Athene
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Posts posted by Athene
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Can anyone give me the name and address of the ROYAN dentist that has a very modern practice. I am not bothered whether he is English speaking or not but I would just like a competent, modern dentist. My daughter who was with us for a holiday had a tooth problem and her experience with a local French dentist who did not see the need to use anaethetic on an extraction of a wisdom tooth was horrendous!
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It is a nightmare trying to give a determined cat a tablet that they do not want! Our elderly lady could hold it in there for 5 mins and the minute you let go of her mouth out it came! Yes we too went back to the vet and paid to give her the injections each day!
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Sensible idea selling up first as you will have money in the bank and be able to use that as a bargaining standpoint! Good luck with your search - please keep us posted as to how you get on! It is always fascinating to read about other people's French experiences. Where are you hoping to buy?
I have sent you a rough outline of what we are to rent out in Essex but suspect whoever rents it will be someone who has a need to get back and forth from the city as we have a train station in the village that is walking distance from the house.
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Please could you send me too the relevant bits on worktops? How did you get on making these? How have they worn? Are they easy to clean?
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Apologies are in order Steve! I have had an e-mail today offering me this free insertion! Many thanks for pointing it out, I will be taking it up! Cheers Sib
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Yes it really depends on the animal and the home. My daughter had two rescue cats that she adopted and came to live with her own two cats - making four in total. They had been abandonned in a quarantine centre by their owners and had been stuck in cages for two years, poor things. Baccy integrated well in the house but poor old Fluffy...! He is a ginger rag doll cat - beautiful to behold! However he was a pee-er partout! My daughter had him seen by vets and even an animal phycologists - each had a different solution - none of which worked.However when Fluffy decided to pee in my son-in-law's squash bag that was when my daughter called in the lady from the local cat rescue. It was really interesting this lady's reaction after she had listened carefully to the tale of Fluffy's misdemeanors. She said, "Poor Fluffy!" This took the wind out of my daughter's sails as most people had sympathised with her but this VERY clever lady saw things from the cat's point of view. She saw what nobody else had and this was that he was terribly unhappy with being one of four, he needed to be a one person cat! So she loaded Fluffy immediately into his carry box and off she went promising to come back in four weeks time to report on his progress. And good as her word, she did, she had him re-homed with a single lady whose house backed onto Hampstead Heath. He had rapidly become her pride and joy and he was lapping it up! He even slept on her bed! And his erstwhile bad habit was long forgotten! Thank goodness!
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I could not find any free adverts! I filled in the details and this is what it came up with!
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Rejoice with us! We have a new concrete floor! Thank you all for your advice! Now one question - we put in lengths of wood to make bays on which to level the concrete. Do we need to take these out and refill with concrete? Martin thinks that perhaps if we don't they will make a weak spot in the floor and, after it is tiled, they may swell up and break open the concrete. How long should we leave the concrete before we do this? Tomorrow? Or do we wait till it is good and hard?
Forgive me but it is so exciting to see progress on our project! I am really happy tonight!
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I have followed this thread with interest and I too am delighted the boy now has a new home!
My daughter who is out in Nepal working has a Tibetan Mountain Dog called Alfric. He is very much the dominant male - even though he has had the 'op'! She also has a street dog that followed her home one day and whom the locals say is half a hyena. Now that seems to make sense as he has the hyena stripes and has a very good line in howling. However Scrapper (as she calls her street dog) always wants to play fight with Alfric and that is how he got his name. Alfric will only do so much because when he has had enough, he puts young Scrapper in his place.
Another funny things is that the locals cannot pronounce the English 's', so his name when they call him is a source of amusement!
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In 7 years of having our French house, we have had various friends and relatives descend. Only one lot proved absolutely terrible and we no longer speak to them! It has to be said that my husband was still in the UK when these particular scoungers turned up, I think they would have had shorter shift from him had he been there!
* They needed picking up from the airport.
* They did not offer to pay the airport parking ticket nor the motorway charge.
* They ate and drank like food and booze was going out of fashion!
* No offer of paying the supermarket bill - in fact the husband added to my trolley extra food he wanted personally. The next time I shopped I insisted on going alone! He tried to do this again on the last day of his stay with his take home booze, cheese etc. I was wise by this time and told him to get his own trolley!
* No help in house with washing up or tidying up! In fact they were put out when I had to clean up as it delayed their trips out!
* Landed me with all the coffees and icecreams etc on the tourist trips I took them on! And no, there was no offers of paying for diesel!
* Suggested we went out for a big meal at the posh nosh joint - and yes - you have guessed it -walked out when it was time to pay the bill - they needed some air!
* Repeat trip back to the airport! Wallets firmly in pockets!
They are so thick skinned and wonder why I do not want to talk to them on the telephone! In life it is easier to stay nothing, whay good does having a row do? I have just learnt my lesson. I try to put people off from coming as much as possible and I now say to people who insist, I must have help round the house and they must pay halves to my shopping bill. There are still the 'friends' who turn up unexpectedly and ponce on you for a few days but there is not much you can do about this!
