Framboise

Its always heartwarming to hear that another poor waif has a lovely new life to look forward to. I didn't notice the "paw touching" thing until it was mentioned above.  My dogs tend to sit on my feet instead of a gentle touch from a paw, and a dogue de bordeaux or a labrador x mastiff plonking their vast rear ends on your toes is not something you easily forget [:)]

Why just Charente?  Everyone will tell you to have a REAL look around before you settle on a particular area because you may find another place that you simply fall in love with, somewhere you never expected!   [:)]

Bit of a problem here, need some clarification please. Thinking of buying a custom Harley to take to our place in France, problem being that it does not have any indicators whatsoever on it.  Am I likely to get pulled by les flics because of this, and if so should I have handle-bar end indicators fitted?  Would this suffice or do I need to do anything else? Any info would be greatly appreciated. Born-again-biker  [8-|]

Perhaps the green sheep are the ones from near Sellafield, or were they just fed Ready Brek? I suppose then that Peter Piper will be banned for scrumping peppers, thereby encouraging anti-social behaviour amongst his peers. Dingly-dangly-scarecrow in his flippy-floppy-hat will be arrested for frightening children. And Lavender's Blue/Lavender's Green is also banned for giving kids unrealistic ideas that they might be King & Queen when they grow up. Not to mention Little Jack Horner of course!                                              The list is seemingly endless........................................

                                                       Why does that have a ring of truth in it? Pierre complains that she has not yet made his morning coffee and he is already late. "You get up first" she says "You could always put the coffee on you know". Pierre complains "Well cherie, its actually your job to look after me and that includes making the coffee for me in the mornings...." and with that his wife takes her Bible from the shelf and points to the page she has selected. "Look" she insists.  "Its here in the Bible that the man should make the coffee so you cannot argue against that!!!" "Pierre does not believe her.  "Show me!   What rubbish!" but there on the pages are the words  "Hebrews". Pierre storms off to the shed for a sulk. and finally......... God may have created Man before he created Woman, but hey you always get a rough draft before a masterpiece  [:P] And we are here aren't we gals???  [kiss]

Did you know that even in nursery school Baa Baa Black Sheep is no more?   If they Really have to sing it, it has to be Baa Baa Green Sheep or something so as to not "offend" anybody.  Whoever heard of a green sheep anyway? Its all PC lunacy.   Today we heard on the radio that schools will not teach pupils about Churchill and his part in the War, so I guess its only a matter of time before his staue in Parliament Square is dragged down like Saddam's in Baghdad was, then replaced with something abysmal.    They can't put Cherie there - she already has the new Grandstand at Lords (or is the Oval?.  Looks just like her.[:P] As for Herge, his work is symbolic of its time but banning it won't make one iota of difference.  Most people nowadays realise that things were somewhat different when Herge wrote those books and we have actually moved onwards since then.

Pierre said to his wife one day "Ow can it be that you can be so beautiful and so stupide at the same time?" "Cherie" replied madame "I shall explain.   You see God made me beautiful so that you would fall in love with  me.   He also made me stupid so that I would fall in love with you.............." AND........ As they drove down a quiet lane in deadly silence after a huge argument,Pierre points at a field of pigs and mules. "Relatives of yours?" he sneers sarcastically. "Mais oui cherie" repies Madame.    "The in-laws............".                                                           [:D]     I shall now wait for the replies!!!   [:D]  

Were it the "other end" gases, then I could run a Bugatti Veyron on the emissions from my dogs!  [+o(]

This is  worrying turn of events, especially as I was telling hubby he was being paranoid by removing anything of like value from the car and taking it to our cabin - and we always go BF!   As you say, IF nobody is allowed down on the vehicle decks (aside from those passengers checking animals I guess) well it does leave a limited number of culprits, then of course even amongst those people with legitimate access they must be pretty aware of who did this deed.  Somebody will know who was loitering about on the decks for no good reason. Of course had the damage been done before you boarded, it is safe to say that you and the hoardes of other people waiting in the queues would have noticed someone breaking into the car and rummaging about searching for goodies to pinch.   Don't you also think that IF an LD employee had spotted another passenger breaking into the car then they would have taken great delight in reporting them to the Deck Offficers?   Its all to convenient.  Furthermore, are there not cameras on all the car decks keeping watch for such occurences, just recording in the event of something like this happenning? I reckon LD's insurance company are being well, "Insurance Companies" and trying to wriggle out of their responsibilities to your damaged vehicle and stolen goods.   They are doing their utmost to avoid paying you a penny in compo for your lost items and damaged car - minimising their losses at your expense - and all because of some greedy so-and-so who wanted your GPS etc. I wish you luck in getting what is rightfully yours!   [:@]

And where are you today Trumpet?  Have you banned yourself from the Forum, or did you succumb to the lure of Call of Duty III? [:D]  [:D]

Ah but Trumpet, SHOPPING actually achieves something at the end of the day, ie. the fridge is stocked and you haven't run out of loo paper.   The Xbox takes Himself off into another parallel universe where he becomes "Sarge", bursting through doors, guns ablazin'.  On the other hand, sometimes a trip to ASDA makes me feel like doing the same.   Grrrrrrrrrrr   [:@] Now shoe shopping............................ that is an entirely different matter of course.   And I do like a vide-grenier or brocante - if I can ever find the darned things as they never seem to signpost them and I drive around aimlessly for ages.   That is a good way of discovering the short-cuts back to the house though!

