Graye

OK, I give up.  If it is so hard to comprehend why I asked the question this is obviously not the forum for me.  I'll find myself another one where contributors aren't so bloody-minded.  Enjoy!

I've just stocked up with knitting wool via British EBay.  Lots of UK sellers will supply to France if you give them an idea of the postage costs: it's a cheap way to buy and quick too.

Thanks Deimos.  We are actually moving to France after 6 years in Spain so I don't think I will be too troubled with assuming that civilization ends at Portsmouth. I didn't doubt that pine would be available but as we are bringing a trailer from the UK and have the room if we needed to carry anything I just wondered if it would be false economy to buy a large quantity in the UK.  Certainly wood is far more expensive in Spain than in the UK so perhaps it would not have seemed such a strange question on a Spanish forum...

Why should it be a windup?  I bet I could think of something a little more interesting than the cost of pine boards if that was my intention! Thanks for the info Patf.  That's the sort of thing I needed to know.  We'll go to one of woodyards and see if they can cut us some to order.

We are a couple of days away from moving over to our new house in France. I've been trying to establish whether it is better to buy pine in the UK and transport it or whether it would not be worth the trouble if prices are not much different. I've seen lots of yards selling what appears to be oak (we will be in 24) but have not noticed pine so perhaps we would be looking at a buildings supply? We want to build a range of pine bookshelves covering a whole wall so I'm looking at quite a large amount.  Can anyone give me an approximate price for pine shelving, lengths of something like 1" thick by 9" or 10" deep so I can compare please?  Or, better still, is reclaimed pine available very often?

We are about to move to the Dordogne and one of our first urgent requirements will be book-shelving for our huge store of books. We would prefer old pine in longer lengths of about 9" or10" wide x 1" thick but could almost certainly "age" some newer stuff to work almost as well.  We are not sure whether to buy it in the UK and bring it with us or whether it is something easily available in France.  Also, is wood generally more expensive in France? Does anyone have any ideas for sources and prices please?

Just thought I would update you on what happened here. The house has now been signed over to us, we paid nothing more, the sellers got their €3000 in a separate deal from the agent and everyone went away happy.  I understand the sellers were particularly happy as the €3000 did not form part of the sale and they escaped some taxes somewhere along the line. So it all ended very well.  And we are on our way next Friday!

Sorry, in my panic I had forgotten the initial questions I thought someone could answer! These were: 1.  If this really does all fall through, how easy would it be to get our initial deposit back from the notaire? 2. I understand we would be entitled to an equivalent amount plus damages from the seller.  Would we need to take legal action to get this ourselves or how is this dealt with? Does anyone know what the process would be?

Thanks Panda.  The contact about the problem was via the agent.  They asked us to sign a revised contract last week.  When we asked why the problem was explained, they had apparently emailed the seller with certain figures at the negotiation stage but had agreed the sale price with us as another figure.  This was carried on to the contract which we signed and therefore the dispute is firmly between the seller and agent.  We told the agent this who actually agreed with us.  They said they would sort things out with the seller. This all came to a head today when the agent told us the sellers had been over this weekend, emptied the house (we have negotiated some items separately and as far as I know there is no problem about this, they sent us texts checking what we wanted whilst they were there) but refused to sing the proxy forms.  I suspect there has been bad-feeling and disagreements whilst they were there too and nothing ahs beenr esolved between them. I think we will contact the notaire today just to be sure he has our position clearly explained.  The one thing we do not want is for anyone to say it was actually US who backed out, if things turn out that way.  We are ready and willing to sign etc but only in the figures we initially agreed and signed up to.

Thanks for that.  The contract was not signed in front of a notaire, it's the initial contract which was emailed to us.  We signed it and so did the vendors and a copy then went to the Notaire.  It does however specify the sale price, the amount of the deposit and various pieces of information about what would happen should either side pull out after the 7 day period (long passed). The sellers are in fact an English and they have not contacted us directly about this so their problem is, as you say, to do with a break down in communications with the agent.  They are moving back to the UK and have already been over to empty the house this weekend.  I can only assume that it has been left in decent order but we will check it should we actually be able to proceed. I'm not sure how I would feel about the Notaire trying to bring in a compromise in view of the signed contracts.  There would presumably be an small increase in his fee too?  The sellers will, should they now go ahead, do their signing by proxy so there will not be much room for negotiation in front of the Notaire.   To be honest we are not at all happy about being held over a barrel at the last minute because of a problem which is nothing to do with us.  I am assuming a "worst case scenario" and am interested to know where we stand with the intital deposit etc.  We are now walking a tightrope as we will presumably need to be there on the off-chance they send the signed proxy at the last minute.  On the same basis we presumably also need to have the balance with the notaire for the same reason.  Fortunately I have not booked removals etc yet otherwise I could also see a situation where we had a lorry load of possessions with nowhere to put them as an added problem.  I also need to book ferries for ourselves but fortunately it is now a time of year when that can be dealt with at the last minute. I thought the French system did away with the last minute pull-out situation which could arise in the UK but this seems worse!

