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Gardian

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Everything posted by Gardian

  1. I think that I was (around about) a 2005 joiner, having moved to France in late 2004. Over the years I have gained countless amounts of advice & information. On the odd occasion, I may have been able to reciprocate. I hear some concern over the level of contribution these days. Frankly, I don’t share that concern. Those of us who go back that far can remember some of the acerbic attacks and pointless bickering that went on, almost always from the same culprits. It wasn’t very nice, to say the least. Nowadays, people can (hopefully) ask a question and get some informed and unbiased advice. Even daft boogers like ALBF lighten proceedings .......... and he never seems to take offence ! In summary - quality & civility are better than vitriol, IMO
  2. Oh ALBF !!! Typically & deliberately outrageous (and generally) wrong. The sad thing is that some viewing these threads might (just might) see you as an all-seeing, accurate commentator. Which you’re not. Just typical of the ‘if I don’t like it, I’ll slag it off’ brigade. But actually, you’re just being (what you see as) mischievous. The trouble is that it takes nonsense like that to stir me in to posting. I’m as sad as ALBF is.
  3. No, generally just two of them. R4 in the early morning for the Today programme and Mrs G usually switches to R2 for the rest of the day until there’s some TV that she might want. So DL, that presumably means that there’s no solution to the problem? It’s strange though, because it almost never works now first thing, but after a while it’ll be OK. As you say, today seems like a ‘good day’ for some reason - R2 was accessible from mid morning. Thanks very much anyway.
  4. A bit of a strange one this. We get our TV and radio access via roof-mounted dish and SKY digibox. Just over the last week or so we’ve been having problems getting BBC radio 1, 2, 3 & 4. All other radio channels are unaffected, as is the tv. It tells us that it’s not getting a satellite signal, yet you can get (for example) Classic FM. This might continue for the whole day, or without having done anything, you can suddenly get what you’re after. I’ve tried ‘re-booting’ the digibox and that sometimes works and sometimes it doesn’t. There’s no logic to this. Any clues anybody?
  5. France made hard work of it for 60 mins, but were rather comfortable winners in the end. The scoreline rather flattered them I’d say. Italy could easily chalk up another win next Saturday vs Wales !
  6. As they have here - the 2 Belgian women.
  7. There was heavy rain all day yesterday and most of the night here in the Gard. I set off to get bread in our local town at 09.00 this morning and found most of the roads around and about us blocked. The little stream which passes at the bottom of our ‘estate’, which is normally barely a trickle of water, was the proverbial ‘rageing torrent’, some 50m wide. We’re totally unaffected by the way - the ground rises sharply. Anyway, on viewing the Midi Libre website, it became apparent that two women are missing, apparently at a submersible bridge about 1km downstream from the stream close to us. There are helicopters around everywhere. It doesn’t sound good and there are 4 other people missing in the Gard.
  8. I was 100% wrong! But delighted to have been so. A really good afternoon’s entertainment.
  9. BTW, I certainly wouldn’t disagree over the poached egg. Problem is getting enough really fresh eggs. The lady who ‘does’ for us around the house brings fresh eggs, but I usually consume them almost as soon as received. So this week’s delivery of 4 had been consumed within 2 days!
  10. You’re down this neck of the woods, are you not DL ? Surprised that you haven’t seen any decent asparagus yet. We knew that there’d be some today simply because I’ve seen them cutting the sprigs in the local fields during the week. Anyway, it won’t be long before there’s plenty and the price drops.
  11. This weekend then. It vs Sc Most of us would love to see Italy win this one, but frankly the Scots look too strong. But then so did France 2 wks ago. Scotland win and the concern that they’ll then view themselves as potential 6N winners. Eng vs Ire IMO, if it was a boxing match, you'd throw in the towel now! England have no chance, but you just never know, do you? Ireland win by 12pts. Wa vs Fr Normally, you’d say France, but with home advantage for Wales, ???????? I’d settle on France, but it’s the most unpredictable result of the three.
  12. On our local market today - new season asparagus and gariguettes strawberries. One bloke had some asparagus a week ago, but it looked a bit ‘stringy’ and most people were ignoring it. He was back today, but it looked decidedly ‘moth-eaten’. By contrast, another (always very reliable) trader had some bunches of ‘fines vertes’ for 7 euros. Not cheap, but a nice size. In the steamer for 10mins, loads of butter and shavings of Parmesan. Nice bread to accompany of course. The garriguettes were in the nearby supermarket. To us, they’re pretty much the only strawbs that taste of anything. Nothing to add or accompany .......... except a dollop of ice cream. Happy days !!!