Thankyou for clarifying this debacle Athene.   For me its all done & dusted as my lot are are all working now and living their own lives (allegedly!)   It is however a minefield. A friend of mine who has younger children says that the favourite retort of her lot when told they are grounded / can't watch tv /  play the computer / etc is                     "I'm going to ring Childline.  You can't do that!   I've seen it in a booklet at school........" You can't win can you?   

On hearing those I think I would stuff the cow pats in my ears.!!    Arghhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   [:P]

We are talking about a child of six - not a lumbering neanderthal of fifteen.   You need to be able to differentiate between a Child and a Teenager - even if the brain capacity is the same. I wish the useless teachers had used force on the thug that stabbed my third son in the leg with a compass when he was 15, but no!   This thug got suspended for a week and then allowed back because he was in remedial classes and they did not want to give him the opportunity to skive off any further time, thus my poor son had this yob constantly picking on him.   In the end it took a quiet word in the thug's ear from two much older brothers before Daniel was left in peace, but the college did nothing whatsoever to help him.  

I am Can't do / Won't do when it comes to these wretched machines.   I neither understand them nor use them, but it keeps hubby out of the pub if nothing else! Yes he is the original bloke who stated that "Computers are rubbish.   Why do people sit in front of them for hours on end?   Why do you kids sit there glued to that thing when you could be outside in the rain catching pneumonia...................." and all the rest of it.   Of course once he got "into" the Xbox, then when he discovered online where you can play against people from all over he world, well there was no holding him from then onwards.   One of the boys even bought him a subscription for the online for Christmas!   Needless to say that when we visit France we have to pack the ruddy Xbox to take with us, so he sits there in our Orne Farmhouse blasting ten bells out of the bosch in what looks rather like our back garden and the hamlet down the road.   Quite bizarre it is. Same also applies to the internet which was    "Absolute rubbish. I can buy whatever I want in the shops............I don't need Google....etc etc.....".   Guess who spends all the time when not on the Xbox on the internet instead?   Yes dearest hubby - computer hater now addict! Trumpet if you get one of these Xbox things or the Playstation at least your missus will always know where you are, that is attached by a cable to the telly and the machine, getting enraged by the opposition who pop up out of nowhere to blast you.   These are truly addictive.  [:'(]

Methinks William the Conquerer was aiming the arrows at the legions of social workers who tried to put him into care, being as he was shall we say "fatherless".   Trouble is poor 'ol Harold decided to take his hoodie off to have a look at that nice Norman longboat he was going to nick to go joyriding in, when some swine shot him right in the eye.   He is demanding a million duckets in compensation for his trauma and William has been marched off to receive an ASBO for being a naughty boy. As to the other Battle for the Orne, well hubby will be back later on to comence war on the bosch in our back garden.  He takes it all so personally when someone blows one of his houses up.    Trumpet if you get this machine you too will become an obsessive on Call of Duty III and forget all about forums, but of course there are all manner of other games you can play online with it.  Or you could gt the Wii machine and keep fit whilst you flail our arms around like a demented windmill playing Super Mario Goes Hang-Gliding or something like that haha!!  [:D]

I am still baffled Trumpet!   Now Cow-Pat guns in deepest Bretagne I could understand,...........  plenty of ammo lying around in fields you see. Same as our place really.  Neighbour dropped his beret in field and tried on fifty before he found it  haha   [:D][:D]

What are porridge guns?  Are they like the the splurt guns in Bugsy Malone? Trumpet what planet do you hail from I wonder?   [:D][:D][:D]

Ain't got no time for tv Trumpet boy.  Too busy banjo-playing    [:P] Yes Pat, it is difficult to know what to do with kids sometimes, especially when you have social services lecturing you about how you cannot smack your kids or anything, when in the same breath they are complaining about what diabolical children they are and what rotten parents we must be to even think of punishing any of them,   Trouble is, if you let four children do as they please then anarchy soon gets a foothold and then you are doomed.  As I said, son MKII is now a Dad himself so he has it all to come, and even he said that he does realise what a monster he was and bitterly regrets the way he treated us.   As a post script, the two boys in question that he was  getting into mischief with are now both in prison, having graduated from being forcibly taken into care, folowed by  long stint in Young Offenders and thence onwards to the Big House.  Social Services made a fine job with them didn't they?    I'm just glad they didn't get their hooks into my boy.    [:(]  

