[Chickens]

Not sure exactly where you are, but we bought ours in Ruffec (16) from a guy on the weekly market, he said he was there twice a month, but I can't remember the exact dates - I think it was 2nd and 4th week of the months.

Matt

P.S. Ask him for the laying chickens!

[builders]

The cheapest way to get gravel is to visit a quarry or gravel wholesaler yourself with a trailer - my neighbour took me to one around here (not in your area I'm afraid) when I needed some, and they filled my 750kg trailer for 10€ (cash of course!), given how upset the tyres looked there must have been well over a ton in there as I've had a known 800kg in before now and they were absolutely fine then!

Matt

[TV RECEPTION, RUFFEC AREA]

We're in Civray (about 15Km from Ruffec) I plugged our UK-bought Digital Freeview box into our rooftop aerial and it picked loads of French channels no problem at all, so I would imagine you'd be ok in Ruffec with the same thing.

Matt

[Room for 2 packages from NW UK to Charente (Ruffec general area)]

Steve

I'm not exactly sure when, but at some point over the next month or so I'll be coming over with a van from the NW (Kendal) down to near you in Civray.  I'm sure we could fit a couple of small-ish boxes in.

Matt

[Problems with ASDL connection]

I'm not necessarily suggesting this is your problem, but I had to update the firmware in my Netgear router to the latest version to get it to work at all in France.  Everything seemed perfectly fine, but it just refused to connect.  Very easy to do - check the Netgear website - downloads section, pick your router and follow the firmware upgrade instructions. Oh, make sure you do it over a wired connection rather than wireless to be on the safe side.

Matt