Blanche Neige

Sabine maybe you could talk to Deby who posts on the LF forum from time to time, she has a chateau near Bordeaux. edit: www.chateau-de-clerac.com

I also know a very nice Dutch couple from a nearby village to come done 4-5 times a year and always bring a car load of Dutch food. They even have an ice box with all the frsh meats and cheese. I think the Dutch visitors to France are well know for this!

Suggest you send your guests via our B & B to your gite - cos it took me a while to realise that the one-nighters on their way to gites further south nicked the spare toilet rolls from the bathroom cupboards!!  Cerise You have made a good point and we sometimes have clients who book a week at our place and then have a week in a gite elsewhere. I can see there would be a great temptation for them to help themselves to an unlimited supply of loo paper if it was freely available. Dick, we have a similar  approach to you, we leave a couple of  new rolls of paper for each loo and then our clients buy more of the same as and when required. They would have to buy loo paper at home so why not when away? We too supply cleaning materials etc. FOC. By the way, I hate the pink coloured stuff and always buy French, white loo paper which seems to work o.k. in our fosse.

Try posting this on the South West forum, someone there may have the answer.   Good luck

they suggest we "provide unlimited french toilet roll, if you were running a hotel or B&B then I would agree but not for a gite. otherwise people will take english and block the septic tank".    LOL ! Well loo paper in France does not cost that much so so long as you provide a roll or two for each let then I think the guests can go out and buy more paper as and when required. I cannot imagine guests wanting to travel to France with bags full of English loo rolls. Edit: P.S. I have rented holiday homes in the USA and there they left nothing at all, no loo paper, no cleaning materials, bare cupboards and that is all. Imagine if you arrived late at night to find no loo paper whatsoever and had a stomach upset or something.

Hi, we've been looking to buy a couple of sofas with washable loose covers but the shops in the our area don't seem to stock them (Jonzac, 50 km north of Bordeaux).    You could try FLY which is on the main road from Pons to Saintes, closer to Saintes really,  opposite the airbase. We bought a sofa bed there recently .

We too received a refund cheque from the Notaire, quite a while after we had bought our house.

Searcher30 ....................................in another life were you called Blade?[;-)]

Frederick I have sent you a PM giving much the same advice as Maude.

It's unlikely to be vandalism, Dick, I can't get your link to work.  I do remember reading last year that graves had been vandalised in parts of France and reading the names on these particular graves made me have my suspicions.

"You can search on the name of the soldier and it will give you a location (cemetery and row/plot) for the grave, or panel on which he is named if his body was never found. Once at the cemetery there is always a book which lists the men buried or commemorated there".   Yes Dick, that is what I did, ...................been there, done that, took the photo and signed the book. I was sad to see that some of the headstones were missing and just a temprorary sign put in place on these graves giving name, details and saying that these headstones were being renovated. I suspect they had been vandalised, the names of these soldiers were Levy, Samuel, Shah and another Indian sounding name.  1 July 2006 is the 90th anniversary of the battle of the Somme with lots of events planned in the area.

  Jo I think Deby has a U.K. address, perhaps if they are desperate those that don't live in the U.K.can ask their relatives to help out.[:)]

We had a "pelerin" pass our gate one summer she was doing the pilgrimage from Ostend via Saintes (17), then across the Gironde and on to the Pyrenees route, we are in Charente-Maritime. At Pons (17) there is the old hospital used by the pilgrims;  a wonderful building that has been beautifully restored and is now a Unesco World Heritage site.

The problem has also been alleviated since supplying disposal bags for Ladies' Things. Couldn't find a source here so bought the entire stock on a visit to Sainsbury's. see www.outofeden.co.uk  they sell these bags plus all sorts of useful items for those who run hotels, B&Bs and holiday homes.

Fay The restaurant where we had  lunch was at the hotel "la Colonne de Bronze" The lunch was not the cheapest but it was well worth the money. The hotel is a two star Logis de France. Everything was very French,  just what we were looking for, no English menus / English customers (apart from us of course!) and no signs in English. We had been told the "Relais de Guillaume" was good and would like to have tried that one but unfortunately it was closed on Tuesday. I would like to have visited the museum but that too is closed on Tuesdays. If I went there again I would avoid le mardi!

A friend has recommended this website www.outofeden.co.uk  a useful online supplier for hotels and guest house, all sorts of useful stuff, suitcase stands included. (as they say, these luggage stands can be folded and kept in the wardrobe when not in use.)

Just to let you know that the trip went well. We zoomed up the autoroute to the cemetery at Vend'huile where I paid my respects to a long lost great uncle. From there on to Mondidier for the exhibition where we were made very welcome by the people organising. We went from there to a lovely chambre d'hote with excellent food, not far from Amiens, if anyone wants the address PM me. Next day into Amiens briefly and then along the Somme to Saint Valery which we liked very much. We had an excellent lunch there and a look round the old town. Back home on the shuttle and now need a good rest! Again, sincere thanks again to all of you for your advice.   Gill P.S. for anyone in the Somme area, Amiens will have a big Brocante on 30th April and Montdidier have their annual Foire Agricole on Easter monday.

Just the job, shame it's in the States!

"A word of advice - don't even try discussing your angle on it with French people.  The merest whiff of making life easier for employers will have you branded as a liberal, capitalist, Thatcherite Anglo-Saxon, and this is not a Good Thing!"   S.B. Well I had an interesting conversation on this subject with our tiler in France the other week and he was of the opinion that the French are too molly-coddled by the state and he would like to see a change so maybe they (the French) are not all cast in the same dye! I have to say that I agree with TU SB and Deby on this one.

[:)] Again, thanks to everyone for their helpful replies. I will report back and let you know how we get on..

 Our reasoning was it might save them using the bed with the fresh linen as a horizontal surface for sorting out their bits from their grubby cases.   Eslier, I do agree, where can one buy these suitcase stands?

Probably not! We had the same problem 6 years ago and the man who did the suvey told me it was not that serious and was not "death watch" as we know it in U.K. do P.M. me if you want more info.   Gill

Keira and Annie1 thanks to both of you for your quick replies. It will be a flying visit this time but maybe I will go over again in the not too distant future.   Kiera I have sent you PMs

Does anyone have any recommendations for this area? I will be at Montdidier for an exhibition on Monday and return Tuesday evening. I notice people have talked about Saint Valery sur Somme and that looks interesting so we may go there on the way back to the tunnel. Does anyone know anything about Vend'huile nr. Cambrai and the Unicorn Cemetery there? Is it a really big cemetery where you would need to know the grave ref. of the soldier you were looking for? Questions, questions, I look forward to any replies you may have.   Thanks

"..................but you can always get the water bus from just outside Intra Muros ~ Saint Malo (along from the B.F ferry port) across to Dinard, lovely trip, you can see both the towns from the ferry, wonderful."   [8-|] Ah, so that's what we saw when we were waiting BF to depart last Thursday, we wondered where all these people were going. Thanks Miki