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I have been browsing french property websites and I have seen a few interesting private sale properties on IFP and FPL. The lack of agency commission has interested me but I am concerned about the difficulty in buying direct from a vendor without agency representation.Why don't you go to the local notaire's office and ask to see any properties he is to act for. This will cost you a whole lot less than going to an agent!
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[quote user="Abbaye"]You see all the time in the UK so and so company (Polish, or Ukranian, or whatever) has come over and won a contract to build x y z building .... there must be some sort of international arrangement under which to take on temporary contracts that run a limited period?[/quote]
What you have to realise is that France is France and it is really strict on its rules for artisans. In the UK almost anybody can arrive and set up and work. There are many Poles entering the country perfectly legally and setting up building companies. Prices are so high for UK labour that they can easily undercut and are having a lot of success!
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10 euros with wine! Here the cheapest is 11 euros with water! LOL!
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Well the ready mix is ordered for Monday. We have bought these concrete levelling tools, like a rake but no teeth. It was amazing how the price shot up from concrete that was delivered in a heap and you barrow it in to delivery using a pump!
Thank you for your advice and I salute you - doing your floor all on your own - what a job!
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get off to the local brocante where she had heard a rumour that the local 'anglaise' was going to be selling off a large collection of secondhand, outsize, M and S, white cotton undies! Now obviously these would be far too large for the slender Yvette but for her husband.. Well that was another matter!
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Thank you for this helpful photo Dave. No we are not mixing ourselves, we are going to have the concrete pumped into the first area - about 4.5 cubic metres of concrete. We have three men standing by to level. We will do the second area later. We have put the metal reinforcement up on small wooden blocks as Martin thinks that it maybe better to have it in the middle of the concrete and not resting on the insullation. Looking at your photo perhaps this is not necessary. I presume that the black vertical strips on the concrete piles are the shuttering?
No, we are not experienced at doing this and we really appreciate any advice we can get with it!
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Since reading people's advice we have decided to rent out unfurnished. It seems that nowadays there is more protection from clients who do not pay up than there used to be in the form of insurance policies. Also we will ship out our furniture and continue enjoying it in France. Our gas fire and cooker that we will leave are nearly new and getting the Corgi seal of approval will not be a problem as the engineer will have to come to get similar approval for the gas central heating. Also we will need the electrician's approval certificate. All this we knew when we considered renting. Also oddly the insurance is going to cost less, I suppose this is because we will not have as many of our goods in there. We are 'golden oldies' and do not have a mortgage, so that is not a problem.
It is always a big decision on what you do when you decide to live in another country. We really could do with a lump of cash to continue the renovation in France but are not prepared to sell up in the the UK yet as we are not sure how we will feel about living in France full-time until we have given it at the very least a two year trial period. It is one thing to share quality time in the sun with friends and neighbours but to be in France all the winter when there is less to do and less people to see... We will see!
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so he swarmed up the chimney and launched himself, Mary Poppins style, with his biggest chimney brush aloft instead of an umbrella! His landing was not soft and certainly NOT what he had anticipated....
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Thank you Stewart for that advice. I will relay it to him indoors after I have posted this and maybe he will need to ask you further if that is alright? We have 40 square metres to lay. Then a step up and 25 square metres. We planned to do the 40 first and then tackle the 25 later.
Again thanks for the advice!
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Ok, so we have cut out the rock from the floor and established a level base and the next job is to lay the concrete. We have sand, plastic membrane, 3cm insulation panels and metal reinforcement panels. We plan to raise the metal up from the insulation on small wooden blocks. We had a dummy run today with one panel as we thought that the metal might tear it up but no, it was depressed but sprang back, so that is OK we think. It is a very large area we are to concrete so, for practical reasons, we think it is better to have one pouring of ready mix. Reading the previous posts, people say it is better to have retardents added. Has anyone asked for these and what do you think of them? If we shuttered up small areas and kept adding to these and did the floor with cement from our own mixer would there not be a problem when the floor is tiled over in that it might split on the shuttered off section joints? Also has anyone used a powerfloat and did it help? Are they easy to use? We have bought some wider panels that we intend to cut up and place in strips around the walls, so that we will have a space to lay the metal framing for the plasterboarding. Do you think this is a good idea?
Any advice you can give us would be much appreciated!
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Good luck Dee! I hope you find your ideal house!
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We are looking for a third person to help in the laying of a concrete floor when the ready mix arrives.
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We took a camcorder and that was great as we could return time and again to view the houses. However, it has to be said that when we saw our house we did not need this as it was 'love at first sight'!
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I wish you well with your new venture! It will be really exciting building a new eco home! What sort of heating will you have?
Polished concrete floor..
in House Renovations
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