julia

I have just got to the end of this thread, all the way through I kept waiting for someone to sugest a lettre recomade. Over the years we have had various issues with neighbours, noise, tappage de nuit by the shedload, dog poo, illegal walls outside our window blocking light, all sorted out. Speak to the people concerned first, if they have any respect or values they will see their wrongdoing and appologise, if not they will laugh , shrug and do it again. Then you go to the maire, report it, the person will receive a lettre . If they still continue, send a letter to the Maire, Gendarmes and the person concerned. we have also been as far as tribunal over one neighbour. problem now solved. Do not always take your maires word for everything though, he advised us that our neighbour had the right to put up a wall in his garden which blocked the light to one of our rooms , as the wall respected the distances etc, we did not accept that ;;;it was only 60cm from our window and1m80 high, we spoke with our insurace jurifique, the distance should actually be 1 m 80 away from our wall, said wall now demolished , much to the disgust and cost of our neighbour. So Steve next time someond comes up your drive to let their dog do its toilet, take note of who they are and scoop it up and give it them back, send them a lettre recomande quoted the laws on cleaning up dog mess! Send the bloke who is harrassing you to cut someone elses hedge a lettre too. and send coppies of the lettres to the maire. Stve, best of luck I know just how you feel! But personaly I would stay where I am, once the lettres have been sent and people are informed what their own laws are...........after all they know them when it concerns them and their property, your peace and privacy should return. And our French neighbours all fall out with each other too, latest example in our small road, we are 14 houses,1brit owner(us) one belgian holiday home, 6 french locataires the rest are french owners. of these houses none of the locataires speak now, even though they all went to school together, 2 of the ajoining french owners had a huge argument only last week about cat poo and a window that looks into the others courtyard. one of the other french owners does not speak with 1 of the locataires even though they used to be great mate. The owner of one of the houses also owns one of the rented properties and she has threated eviction of her tennant beacuse of their behaviour. Beleive it or not, we now have a very calm rue, because a lot of the voisins do not even acknowlege each other

I have been asked by someone who is reg as AE to help with some changeovers as she has got too much work on, I do not intend to start working on the black, is there a way that she can empley me temp under the AE regime

Take a look on ANPE (jobs website) it is pretty easy to follow, especially today .......yesterday the site was down for maintenance, they have cleared off all the "old" adverts, from memory there are about 24 jobs in my departement today!

Oh no you are not alone! Hubby is working away from home and the long awaited builder shows up , one of the children are off school poorly . All I need now is to find he has ordered  3 steers of wood and find them  dumped outside the garage! MEN[6]

cheers everyone , photocopied the form....just in case! and will send it to CPAM tout de suite.

There will probably be a very quick answer to this , and I will hit the palm of my hand to my forehead and say "of course!" I took my daughter to the dental hospital the other day for a consultation about her wisdom teeth.  The hospital is having a whole new complex and the dentist bit was in a tempory block. When our visit had finished I was asked for the fee and I presented my carte Vitale and my mutual carte, he appologised saying that he didn't have a "reader"  because of the works and filled out  a brown form. Now I know this has to go to my CPAM office, but how do I claim from the Mutuel?  or do I take a photocopy of this and post it to my Mutuel.  I would ask at the mutuel office, but he is only a visiting one and is there only every couple of weeks. Oh and if anyone would like to patent a latex glove that tastes of something other than latex , do feel free to market them....my daughter never shut up all day about the horrible taste in her mouth![:D]

Wallace and Grommit, Greece , Chicken Run ,Mr Bean and Charlie and the Chocolate factory. I could watch these over and over. 

I too have a wallet full of fidelity cards, it gets a little embarrasing sometimes when i get to the checkout and have to remind myself which store I am in and what code to use! I have to have my fix of intermarche on thursdays, they have some great promotions and the children get treats they wouldn't normaly get from the biscuit of icecream section if they are double points, I have accumulated 29 euros in 3 weeks. In the words of Just katies office mates "what am I like"

LOL, how right you are! Only a few weeks ago my daughter invited 5 friends to her birthday. One HAD to go and have lunch with her grandma........who lives only about 10 K away One HAD to stay with her dad for the weekend......dad lives about 10 K away too, perhaps he could have brought her for a couple of hours??? One was punished. And finaly , this child is never allowed to go and play and my daughter has to phone and make an appointment to go and play there? So the one that did accept really did have a good time as we took them horseriding and out to lunch .

I am taking my daughter to the dental Hospital tomorow, lots of calm thought needed by myself and her. I hate the Dentist just that bit more than she does, and she hates the thought of having it confirmed that her wisdom teeth need to come out. By the time I get home I will need some more relaxing thoughts after dodging  the city trafic. 17.10 , here tomorrow.........do not forget your calm thoughts and a bottle of wine!

It really naffs me off when people light up when I am eating too!  My kids have fairly decent table manners, they use their cutlery correctly and don't blow bubbles down a straw(well not in public[:'(] ) they take care not to splat sauce or knit with spagetti, but like me they do object to eating cigar/ette smoke along with their food, and I do not object when they waft a menu, serviette or even frantic arm movements to waft the smoke away to the suprised loods of the smokers. Some will put out their fags and some try to deviate the smoke, usually without sucess and you always get the one that will continue haughtily.

[quote user="Chris Head"]I still think my version of HRT would change the world,  Hormone REMOVAL Therapy would turn women into much more reasonable human beings.[/quote] I should watch your back if I were you, wait untill your good lady has a few more years on her. Oh and lock your chainsaws away, remember Bobbit?            [img]http://bestsmileys.com/violent/16.gif[/img]

 I had crumpet for breakfast    [img]http://bestsmileys.com/cheering/7.gif[/img]   Not that kind you naughty boy, the one where you put butter on to soak in and then some to sink your teeth into!

