Coco
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Posts posted by Coco
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Looks like it was accurate for once. And as usual the UK appears to have ground to a halt! No trains or planes and plenty of car crashes!!! Can't understand how when this snow came from the south and the worst hit areas are Wales and the west country, we have missed it here is Normandy, but although cold we have a clear blue sky.
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SECONDED!
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I think it was a Floyd recipe that I first used years ago..... (must have been, there was alcohol involved). He added a dash of dry vermouth a few minutes before serving. Try the same recipe (whichever you use) with and without and you'll never have it without again![:D]
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[quote user="KathyC"]
Hi
I often think that what many people are looking for is a move from the town/city to the country rather than from the UK to France . Personally, I feel that it might be worthwhile asking yourselves the question "If we could buy the country property/lake/renovation project/guest house for the same price in the UK as we can in France, would we still want to move over?". If the answer is "no" then I would think very carefully about your plans. A move to the country is a difficult enough proposition without adding in the extra complications of a foreign country; unless you really love the idea of moving to France (and accept that your idea may well change with more knowledge) then I would think and think again.
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I think this is one of the most sensible statements I've seen on this forum in a long, long time. And I'm sure that probably more than 50% of the people who ask themselves this question would answer "no"; certainly 95% of the house-hunters we have had staying at our B&B. Most ask us why we moved and before we even have a chance to draw breath they always answer for us: "I know, Britain's gone to the dogs hasn't it, don't blame you." BUT NO that isn't why we moved here.
We bought our house here in 1999, having had our first thoughts about moving to France back in 1983 and starting serious research in 1994 and serious house-hunting in 1997. We moved here in 2003 and many friends suggested that if we really wanted to run a B&B why didn't we move to somewhere in the country in the UK instead. But that wasn't the answer for us, but sooo many people say that they just couldn't afford the sort of property they wanted in the UK and that's why they've moved to France. It's hard enough to adapt to life in a foreign country and that is not really an important enough reason for choosing to do so. Life is hard here and there are things we miss about the UK, there are things that are done differently here and not always as well as in the UK but overall it still suits us better than our previous life in the UK.
One thing I would say Mr Riff is that you need to do careful research on your potential carp business because you're going to have to earn a lot of money to support two families and you've got at least another 10-15 years of full-time education for those kids to think about.
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I've never seen it outside of Kobe or Tokyo. There again - I've never looked! It's expensive enough there, dread to think what it is in UK or France. Just looked at the link above - Scottish Kobe beef? Isn't that a bit like Californian Champagne or Somerset Camembert?
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At Christmas there is goose fat in the butter section but the rest of the year it tends to be duck fat in the chiller cabinet and the goose fat seems to be on the shelf with things like tinned patés, tinned foie gras, cassoulet etc. Don't know why it only needs to be chilled at Christmas! [;-)]
Found the semoule with the flour this afternoon, thanks Clair!
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I'd pay asap and argue the case later or you may incur even more charges. I recently received a demand for extra taxe d'habitation for my business for 2006, which I closed down in 2003 (never had a demand for 03,04 or 05!) When I tried explaining to the man in the Tresor Public that I shouldn't need to pay because the business no longer existed he told me I would be best to pay and then argue the case with them afterwards and get my money refunded, otherwise I would incur the 10% surcharge, which I may not get back (it was 14th December!).
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Changing the topic slightly but still on terrible TV. Did anyone see the latest reality programme? .... WAGS Boutique. I couldn't believe just how aweful it was and when you know how much poverty there is even in the UK to see these, well "dumb blondes" is way, way too polite for the mindless, ignorant, spoilt, selfish, vain eejits that are sleeping with equally dumb footballers in order to get access to their platinum cards, spending so much money on shoes, handbags and clothes.
If you've ever read "Dumb Britain" in Private Eye, the questions these girls asked when doing a test at the London School of Fashion were beyond belief and made the Dumb Britain questions look pretty bright! And one of them, when doing a "brainstorm" on names for their boutique asked another what relevance the name "Eleven" would have to them. The second girl told her that it was because they were footballers girlfriends and that there are 11 players in a team, to which the first said "oh, I ditn't know vat".
