Fumanzoku

You could always just leave 'em alone. I have two nests in one shed and they never bother me. Last year I built a garage and had to demolish the old building by hand, while doing that I took down several little nests, both then and while working amongst them I never got stung once. I have been stung several times however at our local recycle depositary, they seem to get a bit agrgessive around the wine and beer bottle container, can't think why.

Mine would be about 10 metres in diameter. Did you use straw ? Do you recall the thickness of the clay ? I may try it out with a smaller pond first and see how it goes, I'd much rather go this route than PVC.

Thanks MH, here's an excellent link on Pond building etc. http://handbooks.btcv.org.uk/handbooks/content/section/2443 dew ponds seem to require an inordinant amount of labour though, 4 men 4 weeks on average ! Also have to be '200-300mm (8-12") thick apparently.

Can't advise on where in MM but you certainly can rent floor sanders, the places that rent them usually rent mini diggers and so on, you'll probably find a place on the edge of town or on an industrial estate. HTH

Apparently our commune is covered for haut debit now but only WIMAX via Altitude telecom. Is anyone using this ? Am I right in thinking I'll need to get an antenna from them ? This would be a wireless, non France Telecom connection wouldn't it  ? I hope so, I'd love to be rid of FT.

Around here it's not limited to Oak trees, and they cut off everything, leaving only a trunk of about 2-3 metres. From this new branches sprout. Why do they do it ? In my opinion  - greed. They've cut down all the forests and woods, (quite a few in the 5 years I've been here), all the rest of the land is agricultural and now they've found firewood fetches a bit more cash they attacking the few remaining trees. Also cut down an orchard of lovely old fruit trees that the had been carefully maintained all his life by my late neighbour, and replaced them with an 'apple factory'.

This is an issue I've been thinking about for sometime. (Can't start on the pond until I've cut the huge pine trees down, can't afford the cost of felling the pine trees, can't afford the pvc for the pond either !). I've got clay about a foot/metre down, there are etangs all round here so I guess that's what is holding there water in. So by 'puddling clay' do you mean taking the existing clay and smearing it over the non clay area ? I don't want the water level to start a metre down so would need to seal the upper level. The etangs are very murky, would it make any difference to the clarity of the water having a pvc as opposed to clay basin or is this all down to the plants and any water circulation ? What plants are recommended for clarity of water?

This was the topic of conversation in a Tabac recently and the general view was for official work it would be 50 Euros an hour, unofficial, ie cash in hand 25 Euros. This applied to all types of jobs from grasscutting to building. These guys were all 'micro enterprise' and French. I've cut grass myself for 15/hour plus petrol, but that was just for a neighbour and obviously cash in hand, so I think these guys have got it about right. BTW what does CCI stand for and what qualification will you attain ?

Just let it grow, there's probably the same paucity of natural enviroments here as there is in the UK resulting in the loss of numerous varieties of wildflower and life dependent on them. You could even research it a bit and find out what wildflowers need reintroducing in France there's probably some group dedicated to this. Wildflowers (from seed) will only thrive on uncultivated land anyway. I leave an area of my garden wild, just cutting a path through it so we can watch the wildlife in there up close, the butterflies love it.

I love the idea of calling your apple tree Madame Boisselot

Hi Tresco, I have two types - one is a Montana, I can't remember what the other is but it grows much slower than the Montana and has larger, fewer, more purple flowers, could be Ville de Lyon. I bought them here as seeds. The flowers don't fade but they don't last long, they're already gone now, (I'm in south Vendee). I'd prefer something more permenant, perhaps Bourganvillia (sp?) Think I'll just let them battle it out then.

I have some ivy spreading over the front of the house (as intended), it has now reached my clematus, my question is can the clematus survive within the ivy ? Or will one strangle/kill off the other ? Don't know hat variety of ivy it is, it was a gift but it's not the weedy harmful type that grows everywhere.

I avoid going to the station if I can, in my case the reason being the two women who work there. One is absolutely superb at her job, she can't do enough to help you, is knowledgable about all the options and cheap offers and chats, smiles and laughs - even told me a little local history once. But the otherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr is a monster, when she's not skiving in the backroom where she must plaster her awful makeup on her face, she's dealing with nervous customers whom she seems to find universally irritating. You have the feeling she's waiting to be discovered by some movie director walking through the door and the rest of us are just getting in the way. Come to think of it Hitchcock could probably use her.