  13. I lived and worked in Vienna for 3 months back in the 70’s. Wonderful place and I can add little to what has been said already. The only was that I was never keen on the ‘knodel’, which comes in all sorts of variety and disguises. A more recent experience though. When returning to France from our younger son’s home in southern Czech, we were looking for a lunchtime motorway stop. We pulled off at a place about 20kms before Salzburg - no expectation of anything special, just a typical motorway service station we thought. Wrong - but in the best possible way ! Most have probably heard about the much-lauded Service Station in the UK at Tebay. Well this place is loads better ! A superb retail area, with lots of things that you’d want to buy, and plenty that you didn’t need to buy, but did. Even better though was the cafe / restaurant, which had seating on a balcony overlooking the nearby lakes. The food was delicious, beautifully presented, but also expensive. Worth it though. In summary, Austria doesn’t do scruffy - it just isn’t ‘them’.
  14. This weekend then. Ireland are ‘head & shoulders’ above every other team. Nothing more to be said. Wales did well to hold them to what they did. England were awful. The Scots were really good. That much was obvious to anybody. How much longer can English rugby hold out on this nonsense of not considering a player ‘plying his trade’ abroad? Fr vs It - best and most exciting match of the weekend. Probably a fair result in the end ............. but it would have been really good if Italy had turned them over. Italy don’t deserve to be bottom of the table.
  15. What happened is well documented. There appears to be be little doubt about what happened. I really have a great deal of difficulty in understanding why somebody isn’t grabbing this problem by the neck and dealing with it. Immediate (and significant) compensation for those hundreds of people affected. At the time, why on earth somebody in senior management there wasn’t saying “Why are there loads of postmasters being found to have ‘fiddled the books?”. It made no sense. But that question can be answered later. Here we have one, if not the, biggest scandal in UK modern times. The people affected need to be exonerated and (quickly) recompensed. BTW, I have no personal involvement in any of this. Just an overwhelming sense of injustice.
  16. ALBF misses the point, does he not ? As LMP has pointed out, what you’re surely looking for with a surveyor (and a structural one, as Mint has said) is either detail or a guide (the price will vary of course) as to where there may or may not be a problem. There’ll be good ones in France, just the same as in the UK. Ideally, find somebody in France who has found a good surveyor - then (and only then) it might be well worth while paying for travel expenses etc. Looking back at the OP’s post, I’ve no idea whatsoever re fees, but you’ve got to be thinking in terms of €500/ day + expenses.
  17. For me, the best bit about the weekend’s three matches was that little lad’s singing of ‘Ireland’s Call’. So accomplished and seemingly nerveless. The matches? Pretty forgettable really.
  18. Now to the 2nd weekend - often the best. Sc vs Fr - possibly the best fixture in the Tournament. This could go either way (statement of the bloomin’ obvious), but I just rather fancy France in this. They’ll be desperate to claw their way off the bottom of the Table. There won’t be much in it though. Eng vs Wa - we’ll win, but I don’t say that with any high degree of confidence! Both sides are ‘re-building’.. Ire vs It - this could well be a wipeout. Italy usually have their best game in their first match and then deteriorate. Sad, but true. Injuries are usually a factor - not much backup. Just what I think, fwiw
  19. Not totally unusually, I’d like to digress from the ‘speech things’. What is it with the specs on top the bonce? It seems to ‘de rigeur’ with most female broadcasters these days. The specs almost never descend, so surely its just a ‘fashion thing’, or am I being totally unreasonable?
  20. Down here, I always think of Spring starting on 1st March. That’s when you always see the plants budding. It probably won’t be any different this year - anything budding earlier will probably get ‘nipped’ by the cold nights, which we can still expect.
  21. Strangely enough, I enjoyed Italy vs England the most of this weekend’s 3 matches. Fr vs Ire was predictably (for me, at least) one-way traffic. France are suffering from injuries and Dupont’s absence. Wales vs Scotland was just bonkers - talk about a game of two halves! England were OK, but not much better than that. They’ll struggle against Ireland, and probably France & Scotland.
  22. Just to return to the current disruption, you’d think from the BBC News that Paris was the only place affected. Now it may well be of course that most of the rest of France is currently unaffected. However, down here, we certainly are affected. Motorways and many roads unusable (the A9 between Orange & Montpellier has been closed since Thursday) and local towns of any size are inaccessible. Starting to see shortages in local shops.
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