I sincerely hope their fees are going to charity!!!
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I think goose fatis by far the best and I wanted to try the semolina thing but couldn't find any in our local supermarket. I assumed it would be with the couscous, rice etc but it wasn't. Does anyone know where it is to be found?
Lard hides itself with the other pork products. I spent ages looking for it with butter and margerine but no it's with the pork rillettes, salami and paté!!!!
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Thanks everyone, that's what I wanted to know.[:D]
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So who looked after the girls, or the other children before the girls were old enough to do it? Sounds like a cop-out on behalf of the parents to me - perhaps the kids should be taken into care. Most blind people are perfectly capable of doing a lot of things themselves. Last week on "Grow your own vegetables" there was a blind man who had the most fantastic allotment where he grew every vegetable imaginable, without any help from anyone.
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Some friends of friends were told by their plumber that they would be able to claim money back on their boiler and woodburner if they declared them to the tax people, which apparently they did, and got some money back by my friends know no more detail than that.
My parents are having all their single glazing replaced with double glazed windows in a few weeks time and I've heard that they will be able to do similar.
Does anyone know if this is true and how you go about it?
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How strange! Why the 8 days I wonder?
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Not just the rose coloured glasses view though Llwyn, as I said, our South African guest, who was a professional rugby player, reluctantly, after viewing it a couple of times (having at first said NO WAY) had to admit that he believed it was the right decision. [:D] What a comeback for the boy! Not that it would have made the slightest difference to the result or Jonny being worthy of Man of the Match anyway, so indeed, what does it matter.
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Monsieur Superboot est revenu!! As the French commentators must surely have said. M'boy's back and I can once again enjoy watching England play. It was good to see Jason back too. Even our South African guests thought Jonny was brilliant and although he disputed the try on first viewing, he agreed it was definitely a try on seeing the replay, and he was a rugby pro in South Africa.
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We've just had a set of bank charges sent through to us from Credit Agricole. For cashing a non-French euro cheque the charges are min 23.40 euros, up to 95 euros! For dealing with a bank transfer it's 3.40 euros!! I know what I'll be doing in future.
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None with my Irish married name but over 100 with my Scottish maiden name. All in Somme. Perhaps they didn't go home after WW1!
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[quote user="Will"]
There were a few artisans and crafts there too, but if I am honest, a bit too much of the Country Living idea of French style rather than the real thing. You need more than distressed painted furniture and chipped enamel signs to create the authentic ambience. There was some very nice oak furniture - but made in England.
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Hey Bill, remember when, after the Loire wine tasting we discovered the "brocante" selling absolute rubbish for exhorbitant prices - buffets with broken glass panes and woodwormed backs to them. I remember Mrs Conq attacking one such piece of furniture and almost destroying it. It was very distressed indeed. [;-)]
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I looked into a CC machine when we first set up and the charges are a lot lower than in the UK but they're not available without a siret number. If you've got a siret number I'd go down that route Jill. From bad experience I now insist on deposits for all but very low season short stays, either by bank transfer or euro or sterling cheques. This in itself has shown up several people who when I haven't received the deposit after 7 days and email them to remind them, tell me they have since found somewhere else and I get the "oh, sorry, did I forget to let you know" comments.
I have up til now always been prepared to wait til the end of the stay to collect the balance but am often on tenterhooks if I'm not too sure about the people, as to whether they will try to do a runner. Many, especially Europeans, want to settle on arrival and I think that this year I will start asking for this as my normal procedure, with, as Maggi says, any extra meals being settled at the end of the stay.
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We used Michel Guerion, a bit pricey but he does speak English.
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I was under the impression that any structure deemed as permanent was subject to planning permission, ie, with a concrete base. I don't know whether garden sheds, say, bought from the local Brico or garden centre fall into this category but if they don't they will only go up to a certain size anyway.