[quote user="Clair"]Friut picking in summer & autumn, usually through temping agencies (Manpower, Adecco...) basic minimum salary (SMIC), no specific language skills required, but you'll need to understand the safety instructions. [/quote]   Safety instructions! yes they should be given but I wasn't  at the place I took a job at, which was packing and sorting the peaches(they were nectarined actually but everyone called them peaches)  And this will be mentioned next time ANPE call me in for an interview (not, that they will be able to do anything , I suppose) No time for talking if you do go the factory route, they needed Octopuses not humans to do the job. There is tonnes of work around the region you are looking at , but only from May to Sept and it is hard graft. If you are still a HGV licence holder you may get the odd job through an agency but you will have to sell yourself.  

[quote user="TWINKLE"]That's a very sensible reliable car you have there Dick![/quote]   I bet he wears a hat too![Www]

[quote user="Dick Smith"]It was a bit lively in the kitchen... [IMG]http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f338/dick_at_aulton/Fite.jpg[/IMG] [/quote]   Is the one with his mouth open waiting for that cake  on top of the winebox to be thrown in? 

[quote user="Chris Head"][quote user="TWINKLE"][quote user="missyesbut"] Must be the stress caused by these 2 gwyns !.... [Www]   [/quote] Oh they are Welsh are they?  Which reminds me - we have some lovely dykes in Wales[:-))] [/quote]  thanks to the man-flu! [/quote] you mean you have a bogey up your nose![img]http://bestsmileys.com/rude/2.gif[/img]

[quote user="Spongebob"] OK, but don't blame anyone else if you cause an accident due to dazzling drivers behind you, or someone mistaking your fogs for brake lights and braking and losing control, etc etc. FOG lights are for use in FOG;) Spongebob [/quote] I would imagine that is why they are so called. It practically blinds me to be behind someone who has these lights on outside these conditions.

Lets just put a bit more into this equasion, Smokers usualy end up with a cough, they then also have to get rid of what is making them cough. So not only are they poisoning us with their smoke they are then spitting out their phlem and putting more germs into the air. My mother in law died through passive smoking, she enjoyed Bingo. My father inlaw died from lung cancer, he smoked far too many per day. My dad suffered TB and has been left with a shaddow on his lung will tell anyone off if they spit or smoke near him. finaly my mum died of pneumonia and suffered from Chronic Astma all her life, She was really restricted where she could go, no bars, clubs or even the cenema due to the smoke effects on her. I have told my children that if I ever smell smoke on them , their lives will not be worth living.

If you go into Flunch resto, there are smoking and no smoking areas, brilliant. The no smoking is upstairs , so it is a family resto and you have to help your kids upstairs with their tray of food unless you want them to eat some smoke with their meal.  The smoking area is right next to the food area, the ice cream bar and the kids play area. And before someone says I have a choice to go in or not, yes I do and now I do not go there. I too feel that the French havn't taken on board the enormity of the No Smoking policy , the drink driving rule is a farce, just watch the clientelle leaving any bar or resto or even their friends homes in small villages at the weekends , getting in their cars to drive 15ks home. I count my blessings that I am not on the road when I see our local resto emply out!

Thanks, I have already done a search on pages jaunes/blanc and found two names(husband is Andrew......another brainstorm) and just looked on Infobel, there are about a dozen on there. I shall make some phone calls .

The lady is Jackie(or jaqui, ) not sure of the spelling. I cannot for the life of  me remember the husbands name, he is a keen cyclist and HGV driver. The african boys name is Chance (pre-nom)  The family name I would prefer not to give out but if you think they live near you please let me know and I shall give further details I have just had a brainstorm and remembered that she mentioned Potiers , if that narrows anyone down. Thanks

This as a very long shot, here goes. I worked with a lady in the UK who I bumped into when I last visited there in February. She was all excited and said she was moving to France. The Charente rings a bell, I know it is a large area, but the family unit is quite distinctive. I did give her my email adress(albeit it went on the back of a bus ticket! They are a married couple aged about 30, they have a little boy named Henry who is 9 years old  and another little boy who is of African orrigin aged about 4(who they adopted)  The mans parents are also with them . They were buying a longhouse with a barn that needed conversion(not a wreck) They were planning on moving over in the school holidays, ring any bells? please PM me if you think you know this family.  

Ureka!  After writing this post yesterday I went to visit some friends, after having a laugh about this predicament we went outside , one of us pressed the button, he practically sat on the boot, bouncing it up and down, we tried the tweezers we pulled and pushed. No go. Today we went to the beach, after loading the car from the rear seats. When we reached our destination I jumped out of the car , forgot that the boot wouldnt open and pushed the button , hey presto , it opened and out dropped the offending pice of rucksack, so I think the boucing up and down did the trick. I will rest easy in my bed tonight, as the cars owner arrives tomorrow. Thanks all, and I even joined the web site given by Suday driver.

Please can anyone give me some pointers? I have been borrowing this car off a neighbour(with his permission) My daughter put her Rucksack in the boot and shut it, when I went out to put something else in , I couldn't get it open. I looked in the boot by pulling the rear seats forward and lo and behold one of the adustable straps has caught in the lock!!  On a previous car that we owned there was a lever that you could pull (next to the mechanism -inside the boot)  Does anyone know (before I get handy with the screwdrivers) If I take the interior moulding out , will there be anything that will release the catch??  I have tried sliding a flat screwdriver where the material caught(I can feel the bit that is left in there) Any suggestions welcome , apart from telling the kid not to be so flaming gormless!!!!!!!! I have already done that[Www]