"human family   or discontented thief" Hi Coral, 'Fu-manzoku', fu being the negative, means un-satisfied

This is quite possibly the Worst website in the Western World, and after using it for 5 years it doesn't get any better. It must have been designed by a team of sadists. A few examples: You input your query (date, time, etc). Message comes up "you must book within two months" the booking is for next week ! Or "no fares are available, please modify" how can you modify where you want to go LOL. Or "no fares exist for this route" though you've done the journey biannually for 5 years. This means they exist but not online or you have to change three times so it can't cope - go to the station. So you get around this by either just going down to the station (what's the point of the website) or by trial and error discovering you can either go through one of the special offer options or change the parameters of your journey (split it up into stages !) - and sure enough it is possible to book on that day/time. So you go ahead and select your ticket, and the message comes up "a technical error, sorry", So you try again and this time when you select your ticket, both this one and previous erroneous selection appear, somehow it remembered. Obviously you don't want to buy two on the same day (my card was once charged for duplicate bookings,) so you delete one of them. And the message comes up "error in deleting one of your journeys", try again and you end up with three ! To add to all this they have a pop up ad. EVERY time you open a new window so in between errors you have to swat these things down. I've got to hand it to them, that was a nice touch, that probably sends all but the hard core over the edge. So you headbutt the keyboard, give up, have a cup of coffee and try again later - this time you don't log on (as a member) and are able to book without errors, at once, seems they saved todays' fun for members only.

I shipped from Japan to France, having to pay tax on my motley collection of goods came as quite a shock, seemed to rest around the status of my house here. I just paid it, and forgot about it... until now.

I like your sons idea, maybe you should forget the sign though and just put the mines in Seriously though you'll have to find out whose doing it and the way to do that is with a motion triggered camera, hidden in a nearby bush. Then confront the thief or show it to the police.

Although the name implies it's an 'inhabitation' tax, ie you inhabit the place you still have to pay it even if, as in this case it's a Maison Secondaire. Never heard of the bit about furniture, but the work done on the house will only have to be declared if you've put new windows in or created new rooms - to the best of my knowledge.

That's a decent option, it comes with those google ads though right ?

I bought a graphics card from a German seller. To cut a long story short, my order accidently went for 2 separate orders for the same card. The guy had everything automated, including a third party to process the order and all his emails. I notified him and the company 3 or 4 times, no reply. Went through with the purchase of one card and was happy with it - sent him positive feedback, thinking it over. Then I started getting warnings about not paying for the other card, emailed him again, no reply, then Ebay said I risked some sort of punishment, I forget what it was called, I appealed to them, all there responses were automated, and the result was .......I got a discredit from Ebay and the guy gave me negative feedback - which wiped me out as I only had two feedbacks, the German guy had thousands. I guess Ebays' decision was automated too.

Is the facility to search within your site a standard feature ? This will be essential to my site. When I compare different options this is never apparent, even in the FAQs. If not, is the 'code' pretty simple to write ?

I'm in the Vendee too, though there's never been any burglaries in our 'hamlet' as far as I know. I rarely lock the door, close the windows and prefer to leave the garage/workshop open. I suppose I'll get hit one day. I've had many things stolen in my life including my prized £2000 motorcycle which I couldn't insure for theft in Japan. I've been robbed at knife and gun point several times and lost money, rings etc. But I'm still here, healthy and have no scars, and have more property than ever before and I just don't want to worry about these things - life is too short. Roxane, how about just having fewer things, things you don't care about losing, and anything else keep in a safe room, box or cellar. Must be better than selling up.

Yeah that's a useful link, even has the length of the line. We're supposed to be 100% covered by May.

Did you try it ? The phone number and address are in the same place - http://www.francetelecom.com/fr/votre_region/nantes/actualite/ADSL/index.html You need both, my commune for instance has ADSL but my corner of it doesn't...yet.

I noticed some of the pricing was based on what software you could construct the site with, so I was concerned I may not be able to upload the site I have on disk. I'll have to check with the designers. Hosteur is nicely priced, did you upload your site ? It's not (Hosteur) template based is it ? Didn't seem to be. Is the site management software only in French ? Couldn't get the mm100net link to work and googling produced a porn link LOL. Like your place though, if I didn't have one myself I'd be squirming with envy. TIA