Teamedup

The Olive Farm, pure tosh, just couldn't go on with it. The Atlantic Celts, I was so bored, I can't remember if I finished it or not. A scifi that was passed to me twice and was so awful that I just couldn't read it. The good thing about it was that it made me realise just how hard it must be to write well. I have read Patricia Cornwell's Jack the Ripper thing, she really lost the plot with that one and was all over the place. It has put me off reading her books. I love The Count of Monte Cristo, but couldn't read  more that the first few pages of The Man in the Iron Mask.  

I never thought that you meant soirée. You said 'our first evening out into the market place?' Accent or not, that doesn't make any sense really. soirée=swa ray   Agents commission can be just as expensive in France and in my region all you get is being shown around once or twice and appointments made to sign the various documents and that IS IT. They don't do hand holding, help with utitilies or let people  ring in an emergency and yet they get the same fees, perhaps more than in regions where they do all these non estate agent things. I live in a valley in the Alpine bit of the Rhone Alps, if you are wondering.   

That is one of the most boring books I have tried to read in the recent past, The Atlantic Celts. The latest I have heard is that british people are linked to the basques, this research done via dna things.  

It is time and again suggested that people therefore are sent where they don't want to go, and do a minimum working week in consequence.  It's simply not true.  A small number of people, who are not married or otherwise attached end up in the Paris suburbs for a couple of years.  Sorry to have quoted you Tourangelle, but this last post of yours shows the pouvoir of the education nationale which they will use if they feel the need. Titulaires ofcourse benefit in all sorts of ways, they will usually be on better salaries due to anciennete. So the worst off can get messed around more and it cost them a lot to get to work......... . what a nightmare it would be for you if they sent you off to Annemasse for a few lessons a week.  

I rememeber a conversation I had with a friend of ours in an irish folk band from Ireland. He said that there were lots of country bands and lots and lots in the west of Ireland that he refered to as Conamara Cowboys. So that your O/H plays country comes as no surprise to me. Furry Knickers, scrumptious is the way I would describe his delightlful writings. Gently mocking, lovely word mis-use, for me they are a pleasure to read. All these posts about the wonderful places in France, you still have to live, after your cotisations, would that be on a very limited budget?

En famille, if it is a block then I may defrost a little in the microwave and slice it still partly frozen and use it like that. In slices then I stick it in the fridge over night and then use it defrosted the next day as the slices often stick together. For guests then they get fresh stuff. We never eat raw poitrine fumé or nature. There are enough other meats that are cured or cooked to have.

[quote user="blossom"]I got as far as page three then gave up exhausted. If I let myself get carried away with this thread then most people would have done enough to put me off. But really, is the situation worse that the uk?  how many of you have actually forgotten how bad things are in britain? Fine for all of your forty soemthing who got on the housing ladder over ten years ago, but me and my faily are stuffed.  Our mortgage strips us of all our income- we honestly worked out that we have 4.72 pence after we have paid the mortgage, council tax , escalating fuel costs etc and 'luxuries' such as sky and a gym membership. Its not as though we live anywhere nice either - just a plain old  terrace in an 'ok'area (found a home made bong at the bottom of our garden last week and the tenants in the house next door regularly wake us as they vomit on the steps on a saturday night). I'm skint now due to the ridiculous house prices and council tax in the UK.  And the tax situation in the UK isnt getting any better for the likes of me either...Before long I will have to hand over 'cash per mile'more simply to drive my second hand battered car to the seaside. If I move to france, i will also be skint, but with a little cottage, half an acre, snowy winters, slightly warmer summers (okay not everywhere), then being skint seems a little more palatable. Dont get me wrong- It might seem like my move is to get away from the UK.  Actually I love france and the french countryside, my folks live there, I speak the language very well.  The french vary from place to place, just like the UK.  Some regions seem friendlier than others, just like the UK. It's hard not to feel apprehensive after reading all these posts, but life isnt a bed of roses here either so im willing to give it a shot. [/quote]     Going on about England like that, yes I know what England and a lot of France is like. They aren't dissimilar. Well nul part may be, but I don't live there. And watch where you buy, local taxes can be expensive in France too. Ofcourse there is the thing about making a living in France. Being skint is one thing, but you still have to live here and it isn't that cheap these days.

Ours isn't fancy and wasn't expensive, we just insulated well  under the stairs, simple, cheap and functional. We buy good but young clarets and keep them for years before serving them. The vin de tables are kept in there too. It is amazing how many bottles we can get in there and the temperature hardly varies, winter or summer. Dishwashers, well we had a discussion about those recently. They are wonderful things and I just don't understand why everyone doesn't have them.  

