toni

Thanks Quillan, Good news.

From the CCF website 'La Direction de l'Aéroport informe les passagers que le mouvement social ayant fortement perturbé les vols en provenance et à destination de Carcassonne est dorénavant terminé. Les vols seront assurés normalement à partir de demain, mercredi 28 mai 'or the helpful  English version of the above 'Flights could start taking off again tomorrow, Wednesday 28th.''  does anyone know if  all is back to normal yet?

As you'll see if you do read previous posts there is quite a lot of discussion as to the effectiveness of pool alarms, at one point I think there was a question of their continuing to be considered as a compliant means of security. The security cover may be worth it in the long run.

Hi Dreamer and welcome to the forum. If you have no pool cover at all at the moment then I suggest you do a search on this forum under 'Anfor regulations' or 'swimming pool security' , where you shoud find lots of posts on this subject. As of 1/1/06 all pools in France were required to have safety measures in place to prevent child drownings. Amongst the approved options available were pool alarms, fencing and pool covers. If you have no other safety measures in place as yet and are contemplating a cover I would suggest you consider getting an Anfor approved cover.  Any good pool supply shop should be able to order one for you from the manufacturer.

I'm sure I would be happy to consider other airlines but I as I live in Ireland its hardly practicable. In any event I am very glad to fly Ryanair to Carcassonne or Gerona as without them I wouldn't have made a decision to buy a house in the Languedoc in the first place! but I do derive some entertainment from their attitude to public relations and their attempts to find 'plausable' explanations for their latest manouvers. My main purpose in posting was, I suppose, to forewarn people of the expected rise if they are travelling with checked in luggage. Personally the changes will suit me as I usually try to get by with just hand luggage anyway plus under the new regime I will get priority boarding at no extra charge apparently. 

Or maybe he was there putting the finishing touches to his latest plot to seperate us from our money. From 20 Sept all passengers will be required to pay a €3 check-in charge if they use the airport check-in desk. Ryanair say its aim is to 'encourage passengers to make more use of its online check-in service' for which they are now removing the charge. In other words if you have anything other than hand luggage with you you will face an additional charge.  Asked why it was imposing this extra charge for airport checkin on top of existing baggage charges a Ryanair spokesman replied 'Because we say so'!!

As Baz says everything will be busy until the end of August. I would also recommend Leucate Plage as well as its 'little sister' Le Franqui just around the corner which is smaller but still has a few restaurants etc. If you are staying in Carcassonne itself there is a lake which has been developed as a beach and swimming place-lifegaurds, pedalos etc which I have seen out of season but never used. Maybe others have and might be able to remember its name??

Our house is a holday house also and we have our insurance with Groupama- I think they have offices all over France, but you could check their website- circumstances differ of course but you premium does seem pretty steep!

Try a website called www.bedbreak.com and look for Perpignan .We stayed in one of theirs last year and found it good-home cooking, home grown produce genuinely nice hosts and reasonable prices.

I have just heard from a contact in France that there was  a snowfall for the first time (apparently) in 50 years to the west of Narbonne. Has anybody any further info? Has it all cleared at this stage? What areas were affected?

Thanks once again for all the suggestions -I'll be over in the next few weeks and hope to check them all out.

thanks for the advice- I don't know why all the cars have the bikes on the back racks during the summer, maybe the bikes are on their hols too and are looking forward to a nice rest!! As regards the 3 wheelers, I haven't seen them being used in France and i do notice that a query similar to yours from another contributer has no replies so it doesn't look too hopeful.

Can anyone recommend a good place to buy bikes -adults and kids-in and around Narbonne. They're just for a bit of summer diversion so any' low cost 'suggestions would be great.