Megan le Fey

Thanks everyone,  it's now done (I hope[8-)]).  I got a reply from my email requesting banking details giving the IBAN number & the BIC.  My UK bank was to cost me £9.50 to do the transfer online and £19.50 to do it by telephone banking.  Being not exactly mean but certainly careful, I chose to do it online but I gave up after several hours of frustrating hitches.  Each time I pressed the final button, I got a message stating "there is a problem" along with a number which presumably indicated the nature of the problem.  I then had to start again inputting the recipient info. etc. all of it from scratch.  I phoned telephone banking and asked what the problem number related to and they couldn't tell me so I gave in and said that I would pay the darned £19.50 just to get the job done and finished with.  The nice young advisor said that because of my problems with their website, they would do the transfer by telephone for the online price and then.............. he said that they would also give me an additional £10 to make up for my frustration with the website so they debited my a/c with £20 and did the transfer.  So........... not only was the transfer free but I was 50p into pocket on the deal.[:D]

  Thank you Norman, but not without the other bank a/c details and so far, I haven't had a reply to my email requesting them.  If the details are on the Avis d'imposition I am not recognising them for what they are.

Hi, I wonder if any of you can advise me of the best way to pay our French income tax from the UK, where we now live permanently.  I had phoned my local Centre des finances publiques back in September who said that our return had been processed etc and that there was nothing to pay so, that being our last probable bill, I closed the French bank account.  Now I have just received a bill for 76 Euros and so far the various organisations I have tried have bottom limits for foreign currancy payments, and, bearing in mind the small amount rather large commissions.  I had hoped that I could simply buy a Euro money order at the post office but seems not.  I would be grateful for any ideas please.

Hi Pommier Many of my Welsh neighbours insist that Shropshire & Herefordshire ARE in Wales.[6][:D]

...................and lovely to hear from you Christine.  As I understand it CDRM stands for Chronic Degenerative Radiculomyelopathy and it mainly affects GSDs.  According to the vet there is nothing much that can be done about it.  Happily (I suppose), it doesn't really effect anything else, there is no pain associated with it and apart from him losing his legs a bit on a fast turn or on steps, he doesn't yet know that he has a problem.  Eventually there will be "pooh-ing" problems as they become unable to properly squat and so on until they lose the use of the back legs entirely and already he has to pee like a girl - he can't lift his leg.  Some people do have carts for their hindquarters but I am not thinking that far ahead just yet.  I just want to do my best to keep as much muscle tone there as I can and to make sure he just has a good a time as possible. As you say, it is stunningly beautiful here.  I am about 6 miles from Builth Wells in a really small farming village and in the general area of the Brecon Beacons.  My immediate neighbours are in the field next door - 5 cows, each with an adorable, very new calf and there are red kites around all the time.  On the debit side, the human neighbours have warned me that the winters can be rather fierce - it seems that the termperatures last year reached minus 18 last winter.   Brrrrrrrrrr! The river walks (there are three that we use) are just down the hill, five minutes walk away and then, depending on whether they are occupied by sheep or cattle there are fields all around for gallops and ball games.  The forest and mountain walks are about 8 miles drive.  There are closer ones but they are more frequented and Val can get a bit grumpy with small dogs who go for him (why do little dogs do that). He has never actually gone back  for one yet but I like to avoid the possibility if I can.  Much of the land around seems to be Forestry Commission with lots of picnic areas, bridle paths and even small corrals and hitching posts for your horses alongside picnic tables & benches. All the facilities for visitors and yet I have been here since March and, apart from the Sugarloaf ,I have never seen any visitors there, only locals. ....................and yes,  much as I like it here, and the dogs love it, I do miss France but with Frank's Alzheimer's, returning to UK was the only fair thing to do.  He is now in long term care in Swansea and battles to communicate in English,  it would have been impossible for him in a French establishment. I am now off to make myself some lunch whilst I consider which walk we will do this afternoon.

