Judith

Blimey .. right, will look at it more seriously .. but maybe wait until the wonderful fibre is installed! ?

Just looking, tells me little, ie is it a subscription paid serivce .. any further info please?? Seems too good to be true to be free ... in spite of the name!

If you are in an area where fibre optic is being installed, you may find that you can do (or be made to do) other things, we shall loose our standard fixed line when this happens (not our choice, but it seems that copper cabling is being phased out as soon as possible). This is through orange and they do have various options with TV, mobiles etc etc. We inherited a satellite dish and box enabling us to watch UK TV (OK, down boys!), we'd watch French TV if we could find much we liked!!, but would love to find alternatives too to the satellite but I have a hubby who resists change so it is easier to stay as is for now!

It tends to be good bottles of red that I get, but I can live with that .. though a nice bottle of bowmore would not go amiss either!

THAT's why they looked so odd. Couldn't make it out at first. Sad, they were quite handsome when young!

Idun, keep cheerful. I to have had some rough times, over the last 2 years, but I really do think that 2021 WAS better than 2020, when we were lockdown so much, vaccines had not then arrived, and I was diagnosed with advanced melanoma. Come 2022, most or a good number are vaccinated, I got over to the UK for the first time in 2 and half years, the cancer is on the run, and I've just had my second hip done, which means soon that I will be fully mobile for the first time in some years (I hope) and able to move on. Yes, it's a bummer at present, with so many getting omicron, but come summer, all will improve, I am sure .. keep well, keep safe, everyone, and look forward to 2022 with anticipation .. it is, after all, the only way to look at life now!

Well what a lot of miserable dumpties you all are (Noisette excpted). I liked (and in fact preferred) the Kings service this year .. much improved now Stephen Cleobury has retired. Having been unable to get into a car until a week before Christmas (and I still cannot drive), I decided that a quiet Christmas with just the two of us was best. Most restaurants around here were shut anyway. Went to Christmas Day service in my anglophone Christian fellowship (chauffered to it) and sang my heart out (no, it's not in Eymet). Got the meat I like best (fillet steak), cooked it perfectly (though I say so myself), opened a very good bottle of red, bought ready prepared veg, listened to the Queen's speech, and thorough enjoyed a peaceful and quiet time. Christmas is what YOU make of it.

Thanks, and from me too, to everyone. 2022 can surely only get better, eventually!

Not entirely surprising Gardian. Last year (is it really that long ago?) one nephew and family all caught Covid in the early days, all, that is save one of their 2 boys ... go figure! And a couple of weeks ago, sadly, the other nephew and family got it, he suffered, with it but is getting better now. I have never considered meeting up for Christmas (getting over here to see hubby when I was still working in the UK was bad enough). So pleased I did make it over to see them all in Sept / Oct though ... after 2 and half years!

Could be interesting here in our village, only the one big vaccination centre, in the fire station and manned by the sapeurs pompiers (they do a brilliant job), but they are always fully booked, and in my experience almost every patient I've ever seen there is well over 65 ...!

I agree, Alan, those bollards were enough to get you completely disoriented .. I never thought of Pernod being the reason ... what a tarradiddle it was!

Quite few I had heard of but didn't know, and some I never knew! Very useful indeed. Thanks Woolly!

Just come back via the tunnel. Indeed all preloaded, no questions asked (I spoke to a human as they'd managed to mess up which side to go, and he was on the wrong side for me). SAid, I have al the docs do you wnat to go on teh next shuttele (I was early) said, yes and away I went. French douane checked passport (did not stamp it, WARP attached to it and presented together). Asked for proof of vaccination, had a paper version with sworn stament on other side, showed him both and off I went. I left before pre-test was eliminated, but no need now, 2 day test OK. I used Oncologia, not the cheapest at £55, but all worked as planned, test arrived on the day expected, sent off the next day, result back with 24/48 hrs. Mid afternoonon a Sunday, quick and painless.

So, the forum changes it's software, and whilst not before time, it seems to be a ... well I leave you to put the words in. Now I cannot find the way to look at recent posts only, without plodding all the way through the topics, but so far spent little time on it, as I'm off to the UK tomorrorw - so won't be posting on here for a while, as I've managed to do the necessary to sign on again on my desk top, evidently, or I could not post this, but will it accept the new password on the ipad. Of course not! So, I'll check in on occasion, but won't be able to post anything until I've sorted it out on the ipad, and who knows when that will be!!! Maybe they'll have sorted out the gremilins by the time I return .. Happy discissions, everyone, in my absence. Judith PS now I've seen it on screen I can see they've lost our pseudonymns and our party pieces too!

Swings and roundabout every year .. sometime up, sometimes down.  THis year the French have come close to beating the Italians at their own game.  What I like is that the championship is still open and will be decided during the last days matches ... these days, I don't watch the matches (too much else to get done and it is a time when I won't be interrupted but OH,  but I used to, and still like to know the scores ... but agere with you Idun, too much football on the news and never enough of the sports that need some skill to play, like rugby and snooker, to name two that interest this not-at-all-sports interested person.

PaulT, I don't think just uPVC, as the first time I met met them was on the family holiday home we have in France and that had a wooden glazed door.  Certainly all our uPVC doors here have them, but I thought that was a French thing and nothing to do with the material ..

I'd agree with Nomoss on this one .. it's part of hte locking mechanism.  Never saw it used in the UK, where they prefer Yale locks, but they do exist there too, but never bother to find out how it is described.

They are both a shambles, though slightly less so in the Nantes case. And if I hadn't seen it all playing out as they both  have I would never have believed it and thought they were both fairy stories ..

I believe that place names do not always follow the rules, and are very much as the locals would say them, in their local accent too.

Well I don't know, you could hardly imagine or  make up the shambles in the UK at present, could you, either?

Down here, if you say vingt as you shoudl they will not understand it.  So I've got used to pronouncing the "t" as in vin-te!  And on't get me started on vin and vent ... !!!

Yes, of course.  Some September sends have received their licences, some  have not .. as I say, no rhyme or reason, though I do know they are overwhelmed, dealing with applications in order doesn't seem an impossible ask.

I'm amazed and gobsmacked.  They've had mine since Sept last and I've heard not a dicky bird.  Is there no justice in this world.  Exchange due to licence expiry à cause de mon age, and not a s*d to do with Brexit itself, which is even more of an insult.  Nantes really must get their act together soon. 

Great news Minnie, puts the Black hole of Nantes and the driving licence saga into some sort of "get your act together" trope ...

No wonder I fail dismally at dictées!!!