Judith

Have a memory from our contract that this is the equivalent of selling with vacant possession - but those more in the know may be more definite on this.

[quote user="Bugbear"]Lac Leman - Lake Geneva. I think...........................[/quote] It's a recycled photo - I was sent it last year when we had snow in France - so I would take it all with a pinch of salt!

[quote user="Logan"]Actually, I have noticed in the last couple of years that French people are becoming more multi-lingual, particulary younger people, twenty somethings plus. The second language is of course English. [/quote] Down in the Aude, when I have brought this up with our neighbours, the feeling is that with their geography Spanish is the second language to be learnt, rather than English.  Though I am pretty sure the advent of the web, the media (TV etc) plus commercial pressures will have a different impact, espcially further north.  However, even though we as English speakers may find more and more French people able to speak some English, it is surely common courtesy to learn the language if possible if you are to live there.  I have often found that the English spoken by the French who can fails at about the same level as a good proportion of those English speakers trying to speak French - anything complicated or too fast and it fails.  Quid pro quo - surely?

[quote user="Clair"][quote user="Clair"]There is a new website which puts all admin related queries for individuals (particuliers) under one roof: adele.gouv.fr/ Click on the house picture for a tutorial. Each room links to a specific admin area shown on the left-hand side menu. [/quote] There is now another new website which enables you to complete a lot of administrative tasks or paperwork on line: administration24h24.gouv.fr/ [/quote] Clair Both links seem to go the the same "admin" web page - at least that's all that I can get whichever link I use.

[quote user="Sunday Driver"]The casting Vote!!  [:-))] (Now, who was that biblical geezer who offered to chop the baby in half to settle an argument over who was the mother.....?) [/quote] Solomon!  Hence wise as Solomon ........ sorry its the librarian in me .....

[quote user="Dick Smith"]Just heard that school is closed tomorrow - a window came in and flew across the foyer (!), other windows have broken and some of the scaffolding (see pic) has come loose, as have various bits of wood, metal and all the plastic... [IMG]http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f338/dick_at_aulton/DSCN0532.jpg[/IMG] [/quote] Roads closed ..... trains cancelled (even the Eurostar) .... roofs gone ..... scaffolding down and windows out  ..... AND 13 people killed - not good.  Better today (Friday) it seems to have calmed down now - snow forecast for next week so no doubt road and rail closures will follow automatically ......  Oh to be in England ......

[quote user="Frogslegs"]We hope to get something reasonable for £100 per night, we are staying with friends in Dorchester than taking the train to Waterloo. As suggested, better to cross the river for a hotel. I am going to feel like a tourist even though I worked as graphic artist in London 30 years ago! But what I liked then Camden Market, Oxford Street, is not what I want to see now..except perhaps a good rock band at either Hammersmith Odeon or Roundhouse....are they still there? [/quote] At that price all the ones mentioned already would be fine - also the premier travel inn chain (sorry book at home, look on web under that) have several in London, and they are under that price (and there is one near the Eye in the old county hall at £92 per room which would be handy for all the tourist sites and 5 mins walk to Waterloo and the same across Westminster bridge and thus into theatre land).  I stayed in one last weekend in the north and they are more than adequate as far as I can see - and open 24 hours which was just as well given the time we left London on Friday evening!  You could do worse!

[quote user="margie"]Can anybody recommend a recipe for the packs of duck legs you can buy (usually with a sachet of herbes de Provence supplied). I would like a recipe that guarantees very tender meat in or with a tasty sauce. [/quote] Can't beat a slow coooker for tenderness, falling off the bone etc.  Long and slow is my motto - just cook in their own fat (or add a little extra if desired), skins falls off, as do the bones, and nice and moist.  Best is if they can all touch the base, so a low, wide pan is better than the current narrow, high ones, but with trial and error it works.  Its my stock easy dinner party recipe also, not time critical!

Agree with all points so far - I live in the West End so have no need of hotels but it is safe (if not always as clean as we'd like) but you need to remember that you are in a big city and there are many con artists - watch your handbag/wallet - keep tucked away - in the crowded conditions pick pockets are very active.  As for hotels, Charing Cross Hotel also convenient for theatres etc, but honestly I walk from just north of Oxford Circus to near Victoria every day and it takes about 30 minutes - so nowhere within the circle line is that far from anywhere else and certainly walkable.  Even the buses move relatively smoothly usually due to the congestion charge having some effect on the mountains of traffic. My other suggestion (similar to Will's) due to the cost of hotels in London you may find it more cost effective to try a package - I presume there are companies (like Leisure Direction here) which do packages, and the sncf is certainly worth looking at.  I would suggest that north of the river is pleasanter and more expensive, and though some areas south of the river are fine, you do have to cross the river to most of the tourist bits of London (exccept the GLobe, the Old Vic, Tate Modern etc) so that may influence your choice.  Some areas south of the river are certainly less pleasant and more tatty.  The walk to Waterloo over the new Hungerford bridge (good views of the London Eye - and worth a trip on if it is clear) is pleasant and only marrred by the poor signage on the south side of the river!  Hotels near Victoria tend to be cheaper, but are further away from the West End (near to Parliament though (10 mins walk from my office!) and then it is not a long walk up Whitehall to Trafalgar Sq and the West End. Often finding a hotel just off the main thoroughfares (eg not on Oxford Street but in a side street nearby) may be more cost effective and likely to be less noisy.  London doesn't seem to sleep much these days! Hope that helps

