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mint

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Everything posted by mint

  1. llywyncelyn nevermind cawl or cockles or faggots and peas, do you really like laverbread?  be honest now, boy, i eat most things but laverbread is something else! nevermind, i'll send you some welsh cakes, made on my husband's mother's griddle, ok?
  2. tetley PLEASE give me all the details.  please email or pm.  we have just had a quote from a french electrician for radiators in our 3-bedroom home and it comes to, hold your breadth, in excess of 18 THOUSAND euros! we have a property without any sort of heating though we do have a hot water tank.  we are in contact with edf to provide us with a "branchement" and the structure and location of our property is such that we are most likely to opt for an all-electric system. will be eternally grateful to you
  3. pierre will sell one car.  bring dog over in second car.  find new lhd (perhaps going over to luxembourg, as per your suggestion) send husband back to uk to flog second car while i stay in france with said dog.  then husband flies to bordeaux and i go and collect him from the airport in the new lhd (hoping all the time i'll be able to drive it and don't miss the turning for merignac!).  if you have a better suggestion, i am willing to listen, pierre! 
  4. [quote user="Pierre ZFP"][quote user="Sunday Driver"] Well, I agree that bringing a RHD drive car over to France to sell is a non-starter.  [/quote] Doesn't matter if its LHD or RHD, if its a non-starter then you'll never flog it (I'll get me coat....) [/quote] pierre thanks; both cars start ok.  only joking! in fact the dithering was because i love both our cars; both automatics and quite swish.  the volvo in particular has leather seats, winter pack, all the toys.  but i now know that the sensible decision has got to be sell both brit cars and buy french (our permanent move is imminent; just need to sort out edf so that we have all the utilities)  
  5. llwyncelyn veal's foot and demi glace; that definitely makes a difference from cawl, boy.  joking apart, none of this is much good to me as my husband does not eat meat and, to avoid cooking 2 different soups, i just settle for marigold bouillon and vegetables! 
  6. sunday driver that's it.  the oracle has spoken.  so, a lhd it is.  will sell one car, bring the dog over, take second car back and flog it.  then, hunt for new car.  how exciting is that? thanks sd, i knew you'd give me good advice and i appreciate the trouble you have taken to put me on the right path
  7. pierre, bob t it all sounds good.  is it true that spain is also cheaper than france? it's ok russethouse, we know a hyundai garage within an hour's drive and in a town where we have friends, so no probs. it's hard to give things up but sometimes, it is the only sensible option thank you everyone.  cheers!    
  8. after much thought and research, we have decided that we would probably sell both our cars and go down to one car in france. i have had loads of advice about bringing our cars over and we have reluctantly decided that probably neither car is worth the hassle.  it's been a difficult decision as one car is a wonderful to drive hyundai estate and the other is an even more great volvo estate.  however, so be it, one has to make a sensible decision and, sd, thank you for all the previous info. now, what i want to know is, are right-hand drive cars subject to any sort of insurance premium in france and is it better/easier to sell the cars in the uk rather than in france? also, could someone please provide links to a mazda or hyundai provider as i think we would prefer an eastern car to a french one?  quillan or will, can you help? sunday driver, you have the casting vote.  if you tell me that it's more sensibe to have a left-hand drive, i'll believe you absolutely!  is it true that you are safer in a left-hand drive and driving life is easier altogether if you have the right sort of car?  
  9. i do find it most interesting that you could do the deal in sterling without extra cost.  i understood that it wasn't possible because the notaire is unlikely to have a sterling account to receive the funds! mind you, we had a dopey old notaire and a less- than-well-informed, so-called "translator".  will bear all this in mind next time and i shall be at my most insistent (if i find that's the best method to transact)
  10.  you mean insurance may not be legal?  surely not!
  11. clair thanks for pointing that out.  i think the nearest town is more or less on the same level as our village, but i shall check next time i'm there
  12. [quote user="Quillan"] I have just found that I can get Quillans weather via MSN http://weather.msn.com/local.aspx?&wealocations=wc:27124&setunit=C and there is a 10 day forcast as well. If I want it in French then I can go to http://meteo.msn.com/local.aspx?wealocations=wc:27124   [/quote] quillan just tried your weather site.  brilliant.  couldn't find our village but found the nearest town.  thank you
  13. i admire your tenacity with french.  what you need to take on board is that many native speakers are also retricted to perhaps one or two registers.  you will no doubt have heard of bernstein's "restricted" code as you seem to have a lot of knowledge of language and linguistics.  therefore it is ultimately the individual who decides what and how much language they wish to acquire. i agree, it's difficult to have a rich and varied cultural life without proficiency in a language.  but, does not research show that speech is only a relatively small percentage of how we communicate and that non verbal communication (or body language as it is popularly known) by far makes up the greater percentage?  as i have said in an earlier post, it depends on what you want to do with the language you have.  for myself, i shall be happy just being able to more or less hold a decent conversation with people.  there again, that might be insufficient for you.  as i am an asperger syndrome sufferer, i don't necessarily want to get really "close" to anyone! english is not my first or only language but, at university and elsewhere, i have been classified as "native" speaker - whatever that implies! i think that the truly universal language has to be musical notation.  after all a c is a c in any language and, although sound itself is a continuum, we give arbitrary names like a, b, c, etc to certain sounds.  also, we represent music using musical notation (and, of course, there are other notations than the conventional one) but at least anyone who can read the notation can reproduce the sound on their piano, violin, etc or even by whistling! 