Someone on this forum a while ago had a visit from the gendarmes for constructing a decking area which had a concrete base, without permission.
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Interesting that you mention drying the potatoes TU. Every recipe I have read says that this is a MUST. However, I use Raymond Blanc's recipe and he says it's an absolute NO NO. It's the starch in the potatoes that cause the cream to thicken and I agree with him on that. His recipe is like the first one mentioned on this thread, except that he does add quite a bit of gruyere to the cream in the saucepan and then some more on the top Dick. It's really lovely. He also says you can make it in advance to the pouring into the gratin dish and finish the last 30-40 minutes in the oven when you're ready to eat and that's what I do when I'm doing my TDH. A great help to get it done earlier in the day if you're doing 4 course dinners every evening.
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[quote user="Dick Smith"]
If I was a Norman I'd be pretty hacked off by the wanton destruction of Caen, Mortain etc for not much military purpose - and yet that feeling doesn't seem to be present. You only get that criticism in English books.
[/quote]Not quite Dck. We're further north than you - 15km south of St Lo and I can tell you that when we went to the AGM of the "FLeurs de la Memoire" association a couple of years ago we found quite a lot of French people who were indeed "pretty hacked off" with the destruction of this area; (there aren't too many pretty old villages round here, they all got flattened). Many also built up quite good relations with the German soldiers who had been here for 4 years without causing any destruction, unlike the Brits and Americans, who totally flattened the area in a matter of weeks. Ultimately, however, I think that generally they realised, hard as it may be to accept, that it was for the greater good.
Back to Wen's comments and I have to agree with the general concensus in that "when in France..." Why should we expect any French person to have to speak English to us? I can't think of a single person in my old community in England who would have been able to, let alone have the inclination to, speak french, or any other foreign language to a newcomer to the village.
Only this evening I spke to a neighbour who was extremely friendly and chatty on the phone, who, 4 years ago, on our arrival to the village constantly told us how we MUST learn French because we now lived in France. No matter how often I told him (in French) that we were trying our hardest, he seemed oblivious of the fact;mainly because at the time we had several other Brit households in the area who were making no attempt at all. Since his dad retired from supplying wood to us a couple of months ago I've been dreading phoning him because of his normally negative attitude but tonight he was sooooo friendly and I know it's because we've made the effort to learn the language. But then, why should he have to try and speak English to us? We're the outsiders. I most certainly would be most accepting of any foreign neighbours I had in England, and would have helped them if they were struggling with their English, but I would have expected them to have at least made an effort to try and learn the language.
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I sent VF an email pointing out that they are quite often not even appearing on the first two pages of searches and I got this wonderful example of excellent customer relations in response:
"Organic search positions change over time and are not within our control.That's why we state in our advertising terms and conditions [at http://tc.goholidays.net/] :The publisher makes no guarantee that any specific search engine position will be acquired or retained for any particular page of the distribution channels. The advertiser accepts that the number of views of the advertisement and the number of enquiries generated by it may vary over time. Correspondence about website traffic creation and website traffic statistics will not be entered into.Whether or not you renew the ad is your choice. You will receive an automated notification closer to the expiry date."So, it would appear that the selling point for most of this type of website is that they constantly achieve high rankings in the search engines, but VF have not decided that not only will they not guarantee this but they will not enter into any discussion on it either![blink]"Organic search positions change over time and are not within our control." This statement in particular made me smile. Perhaps it's not within their control but I think they "could do better" as Mr Smith may say to some of his students. There's a certain little sausage on this forum who ALWAYS has about 4 results on the first page no matter what combination of search criteria I put in for CDH, B&B, etc in Normandy - and he isn't even in Normandy!!!! Cassis, do you want a job showing the big boys how it's done? [:D] Or perhaps just me![;-)]
Auberge du Moulin de la Sée
in North West (Basse-Normandie, Haute-Normandie, Picardie, Nord Pas-de-Calais)
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