I was the person who asked the self same question (as correctly rembered) sometime towards the end of last year - and much of the same answers came up then, but I agree, I believe it means why do something yourself if there is someone else can do it better (my hubby often uses it, and he means exactly that = why should I do it, when you can do it better, have more experience in doing, it can do it more quickly etc (sewing buttons on his shirts comes to mind - he is perfectly capable of doing it, but knows I do it both better and more quickly!!), so the French expression as quoted says entirely the opposite .  However, as another poster said, often the French expression does turn out to say entirely the opposite, or uses some other entirely different context to say the same thing - raining cats and dogs being one of those! We often discuss how the actual meaning of words cannot be compared - it is often impossible to get the nuance of the meaning across, even when the words themselves are correct, because of inbuilt cultural differences etc.  And trying to describe cricket to the French (we have tried, when we took some to see a match) is well nigh impossible as the words do not exist in French - lots of paper was used and we were into diagrams - but it was all great fun and somewhere along the way the general idea of the game was understood!

[quote user="Teamedup"]We find a jeune Cantal is perfectly acceptable with christmas Cake.  [/quote] Sorry this is too late for Christmas, but for those who have not yet eaten all the cake ----  I broght back some Laguiole cheese (bought in the local intermarche) and it survived the journey and the out of date label, to be very edible.  I think it is the nearest I've found to a cheshire yet, and would certainly work well with christmas cake or mince pies, though I scoffed all my UK goodies before I left the UK for Christmas ........!  The laguiole is going down very well with biscuits pro tem.  And I may try it on toast before I finish it - it certainly has the taste and texture of a good cheshire which is what I use for such toasties.

What a coincidence! I've just rung them this morning on my return to UK after Christmas in France - we had the same conversation too as our memory was they arrived before Christmas last year, as I had to bring the cheque back to England and pay it in here.  Memory also tells me that all previous payments were sent by post as a sterling cheque.  I was told that they are late this year and not all are yet sent, I have been told that they may be coming by the beginning of February, and that this year they will put it into my husband's account directly as with his pension.  Since he moved late in the year (2005) that might explain why it was a cheque last year but can go into the bank account direct this year. Hope that helps! [EDIT] just seen the post above mine - they said that some had already gone out, but not all !

What is is like on returning to the UK - I have just returned from my Christmas holiday in the south of France - where did I get my first impression of why I hate returning to London - on the return Eurostar from Lille - crowded, inconsiderate - to be followed by the first push and shove and complete rudeness as I tried to get off the train. For me, I am afraid that is what England has become - an unpleasant place to live, people who are inconsiderate, and in many cases, people who do not speak the language.  At least in France I know it is foreign country, where I am beginning to feel more and more at home!

[quote user="pip24"]Like Spg we also used to eat cheese with the Christmas cake, but for some reason it had to be Lancashire cheese !  Can anyone suggest a French cheese that would compliment the cake that is being discussed ? [/quote] And with mince pies and apple pie - but being originally from the white rose county - it had to be wensleydale!  Nowadays it is usually a mature cheddar as that is easiest to find even in London.  Must confess I've yet to find a good suitable french cheese, but perhaps a hardish but crumbly (yes I do mean that!) mountain cheese, possible from sheep rather than goats or cows?  They could offer the contrast in taste (as with sweet and sour) which just works so well.  And for those who find christmas cake with marzipan etc too sweet, try it with cheese -  it takes the excessive sweetness away.  Believe me, it does work as I don't like things too sweet either!