I think Bobh means 'sortie' (in it's English meaning) but chose the wrong word in French and spelt it wrong!  That's my guess anyway.   ROFL, you think[:-))] I  looked it up in french and english and couldn't find anything. And for whatever reason I keep reading it in an english way ie soy er, rather than swa re. I would love to know what it was supposed to  mean. We haven't had a winter this year. We haven't had enough rain or snow. Maybe it will come in summer, this year it would seem that anything could happen, I can certainly see us needing the rain.

What does SOIRE mean?

A french friend of mine has had a mediallion for Jeanne d' Arc for years and wears it sometimes. The FN hijacked La Pucelle a long time ago and it upsets my friend that people assume that she is making a political statement. Re flag burning, I would deport any foreigner doing that in the UK to any of the flags of the UK. If they don't want to be there, well get rid. A little respect for one's adoptive country, whether it be me in France or foreigners in the UK would not come in a miss, no one is forced to be anywhere these days in europe.

Under the circumstances you could ask at the primaire if they would take her. As you thought, she should start college in September.

The weather? Funny old year this year, well winter, in fact, what winter, and one I would not recommend anyone to take as being in any way normal.

[:D] LOL LOL I will have to tell my friend that you called them 'hit-men'. The thing is that they have a say too in what is being collected, so they aren't just money collectors, it is all just a bit more than that. I have called Paris about a problem I have, but will have to write to them so that I have it officially to argue the toss with our local URSSAF, who at the moment have said, that they have decided and their word is 'law'.

A few years ago my friends neice came to France as part of her uni course. She was here for the school year. At toussaint she went back to the UK and brought her car back. She had to insure it in France as soon as she arrived, but was told at the prefecture that she needn't reregister it in France as she was leaving the following June. What is right and wrong in this I don't know. Just that this was what happened where I live a few years ago. If someone was coming across for the same thing, then I would ask again at the prefecture and see what they said about it all.

Catalpa, we arrived, me late 20's, he early 30's. Russethouse, I think about old age. My Dad in his mid 80's has little time for lots of old people and I have to agree with him about lots of things. I haven't and he hasn't any plans for me or my brother to take him in or care for him if ever he can't look after himself.  And I have no such ideas for my kids either, it is not something I would want at all or expect. It is alien to me really. I just couldn't imagine living as you have done Val2. We thought that we didn't go back very often during those early years, we just couldn't afford to go back more than every couple of years. Nine years, that is a long time.

What did you expect Joy1, if someone is in a class, then surely they get taught what the class gets taught. It is bad enough in some classes as there can be up to three different years in the same class in primary school in some of the more remote villages in the region. What were you expecting to happen? Have I missed something here?

I don't know, I just see what people do that 's all. I do not like les grands crus. I know what I like and depending on the wine, in general I like my whites quite cool, but not cold and my reds amibient. I don't think letting a cote du rhone 'breath' would make much difference, but for those who like them it might make quite some difference to say a chateau neuf du pape or the better clarets or burgundys. I still wouldn't leave my wine in the kitchen comme ça.

Sounds like you are going to have to write to them and ask to be reassessed. Give them all the details again and full copies of all your income and bank statements and good luck. The URSSAF, well my friend who works in a pay dept reckons that they are like gangsters, the mafia, or some such thing and intransigeant. I hope that they are not as we have some things to sort out with them.

Val2 you moved and your kids might too. Most people I know from the UK who have lived here a long time have at least one child who has left France. I must say that I would not like to have to look after ageing parents, and I can't say that I relish the thought that my kids should care for me in my my old age.     

Found it, without crashing my computer, yes it is ofcourse Radio. I wasn't far out when I said Ay di oh, was I[;-)]

WHAT![:-))] A wine rack in the kitchen. NO WAY would we do that. We keep wine in the cave. Wine in a warm kitchen, in my opinion is not good, where as a dishwasher is. When I see these expensive kitchens on tv with their wine racks I am always flabbergasted. I wouldn't even do it to reds. I would rather get them out, decork them and let them breath in advance, but keep them in my kitchen NEVER!

Years ago we recycled everything. I used to make a trip to the tip every few months with everything sorted out really well. AND then the last time I went they sent me home with lots of the stuff to put in my bin. I am a lousy trier now, I resent the hell out of doing it. I resent taking my car to take the stuff to the tip too, good use of fuel that isn't it. The bennes in the village are often full which means that they are being used and not emptied enough. And sod's law means that when I go to put our stuff in them, I can't. My husband sorts it all out these days.  

There is one thing for sure about this debate about repudiating french nationality. The french judges will only let a person do this is if they can prove that they have another nationality.

Gardian, if you left the UK within the last 15 years then you can still vote in general elections there.