Hi Guys Hope everyone and their pets are doing OK.  I was just passing so to speak and as this forum was responsible for me having both my adored dogs I thought I would leave you all a photobucket  link to a few recent  pics of them.  They are not the best pics in the world, I am just not a photographer I'm afraid but as you can see, they are quite enjoying life in the Welsh mountains.  I am afraid that poor old Val, (the GSD) probably has CDRM, a degenerative disease that attacks the hindquarters, so I think that he may be on borrowed time but I will see that he makes the best what he has left and he is 10 and a bit now and still looking good on it - just sometimes his legs go from under him but he darn well gets right up again and gets on with fetching the ball.  He loves to swim in the river and jumps right in when we walk that way ....................................but there I am going on and on.  Here is the link http://s60.photobucket.com/albums/h15/miggimeggi/Val%20and%20Connie/ Best wishes  

[quote user="Clarkkent"] Hi Anne Does this help? http://mushroom-collecting.com/mushroomking.html [/quote] Hi Clarkkent, Yes, it does indeed help.  I think that, despite the darkening of the colour when I cut the cap,  the mushrooms I found seems to match in every respect  rather mature specimens of the King Bolet(e) described on the link you sent, including the habitat in which it was growing, the conifer forest, the thick moss underfoot, wet day, greasy/slimey cap.  Yellowish underside when I took the pics yesterday and pea soup green today .................. and so on.   However, the omlette will have to wait for another day.  I suddenly remembered that I still had a largish portion of  last nights chicken stir-fry in the fridge and it would go to waste if I didn't eat it tonight so I binned the bolet.  Absolutely nothing to do with the maggots I found crawling on the worktop after I had cut it in half.[:D][:D]

Hi Andy Hard to say if the colour has changed.  It is a sort of yellowish khaki colour and doesn't seem to have changed but may have a bit of a bruised look - of course, it is a couple of days old now.  The smaller one has certainly had it - most was eaten anyway. Pat, if it doesn't get delivered by Asda they wouldn't know.  I remember taking a sort of bolet to a pharmacy when I was in France.  It had that tubular look instead of gills like a bolet but the stem was slim and straight and the cap was more flat.  They told me that it wouldn't kill me, just make me a bit sick.  This one definitely has that thick bulbous stem that one associates with ceps and the cap is well domed.  I guess I had better pass on that omlette today but I would really like to know for sure, after all, if they are ceps, I now know where they are and as far as I know, nobody else here even knows what a cep is[6].

Hi everybody When I am looking for help on mushrooms where else would I be going for informed and expert advice, even tho'I no longer live in France?[8-|] Walking the dogs a couple of days ago, I found these mushrooms which I think are ceps but I am not quite confident enough to wreck my diet for a day, fry up in butter the bits not eaten by wild Welsh creatures and scoff the lot in an omlette or something. The biggest one weighs 175 grams, is 13cms across and the top was really slimy but it was a wet day.  I have googled around a bit but don't find a site which compares good bolet types and the bad but they look pretty much like the ones I have seen on sale in Auchan or LeClerc.  Here are the pics:  http://s60.photobucket.com/albums/h15/miggimeggi/Ceps%20in%20Wales/?action=view&current=IMGP0470.jpg and http://s60.photobucket.com/albums/h15/miggimeggi/Ceps%20in%20Wales/?action=view&current=IMGP0472.jpg  . I should have taken them in situ, I know but it was chucking it down and the water was running down the back of my neck.  The dogs were revelling in it but all I wanted was to get home and dry.  We were in Mid-Wales Forestry Commission, deep, tall pine forest, ground moss covered and lots of other, interesting looking mushrooms but left them for another (drier) day.  What does anyone think, dare I have that omlette for dinner tonight?

[quote user="Chas"] Their only condition was that I changed my French driving licence for an English one - which I would have had to do in three years anyway.[/quote] That's interesting, I changed my UK licence for a French one just before I turned 70 (as one does[:D]) and although I have been asked about my licence by a few insurers they have all said, "a French licence is nooooooooooo problem" although they all wanted to know the date when I originally got my UK licence.  I must try to remember to change it before the three years are up.

Thanks Chas, sorry I didn't come back sooner, I was a bit bogged down in other British beauraucratic dramas. I have given up on 'phoning the bank/brokers (everyone tries to be helpful but say that they can't do it) and have written to them requesting a letter in English stating the bits of info. that Churchill require. I just hope that they are as co-operative as AXA were for you. In the meantime, I have sent Churchill a letter with the releve d'informations with the handwritten English remarks which the Churchill telephone sales operator said was unacceptable. The worst it cost me was a stamp and I suppose there is a faint possibility that they will accept it. Fingers crossed.