  14. i love your story of why you have adopted schmoo and your description of him.  what a sweetie!
  15. paul nothing to say about passports but just want you to know i sympathise.................  
  16. no substitute for a good up-to-date large scale map, i say
  17. fluency; yes, i agree, that's a truly difficult one.  i have known turkish and spanish waiters who are fluent in english but are quite ungrammatical.  also, i know an albanian doctor who learned english by listening to the bbc!  he is both fluent and grammatical.  however, he is not so good on colloquial expressions, for example, i remember saying to him as a throwaway comment about someone "pushing up the daisies" and he had no idea what i was talking about!  he is probably a good doctor but even he must have had patients that he was unable to help and are even now pushing up the daisies.  he also says things which sound "odd" even when they are grammatical.  eg, we were at a dinner party in a farmhouse once and he looked out the window, saw the cows and he said, "that looks very buccolic!" i would say that someone is fluent if they can converse in everyday conversations and has effective communication.  i know someone would now query "effective communication";  all i mean is, if you can make yourself understood in most everyday situations and you can understand others. of course, you are fluent even if you cannot hold an intellectual conversation and discuss existentialism!  after all, how many native speakers can?  i tempt fate by talking politics sometimes in france but in the uk, i wouldn't dream of doing it because i feel i am too opinionated in this area not to inadvertently put my foot in it and upset someone or other! writing is a different exercise altogether.  humans talk before they learn to write so, while writing may not come as naturally as speech, you do get a chance to revise what you have written and make appropriate corrections and improvements. having said all this, i do think french is the most devilishly difficult language to pronounce and consequently, i don't for one moment think that i will ever achieve great profficiency
  18. [quote user="Cassis"]If any more information on this name is wanted: http://www.bebe-prenoms.com/pages/prenom-eloi-5267.html It can also be used as a girl's name. [/quote] Now the child might become confused about its gender as well!
  19. dave you are right.  we paid over 7000 euros but that included a pump and metres of piping as we had to fit the filter beds to the rear of the property some distance away as we had insufficient room in the front
  20. clair is spot on with her advice.  you also need to establish that you CAN (that is, are able to) put a new fosse (if you need one) on your land. the regulations are quite strict about distances from buildings, boundaries and trees and the filter beds themselves take up a large-size area.  i know because we have just had ours put in.  in fact, we are about to make a trip to check on whether the chamber covers are properly fitting. it is not my experience (at least not in our area) that there is no one about doing fosses.  i asked for recommendations from the syndicat des eaux and was given the names of 2 local french firms straight off.  there was very little difference in price between the two and, in the end, we opted for the bigger firm, in case the one-man band got the flu or something over the winter and cannot do the work! where drainage is concerned, it is obviously most important to know what you are doing.  after all, if you buy a property you cannot drain you would have a proper white elephant on your hands.  besides, apart from complying with the regulations or not, i would assume that you would want a functioning fosse that works efficiently.  it's not after all a question of mere aesthetics (like nasty wallpaper that you can change), it's a question of your health!
  21. leslauriers acting on the advice of one of your earlier posts on this thread, i have today done the following and hope that this might be of help to others i have rung newcastle re our e121; have been told to wait until approx 4 weeks before the move whereupon they will send the forms next working day.  the correct telephone (which i had to ring eventually this afternoon) is 0191 218 6503 i also tried to email exclusivehealthcare on their uk number; for some reason, the email didn't go through and after 3 tries, i rang the uk number.  also not a lot of joy there; the phone was answered after several goes and the chap merely gave me the french fax number (without mentioning the number was in france but i worked that one out for myself) have now faxed the email i couldn't send and i await the answer at the very least i now have a definite set of actions that i know i have to go through and if not this company, then i will know how to approach others thank you
  22. catalpa there was one at £425 without ice-maker and one at £495 with ice-maker at comet or curry's or one of those. i understand about the guarantee and also that it would probably be best to change the plug but, like you say, it's got to be worth a shot, n'est pas?
  23. jo i also would like this info.  other thing is, does anyone know whether it's worth buying a brand new fridge to bring over?  i ask because the january sales are on and i have my eye on a big double-door american type fridge complete with ice-maker for about £500 and i am fairly sure i couldn't get a similar one for that price in france your thoughts would be greatly appreciated as i am dithering somewhat over this
  24. thanks for all the replies.  pogo, i do only use my right foot; perhaps my original post didn't make that clear. i now know, sd, to put it into neutral and apply the handbrake when stopped for a few minutes at traffic lights but that in all other instances, it's ok just to use the foot brake. i did have an experience which was the exact opposite of dick's.  i forgot i was driving my husband's car (with gears) and tried to slow down without changing down (also NOT a nice sound)! also, i was taught to drive originally by a racing car driver some 30 years ago and he used to teach me to slow down by using the gears instead of the brakes!  horrendous, wouldn't dream of doing that now.  after all brake pads are a lot cheaper than a new gear box!
  25. sd, i think this one is for you.  i have got an automatic and it occurs to me that i am not sure quite what to do when i stop at traffic lights and junctions. do i put it into neutral and apply the handbrake or just leave it in drive and apply the handbrake?  what has got me thinking is a poster who said that he was "done" and had 3 points for not stopping completely and putting on his handbrake. i must admit that if i only expect to be stopped for a short while (eg when i know the light will be changing soon) i just use my foot brake.  the automatic has made me more "careless" in these sorts of situations because i never used to do that when i was driving with gears i love driving my automatic, especially in france, when i have to concentrate that much harder thank you, sd, or anyone else who answers!
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