Without going into all the ins and outs of the case, can anyone give me some ideas please? We have bought a house, signed the initial contract and paid 10% deposit.  All this took place some months ago.  Now, with a few days to go until completion the sellers want another €3000 from us because apparently the sale figure agreed between them and the agent is apparently not the figure which was on the contract (all signed etc by all parties). We do not want to be held to ransom on a point which is obviously solely between the seller and agent.  I do not see us paying this €3000 just to get the house either.  I can see that involving new contracts and many delays anyway but as I see it the point is that we would be paying an amount which is nothing to do with us and is solely between the seller and agent.  We were about the send the balance of the purchase price to the notaire but have have it on hold as we do not want it to get tangled up in the French legal system if, as the sellers have threatened, they pull out completely. The information I need is this: 1.  If this really does all fall through, how easy would it be to get our initial deposit back from the notaire? 2. I understand we would be entitled to an equivalent amount plus damages from the seller.  Would we need to take legal action to get this ourselves or how is this dealt with?   Thanks in advance for any help!

I am looking for some information for a friend who is moving back from near Riberac on or before 18 September.  She is looking for a part empty van to bring back a reasonably small amount of furniture etc.  Any info would be gratefully received. On the same subject - we will be moving the OTHER way (nearer to Nontron) sometime in October.  It's a great pity dates didn't coincide but that's the way of things I suppose.  We have the contents of two storage containers in the north-east of England to bring down.  Anyone have recommendations for a removal firm or know of anyone going down that way with space please?

Yes the American Pokeweed looks exactly right.  I've never seen anything quite like it before.  Presumably it will just grow up again in the spring.

We have a strange (to me anyway) plant growing in our garden here in the Dordogne.  I don't actually have a plant book to check but can find nothing from an initial look on the internet.  Can anyone give me a clue as to what it is please? At the moment it's about three feet tall with four separate stems.  These are very a bright cerise colour and not at all woody.  In fact we have had a mild frost and three of the stems have obviously been affected and fallen.  The leaves are bright green but flimsy - about the size and shape of a laurel leaf but much more delicate.  There were hard black berries growing rather like bunches of tiny grapes too but these have either fallen off and blown away or been eaten by birds. Assuming I have done things correctly there may be an image included, otherwise please send a message and I will forward a picture. [IMG]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a192/MiriamOppenheim/DSCN0311a.jpg[/IMG] Thanks

In case this is of use to someone else I'm happy to say that after opening a French bank account today I was able to sign up online with Orange on an unlimited time account for a bas debit connection for 25 euros a month on a non-contract arrangement.  No quicker but at least I'm not checking the centimes running up as it struggles to get where it's going now.

Thanks for the input.  We will see if we can't at least get an Orange connection which they advertise without contract on Thursday - we have an appointment to open a bank account then and should be able to at least sign up for something at that point.  Money isn't really a factor in this and we would consider a 3 month connection for the cost of 12 if we could just get away from the snail's pace connection we have at the moment. We managed with an internet cafe for a week or so but run an internet based business and need to be online for several hours a day to keep on top of things.  Also I touch type and just cannot deal with the French keyboards in the internet cafes!

I asked several questions previously concerning our move from Spain to France and am appreciative of the help you all offered.  We are now happily settled but certain aspects of internet connection are foxing us. After a couple of false starts we managed to get a phone installed.  We are told there is no broadband availability in Mareuil (24) and after enquiring at a shop in Riberac we have set up a PAYG account with Wanadoo/Orange. This is amazingly slow and, for the amount of time we need to be online, very costly.  We do not have a French bank account but are going to try to open one next week when we have our appointment with the local bank manager - at which point I understand we can sign up for a contract which will at least let us be online for a fixed fee.  We are only here for three months and are not employed in France (nor own property). Does anyone know if opening an account might be problematical?  I ask this because in Spain it is everyone's right to be able to open an account and in a very straightforward way. Can anyone recommend a better/faster/cheaper ISP than the one we have?  Or perhaps confirm that ADSL is really not available in this area?  This seems odd as there are major towns all around.

I've been reading this thread with interest as we may be looking to buy in France once we have rented for four months there.  My experience is only of house buying in the UK and also Spain both of which are obviously different although Spain sounds more similar with the compraventa and notario etc.  But I can't understand why the agent is being described as dishonest rather than just plain inefficient?  What exactly is in it for him?  Surely if he took a deposit it would be on behalf of the vendor and they would be able to get it from him quickly enough? And the same if the vendor withdraws, would it not be simple to have the agent refund the amount paid to him as a deposit on an aborted sale?  I can't see that legally he would have a leg to stand on if he retained it in either direction.  It sounds as though he is lying to cover up his own inadequacies rather than with a view to con anyone out of anything.  Another point, does the purchaser pay the agent in France rather than the vendor?  Here in Spain it is more normal to agree with the agent the amount you want "in your hand" as it were.  What he sells the house for is between himself and the purchaser. Does the vendor not have to pay fees to the agent or does he pay more?