Thanks Cooperlola but I tried that with a UK translations company. Unfortunately, the French document only gives a percentage of reduction figure, and does not state the number of years that it equates to. The UK insurer works in claim free years and will accept no less and, of course, the translator cannot translate a statement which does not appear on the original document.

I have been trying, without success, to get my French motor insurance company to supply a Releve d'informations translated into English and stating how many years a Coefficient de reduction/majoration of 0,67 equates to. Whilst Churchill have insured me, I only have to the 28th January to get an official translation, on an official letterhead, before they shove me right back to zero no claims. You would think that a major UK insurance company, especially considering the level of immigration to UK from the EEC would know exactly what the darn thing means but they are not exactly co-operative. A helpful young woman from my French bank/brokers sent me a copy with the info. hand-written in English but it was pointed out to me that I could have (fraudently??) written that in myself. Has anyone else met this problem and how was it resolved please.

I have known all about the passport thing and thought I had it all done perfectly - how easy it is to get it wrong. The guy at the pets check-in place at the tunnel asked me on what date Val had had his chip implanted as the date was omitted from his passport. I told him that I didn't know but guessed that it was not long before he was imported to France from the USA. He dragged it out until I was ready to have a fit and then asked me to guess at a date and write it in. He said that the date of implantation is the only thing that can be entered by the owner and doesn't need to be certified by the vet. Whew!!!!!!!!!!!! So that was OK then. As if I wasn't stressed enough without him amusing himself at my expense. Anyway, we are now ALL safely back in UK.

Val, my GSD was originally imported from the USA although not by me. His microchip is an American one but that did not cause any problems. I was able to register it with the usual database both in France and now here in the UK. He had to have the rabies jab and also I think, a veterinary health certificate. Certainly, when we ourselves brought a dog from South Africa, we needed the rabies jab, microchip and a health cert.

She's gorgeous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  Like many (most?) of you, I just watched the Last Night at the Proms. Frank had long gone to bed and I settled down with both dogs at my feet (their eyes and minds on my packet of crisps) and the tail-end of a bottle of Courvoisier, my favourite but carefully rationed, tipple. As with every year (aided undoubtedly by the cognac) I found the whole thing really uplifiting. As I reluctantly head back to the UK in less than 3 weeks and with everyone I know telling me how much I am going to find it changed for the worse, and just how un-British Britain has become I was just wiped out by the patriotism there on display both in the Hall and in the parks. There just seemed to be thousands upon thousands of people all over UK celebrating being British (and enjoying the music of course). Having, as an RAF wife, travelled and lived all over the world, I have still always been proud of being British - felt, to be truthful [:$]that we were in some way superior to the rest [6]– but I suppose that that is what patriotism is all about and anyway, it is the way I was brought up to feel.. Lately, I have had the impression from what I see on UK television that there is something un-British about patriotism, and yet, I still hold the picture of the little boy of about 12 years or so,at the Proms, singing the National Anthem, with his hand on his heart.[:D] I so wonder what I am going to return to, and yet, from Franks point of view, with Alzheimer's, at least they speak English.

I am so sorry Afy, to read about Laila, I lost my adored Utopie just over a year ago and, like Nathalie, I was devasteted and still think about her and miss her one way or another every day.  Like you, I got another (well two actually) almost immediately and love them both. I am so happy for you that you have found Fidji and she looks beautiful.  Still a puppy of course, all that beautiful bone and knobbly joints, she is just gorgeous.  Good luck for getting her home.[:D] 

Sorry, duplicated post and too late to delete.

