Bob T

Looks like I am getting it cheap at 25 euros per cu mtr. Not a comercial place though, an old farmer delivers it to us in 1 meter lengths.

Yes, Got the PM thanks. The only thing that would put me off is that the panels need to be the latest technology evacuated tube type. If only I could find an installer/supplier in this area I would go for it. Thanks for the info though.

I live in the Dordogne and it is hot in the summer. During the winter we ski, but in the Massive Central. We are just under 2 hours away so can do day trips. If we wanted to ski the Pyrenees, I think that it would still be less than 3 hours away.

Funny that, I tried many French mattresses and found that I had about the same choise that I had in the UK, cheap uncomfortable or pay a bit more and comfortable. I don't think that the manufacturers of mattresses make a special lumpy model for France! As for TV. Bring a sky digibox with you, a HDTV one if you wish, and you will have the same sky channels that you have in the UK. You can get TNT and some other digital terestial channels in some places here and they will beam HDTV just as most countries in Europe will.

If the fumes up the liner are allowed too cool before exitiing the chiminey, they will condense on the sides and line it with tar and soot. You would then need to sweep more often. I don't think that there is any need to add more insulation, as long as the liner is within a chiminey and the air up and down the sides of the liner is restricted so that it can heat up.

If you want to try Firefox, I have put a download link at the bottom of my blog. If you want help with it send me a PM

Don't know either as I also use Firefox as it is quicker, safer and free. Don't even have IE on any of my PCs.

Skype gives free calls to any other skype user, and you can use it to call landlines very cheaply. I use phonexpat on the normal phone and a call to the UK costs 3 cents per minute anytime.

And they have started Christmas in the UK shops last week. What a difference.

This may intrest some people but not all. If you are in receipt of a war pension, you are entitled to free perscriptions in the UK. After moving here I paid for everything myself for a year while I tried to sort out what reimbursment I could get in France. Eventually the British Consulate in Bordoux paid me back for any medicine that I required for my war pension. I now find that there is someone new there, and after submitting my claim with copies of the CPAM paperwork, they now want copies of the perscription. Great to tell me that the system has changed. After I received my last repeat the pharmacie kept the perscription. Out of pocket again, what will they do next to try and save the UK tax payer some pennies?

I buy loads of electrical goods from www.cdiscount.com and they deliver to me with no problem. It is a French site and they sell everything including TVs and computer parts. I find them much cheaper than hte shops.

When I decided that due to my remote location and the fact that we had been cut off by snow for 3 days early this year, I bought my 4X4. Does it pollute more than other cars just because it is a 4X4? Well no, I am getting 6.8 l/100 km. A freind in his Twingo often makes two trips to the brico as he cannot get everything that he bought into the car. I have 140bhp on tap and the room to carry stuff. Perhaps we should tax people with household airconditioning very highly and what about people who put up outside lights and leave them on all night. Then there are christmas lights, people with boats, petrol lawnmowers, no loft insulation, etc. If you think that aircraft are bad then spare a thought for some of the military aircraft, 5 tons of fuel in a Tornado that carries only two people who don't go anywhere but land at the same place that they took off from, who pays the taxes on that fuel?

And if you have 20 chickens, you could collect the poo for 3 months, use loads of elecricity to refine it enough to put into your car and drive to the end of your drive.

But is climate change a natural thing? Over millions of years there have been ice ages and the earth has warmed up afterwards, was that global warming? The rivers in the Dordogne area used to be over 50 feet deeper than they are now, did man do that? If the UK government wanted to sort out CO2  problems what would they do tax aircraft fuel or give away free home insulation? I think that we all know the answer to that one. They talk about taxing 4X4s on the school run, why don't they just return to providing free school busses again? That would solve that problem. They apply graduated road tax in the UK for cars depending on CO2, but as diesel cars produce less CO2 they slap an additional £10 on them. Deisels engine can run on biodiesel (veggie oil), and if they were to promote that they would produce next to no net CO2 emmisions. Explain that one.

I would go with Dicks suggestion. If you want to try plastering it then build it up in thin layers letting it dry between layers, that way each layer has less weight and you will foil gravity.

Plasterboard is fire retardent, plywood isn't.

Thanks for the link Cat 46, it is one of the best that I have read so far. The only trouble that I find identiying mushrooms is that none of the ones that I find look like anything in the books. I have just posted a few pictures of pretty ones on my blog and can only identify on, and that is because it is green. I am open to suggestions on the others, but won't necesarily eat what anybody says are edible unless you want to come and try them with us!

At a guess, I would say that your skoda may be later than 2002 when C of Cs were required to be issued by European legislation, I would also guess that your LR os older, hence having to get one from elsewhere.

Yes

Shall we start a new thread on Saints? I hated the place and vowed never to return after RSS moved there. The funny thing is that most readers won't know what we are on about.

The chesnut is the thing to look out for. I collected around 8 kilos and cooked loads and froze the rest. If you cook them with a couple of onions, 2 kilos of cepes and a bottle of white wine for about an hour and a half in a casserole dish in the oven, they are wonderful. I also have pictures on the blog. I went out today and they have just about ended here now, every other type of mushroom is growing though, Jude complained as the digital camera only holds around 200  pictures and she filled it up.

No thanks, essence of armpit for me! Glad that no one takes me seriously here, but there really is a non smoking restaurant in Thennon.

Yes Vern, an altimeter is just a posh barometer. The reason that the altimeter needs to be adjusted is for low flying situations. For high level stuff the ISO standard of 1013 millibars is used as you are not close enough to the ground to make any difference. You are perfectly correct in htat a weather barometer should show change rather than pressure, as that is what affects weather. If the barometer were used up a 3000 meter mountain then the change may go off the scale due to the pressure being lower at that altitude, but in normal use at ground levels the actual readings, be they in inches of mercury or millibars,  are totally irrelevant.

Ah, I see. I thought that you had recognised me from the blog! You know that there is never the right time to make the jump, don't you. I was Mr. Maintenance policy for the Tonka at Wyton, when I jumped. Everyone told me that I was doing the wrong thing leaving a well paid job to come here and do nothing, but after two years I have never looked back.

Nice place to eat out in Thenon on the N89, for those of you in the Dordogne. Best bit is that it is non-smoking. If all hte anti smokers would like to go there then I can smoke my lungs off in the local cafes without complaint. The deal is, you go to the non smoking place and I won't come in there and smoke, I go to the smoking places and you don't bring screaming kids or dogs in. Can't be fairer than that!