Can anyone give me some advice for a course etc (online or book perhaps) which I can use to brush up my very much forgotten French? I did A level French at school and used French for quite some years on visits etc. We then didn't visit for many years and my French fell into total disuse.  For the last five years we have lived in Spain and I have had to learn this by immersion.  My husband speaks Spanish fluently so it has helped being able to listen to friends and neighbours speaking to him.  My Spanish is now good at a basic conversational level although I would struggle to spell some words I know as I have never seen them written or do anything complex like conjugate a verb etc. without some serious thought. Everytime we have driven through France I have done fine with the written word and can understand what people say to me but whenever I try to speak nothing but Spanish comes out!  The only time I amazed myself was when a clumsy employee in Lidl's in Bayonne managed to push a whole tower of wine bottles over onto me with her stacker truck. My sudden command of French surprised even me!!  As we will now be living in France for 4 months I really would like to do something pretty intensive to persuade my brain to rediscover the French it has hidden away in there.  We have the full Michel Thomas course which sounds as if it may help but is there anything else anyone could recommend please?  I have from now until mid September to come up with something and as we are leaving Spain next Thursday I will not be distracted by hearing Spanish all day long.

My dear old French teacher Mr Oldham used to tell us this trick : savoir is something you know for a fact or have learnt connaitre is something/someone you are acquainted with Having learned Spanish the hard way (ie having to because we live there) I have discovered they have saber (not so different as bs and vs are pronounced the same in Spanish) and conocer which are used in exactly that way. I'm sure there are lots of little nuances which disprove his rule but I think for general use it works.  Now as for the two Spanish verbs for "to be" (ser and estar) now that is a whole different ball game and I still mix them up. One is a verb of state and the other of situation, but then not always apparently...

Thanks for that Deimos. I looked at the Telerebais site and that looks pretty straightforward - they even give some mobile rates and information on using call boxes.  I had spent some time trawling around looking for that sort of info - it obviously isn't quite as common as in Spain where every free paper has nothing but cheap phone call systems!  I think we will try to persuade our "landlady" to have the phone connected or reconnected when she is over next month and we will just pay the cost.  I found this information on this, does it look about right in terms of cost please?  http://www.parisfranceguide.com:81/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=32 A contract with the mobile might be more difficult as we had not originally planned on opening a French bank account (we can use cash cards drawing on our Spanish account).  We will not have utility bills as the rent is inclusive but thanks for the idea about getting some sort of official acknowledgement to cover that aspect.  I'll try to find out more about PAYG or just rely on our Spanish mobile and check out the Telefonica site for rate info. Talking of French bank accounts - are they easy to open? (In Spain the banks have to open an account for you by law but I also remember the UK system where they make it almost impossible).  I did wonder whether one might not be such a bad idea if for no other reason than to get hold of one of those cards everyone uses in the self-service petrol stations.  I live in dread of needing fuel and being in France on a Sunday!

We will be living in France for a while from mid September. We will probably not have a landline in our rented house.  Can anyone recommend a mobile company where we can just buy a SIM card on PAYG please?  Is buying the SIM straightforward or do they make it as difficult as possible as in Spain (where we are now living) where you have to produce every bit of paper you ever owned to get anything done? Here there is a cheap phone option where you can dial 902902952 before the foreign number you want to dial and the call only cost 4c per minute.  Can anyone let me know whether there is anything similar in France and whether it will work from either call boxes or mobiles please?

Did the twist and teaspoon thing tonight on a couple of avocados - perfection! I discovered a perfect little round coffeespoon that was exactly right.  The best thing was that the skin twisted off at the same time!  Thank you for that, I should not be allowed out with a carving knife and that's how I used to deal with them. Fortunately all the carving knives are packed away ready for our move so by improvising on your idea (had to use the swiss army knife for the initial cut...) I've discovered a much better solution.

Miki, after some toing and froing with our new landlady we have established that the house is actually in Mareuil sur Belle after all.  Apparently she way being coy about it's exact location - something to do with estate agents etc.  I know you mentioned this town anyway so is the vet you could recommend actually there?  It would be great if that was the case!  I feel I am going back to the drawing board every few hours, first Riberac, then La Tour Blanche, now Mareuil sur Belle... Anyway she is now pretty confident that it is there and I can actually see the house on an aerial view of the town so I feel reasonably happy that we now have the proper location. 

A doctor once explained to me that I (and also you it seems) have actually got two allergies, one to nuts and the other to peanuts.  Apparently you can have one without the other.  Peanuts are called cacahuetes in Spanish, nuez are brazil nuts and all the rest are lumped in with frutos secos (dried fruits). Imagine the problems with that!  I soon learned all the various words for the individual nuts in Spanish - my husband says I'm now a nut expert and can spot hazelnuts (avellana) at a thousand paces.  Of course he doesn't have to put up with the swollen lips, slitty eyes [blink] and all the other nasty symptoms of an encounter with a peanut or other nut, even the dust on dry roasted peanuts can set me off.  The worst thing of all is that I used to adore nuts, this is an allergy which appeared in my forties and still have to resist scooping up a handful of salted peanuts every time I see them on a bar counter!  Spanish are extremely fond of almond and they are liberally sprinkled on every sweet or cake so I gave up eating those pretty early on, too. Now you  have reminded me I will find a little notebook and note down the various french words for nuts so I can check things out when I go shopping.