All you guys have been teasing me haven't you?  I have tried almost (but not quite) all  the things you have suggested and whilst they have got off some of the fresher oil, the really old, hardcore stuff has been more than resistant, especially around the edges of each stain.  Today I bought and tried paint-stripper which was totally ineffective and so the only thing I hadn't tried was paraffin (I forgot to buy some anyway) and the half litre of petrol in the lawnmower's can.   I thought about the petrol .............  how much more volatile and dangerous than paraffin can it be?  Anyway, I don't smoke and it has been years since I played with matches and I wasn't in the mood for banging things around and making sparks................ so I opened up the garage doors and windows, put out the car (I really love her and wanted to keep her safe) and just chucked the blumming stuff on the oilstains.  It was the closest thing I have ever seen to a miracle.  The oil sort of began to run and melt almost immediately and I gave it a serious scrubbing with a hard brush, threw on some kitty litter (sand at I*marche was on the bottom shelf  in 35kg bags and I couldn't lift it) and scrubbed that in, brushed and picked up the litter and then washed with floor washing stuff and hosed the lot down..  It looked good and I thought that just one repeat and it would be fine.  Looked just now and it is drying and I don't even think it needs a repeat.  Guys, if you got oil on your garage floor, try petrol first.

Hallo Afy, What happened to the lovely Laila? I adopted Utopie from Dogue Rescue here in France. They sent out Kate to home check us within days of our application and things went well and quickly with a little language help from Phoenix. Have you tried them? Don't know if the link will work. Chrome doesn't seem to like forums. You may have to copy and paste. http://rescuedogue.free.fr/

Now you've all got me giggling again. But seriously, I am being careful and am probably exaggerating my giddiness (just to get sympathy perhaps). My best mixture so far has been neat Cillitt Bang with plenty of neat bleach poured on top from a safe distance and with the garage doors and the windows all open wide. It seems to soften the old oil enough to let the tool-truck steamer do its work. I haven't tried the paint stripper yet, might try it later today after I have washed off yesterday's cocktail. Using Google Chrome again so please imagine appropriate smilies.

I am giggling at that Christine.[:D]  When she brought around a prospective new tenant last week, I did just that and for just that reason.[6] I was down again just now looking at it and my efforts (don't know which in particular) seem to be having some effects.  Perhaps it is that little tool-truck steam cleaner along with the combination of any and all the chemicals I can find in the cupboards and toolbox..  The centers of the patches are coming clean leaving just the rims of each.  I do really think that I can probably make it acceptable by the time I go.  After all, it is a location and it wasn't perfect when we moved in.  I bought some paint stripper at the Brico this afternoon to add to my witches brews.  I told the guy on the paint section I wanted something to lift two year old oil from a concrete floor  and he sucked his breath between his teeth, shook his head sadly and did the Gallic shrug before wandering off to see to another customer.  Do you think he was trying to tell me something?? Chancer, I must make a special effort to at least get your favourites of the books to you. It would be nice for them to go to someone who wanted them and not just for English practise.  If I can squeeze in 4 or 5 of them, is there somewhere  en route or in for e.g. Calais where I could leave them? BUT NOT PARIS OR EVEN CLOSE.  Yes, I am shouting, I know it but I have never been withing 50km of Paris without getting lost.

quote user="AnOther"Too late for Megan of course but the simple expedient of a piece of old cardboard under the car will prevent this problem in the first place [;-)]un-quote Which is what I should have done in the first place, I am not even sure why I didn't, I guess there were just so many things occupying my mind, however, having now found out how difficult the oil is to remove, I have had said bit of cardboard covering the place that I have managed to clean for the last week so that at least I don't have to do the same bit twice. I don't think I am able to paint the floor so I guess I will just try to move a small bit every day and see how it goes. I suppose that the worst that will happen is to forfeit my deposit but I never count on getting that back anyway although actually, until now, I always have. Thank you everyone. I do often "put on you" and you always kindly help and I haven't gone yet. I have another 3 + weeks to be asking for advice. Watch this, or another, space. I wish Google Chrome would let me have smilies.

Thanks guys, several things there to try. I have already got up all the liquid oil, that was fairly easy using, believe it or not, the rubbish I scraped up cleaning the driveway (I had nothing else immediately available) soaked in Cillit Bang plus several glugs of neat bleach, left overnight and scraped up. I am left with the long dried stuff which looks like black gloss paint. I used the same mixture as above on it and then tried a domestic HP cleaner and then one of those little steam cleaners that you get on the tool trucks. All the above helped a bit but I am still left with a fair bit of the "black gloss paint", enough to attract the attention of the lady from the letting agents who will be doing the "etat de lieu" in about 3 weeks. Ah well, back to work.