Here you go then - this is how I know.   We had a particularly ghastly time with our son mkII.   He is now 22, is a father himself and a  Poacher turned gamekeeper you could say.   However from the time he went to secondary school he was a total nightmare having got himself entangled with some boys who were enormous fun to a gulliable 11 year old, they were the In Crowd everyone wanted to be with and also Wrong 'Uns, so of course he started to get into trouble at school and out of school.   We were at our wits end to know what to do but the school were about as much help as a chocolate teapot, so we were basically hauled into school at least weekly to get an another earful from the teachers yet without any idea as to what this magical thing was that we are meant to do to make him listen and behave himself. As the weeks went on he was not only giving US cheek and swearing like an old navvy, but he made the grave error of swearing at his older brother.  Elder Bro took it for so long and then WHAM - one fine day he took as much as he could stand from a mouthy little brother, warned him he was asking for it then belted him on right on he nose when he carried on digging at him.   First we knew of it was when MkII came home from the park sporting a huge pair of shiners, but we told him he had nobody to blame but himself and his foul mouth then left it at that.   He never did it again though. Next day he goes off to school and I get a phone call to attend school immediately.   I wondered what the hell was going on as two police officers march in behind me along with a hand-wringing social worker and a further two teachers!  Anyway, the school decided to call this lot on on the sight of son's two shiners, the refused to listen to what our son told them had happenned and got the Police out to us. The long and short of it is that social workers insisted on attending us at home because (naturally) we were undoubtedly beating up our children.   We had this bloke lecturing us on how you cannot smack children, or this or that blah blah blah, but again nothing about what precisely we could do to stop this behaviour.     Then eldest son walked in.  Social worker asks him what happenned and he told him "Yes. I did belt him.   What do you expect me to do when he calls me a ****** and stuff???".  No comment. So you see, I do know what is going on.  You cannot punish children even though some of 'em could do with a good hiding to remind them of who is actually Boss and learn some respect   [:@]

Alas 'tis true.  I collide with The Biggie - 50 - next year so I would have been a little gal in the sixties wouldn't I? Anyway I gotta close now as my little grand-daughter is clamouring for her lunch - macaroni cheese, her staple diet! - then her Mum will be here to collect her.   Then the dogs are pestering to go walkies so I shall be offline and the bosch will be waiting for their opponent to come home to them to reconvene battle. Seriously, hubby and my sons are all hooked on this game, especially with the on-line link-up where you can play people from across the world.   You could be Sgt.Trumpet the bomb expert or something exciting like that.    Its obviously a Bloke Thing!  [:)]

He is at work so I can get at the machine for a while, but he is currently battling against the Opposition  in Call of Duty III in and around Normandy.   (Our place is just outside the Falaise Pocket so it could be our garden I spose).    However, its mighty considerate of the old bosch to continue the battle when he gets home from work though!.   He has been doing battle with Americans lately but they are pretty sore losers and they get him turfed out of the game if he beats them too often - sound familiar to you Trumpet old bean??  

. One was done by dragging the attacker to the ground as he attempted to brain another with a lab-stool, (the teacher in question was NOT big enough to RESTRAIN the 5th form boy), Is THAT OK? No it is NOT ok obviously, and there are enough sad  instances lately of such violence caused by 15 year old thugs.  Your instance quoted a 15 year old who as we all surely know are 6 foot lumbering giants nowadays - not a child of six.  There is a huge difference between a 15 year old and a six year old, not least the fact the elder pupil OUGHT (but obviously did not) know better than to be wielding stools around.   What was the six year old doing??    He was apparently collecting stones from a hole in a flower bed with other children, and  not spinning a lab-stool around like a set of nunchucks to attack another kid.   Unreasonable force was used on a little kid when we are told that he had already been reprimanded once by the teacher and then she started on him again when his mother came to collect him. Ron et al - I quite agree that discipine begins at home, but here in UK a parent's right to punish their children has been removed by Our Betters in the Govt.   What are parents supposed to do now then, particularly in the face of being prosecuted if they smack their errant offspring in trying to control them?    You cannot have today's touchy-feely society and maintain the ethos of yesteryear - the simply are not compatible.     You made your bed so now lie in it.

Sorry to rub it in Trumpet old chap, but today here in Surrey its glorious sunshine.   Won't get too exited though - heavy rain forecast for this afternoon.  Back to normal then.

Gawd, that would have put me off forever.   My worst storm experience was whilst camping in Kalbarri NW Australia when the tail-end of a tropical storm came in and walloped the National Park with avengence.   It rained so hard that the water just rose out of the ground so we were evacuated to the only building n the site - the camp kitchen - where we fished out others belongings as they sailed past in the torrent.  Quite scary. Not the first time been flooded though.   In 1968 when I was a girl our home town as flooded, like up North at the moment, but as a child it was exciting to be evacated on a DUKW through flooded streets.   My friend actually surfed down the street as the main surge came in!  Grandad was none too impressed to get out of bed next morning to find his slippers floating around under the bed though, and to this day the bungalow still has a high tide mark around the building.   Maybe I should be called Noah??