[quote user="Will "]  I think that First Direct were only talking of re-introducing charges for those who did not keep a reasonable credit in their accounts, and I don't really have a problem with that. [/quote] Will The problem with First Direct is what is considered "reasonable" - I bank with them, and it is not a dormant account (some previous post mentioned that one!) and my whole salary goes in (and often out again more quickly than they'd like admittedly) but they do not deem what I earn as sufficient to qualify for free banking - and that is what leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.  Taking out another product with them will probably be my short-term answer (and no, I have not yet decided to stay with them long-term, but if I move it will be at my pace and not theirs), and whilst I would not like to return to the days of banking fees (which is what got me to First Direct in the first place) I feel that the banks make money out of the delays they build into the processing system, and if they can't cut their coat according to their cloth (sorry mixed metaphor) as we have to do, they deserve to loose customers. I can (with some degree of disatisfaction) cope with the French banking fee - at perhaps £2 a month I can live with that - but an English bank charging £120 a year for the privilege of holding a bank account with them (ie £10 a month) will have to do a great deal more - and what is on offer for First Direct is not worth £120 to me.  I will watch developments with interest.

[quote user="Gardian"]Didn't they have a brief venture in the French Tourist Office in Piccadilly (on a sort-of mezzanine floor)?  [/quote] yes - and very useful it was - long gone and in fact the Fr Tourist Office in Piccadilly is now so useless I never bother with it though I pass it every day on my way to and from work!

[quote user="5-element"] If your husband is also, like myself, afraid of heights and of  lifts, (well, these phobias often run together, don't they?) then it can be a challenge... [/quote] Fortunately I think it's only a dentist phobia he has - but he is likely to think Montpellier too far from Narbonne - even though Monpellier is definitely nearer than coming back to London to his "old" dentist!  It's always useful to have recommendations however, so it will be kept on file! Hope you do find one to suit you soon

Any chance you could name your fabulous dentist in the Languedoc - I have a hubby with the same phobia and he is bound to need help sometime soon!!

Yes - that was the title!  Thanks<

The m***de book is almost entirely appropriate to its title - rubbish - it is half read on my "in case I have nothing left to read and I am desperate" pile - but it may just go to the charity shop unread yet! (A first for me).  Bryson is readable, on the whole knowledgable, and usually funny - though his book describing his walk on the long distance path in the US (title escapes me!) was very boring.  It is the only one of the one's I've read of his that I only finished because I wanted to see how it did finish (and I was on hollday and there wasn't much other choice!)

I'm drinking a 3euro bottle of muscat de rivesaltes instead of the croft original I usually keep in for guests and when I feel like a treat -  only difference I can find if I follow one with the other is the muscat is fractionally sweeter, but you'd never know without tasting both one after the other.  Floc de Gascogne is also a possible, though my BIL couldn't taste any difference between muscat, pineau and floc when he tried them - but then he's a harvey's bristol cream man!

For those who want to travel by train from UK and get the cheap "prem" fares from sncf, it is best too book the french end separately, from Lille (same station arr and dep) or Paris (if you really must !) on the web site as given, then book eurostar separately - if you try to book staight through from London to your French destination it will not find the cheap "prem" fares. Eurostar does get <some> good deals booking via them, but they have a smaller selection of routes available.  As I travel mainly at peak UK holiday times, being one of the great unwashed still working full time in the UK, I do not always get the best value fares, but it is still my preferred method of travel, costs often comparable with flying, and less stress - no "fight for your seat a la Ryanair"  for example, and each mainline station is nearer than the airport at each end!

Hi there Cassis Nice to see a bit of literary merit creeping in, but it would be <so> much better if you could put the 'L' into Dorothy Sayers in your current signature - I have it on good authority (from people who worked with her and knew her including the professor who finished DLS's translation of Dante's Inferno when she died unexpectedly) that she did rather stress the 'L'.  I am not being posh - I just belong to the Dorothy L Sayers Society and a nicer bunch of people you couldn't meet - but this is a point on which all confirm Dorothy's penchant for accuracy - and since next year it will be 50 years since she died, it would be nice to get it right!

Cat 46 Thanks - memory not that bad after all and saved me work this am.  I think the problem with tontine and more expensive houses (on each share above the amount quoted surely) is that you pay some tax with a tontine, (but not convinced if it is between spouses the 60% is the correct rate - sorry book at home and I am not) whereas with CU you don't, but CU is no good with the children of previous marriages problem, so in our case tontine was the only definite solution to secure the property to the other spouse.  Some you win, some you loose, but with French inheritance laws you can't really win, and if you decide to live in France, that is one of the downsides you learn to accept.  If you can't, solution is simple, don't  live in France. Sorry to be so pragmatic, I've learnt you can't win 'em all, and you can't take it with you, so as with buying houses, sort your must haves out, and then get on with the best solution within those parameters! 

I wonder if it was a mis-hearing of "Hague".  Is there not a Hague convention that has something to do with taxation or inheritance issues?  This from memory - and sorry, just about to leave for a meeting, so will follow up in morning if no-one has come up with something better before then.