has had to eat his words:
- Weve received 8 nights of B&B bookings for September
- Had a referral for a booking passed on from another member (thanks Miki!!)
- Been given the co-ordinates for manualy tuning in BBC radio stations onto our newly acquired digital dish (no more test match cricket thank God!!!
)
So thanks to everyone on the Forum who gives help. You far outweigh the idiots that try to ruin it!
How has the Forum benefitted you?
Coco
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We thought wed better start getting ready for the autumn, so bought our heating oil the other day. This time last year we paid 376 for 1000 litres, in January we paid 426 and this week we paid 492. I dread to think what it will be by the time we need our next lot.
What have you paid recently?
Coco
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Where is Tourin sur Vire? You don't mean Torigni sur Vire do you?
Coco
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LAST EDITED ON 17-Aug-04 AT 09:28 AM (BST)
You live in the country Tink!!!! This almost sounds like those people in the UK that moved to the countryside from London a few years ago and then complained about the cows mooing!
It's happened a few times round here recently too but it's been a case of the farmers having to get the hay cut before all this torrential rain we've had! And when we were down in the Tarn a few years ago with temperatures in excess of 38 degrees every day the farmers were working in the morning, then laying low all afternoon and evening and then starting up again at about 10 or 11pm and to be quite honest I can't say I blame them!
I hardly think that rules regarding keeping lawns looking tidy can be applied to farmers who are earning their livelihood!
Coco
How things change!
in B&B/Chambres d'Hôtes Owners
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You mean they didn't want to hit the night spots of St Malo?
Very sweet couple, although it was quite difficult to extract more than a couple of words from Madame.
59ers and 62ers do seem to like this area. I think probably 80% of our French visitors are from there, including the couple arriving tonight.
Glad they enjoyed their stay here. That's what they said in the Guest Book but then you never really know do you? Until they come back again of course.
We had the Cincinnati Kid staying last night on a recommendation from one of our American guests (the one that showed up) . He came with his brother and dad, which was just as well because he didn't look old enough to be out on his own, and yet he had three kids of his own!!!They were doing the usual American thing, drove here yesterday from Bonn, did the British D-Day beaches, stayed here last night and doing the US Beaches today before driving home to Bonn tonight.