RumziGal

[quote user="Teamedup"]WOW talk about super cheap. I can't believe those prices.[/quote] Oh TU, you made me look!   Pocket money, man, pocket money!    Opas isn't kidding.   Multiply them by 5 and you'd be heading in the right direction for house prices in our area. I'm getting used to house prices here in Englandshire.  In the sense that "merde, that's cheap".   [:)]   Someone at work is selling an end terrace, 3 reasonable bedrooms, big garden, central heating, double glazing, off-road parking for 2 cars, etc, for £195k. Along the road from us in France, someone is selling a small 3-bed "villa".   500m sq terrain, but it's en contrebas, which means the house is below the level of the road, but it's so close to the road that it's like living in a basement, and as you walk past you look down into the house.   Small place, and because it's contrebas there's no private parking, cars just sit out on the road.  Not centrally heated, not double glazed.  No pool.  Price?   340 000 euros.

[quote user="Cerise"]I think you are right.  Have just spent 3 weeks back in UK and friends and releatives got quite shirty when I dared to suggest that France was not a pink fluffy place where there were no taxes and everything was cheap.  [/quote] Cerise, I'm having pretty much the same experience!    And my heart does sink when I think of youngsters in France, doing degrees and Masters and what have you, and still unemployed at 26 or 27.    OH's nieces, aged 22 and 21, are happily settled into the accountant life, no A-levels or anything, just went straight into the accountants' offices and did qualifications as they went.   The 22-yr-old is a wee bit bored with accountancy, so she cut her hours down and trained as a personal gym trainer.   Now she divides her time between the "real" job, some private accountancy services, and her dream job, teaching classes at the gym.   The younger one is buying a house with her gardener boyfriend.   My manager here is married to a French lady and was showing me some photos of her the other day, including one with her niece, who's studying.... accountancy!  26, still not earning.......      The girl chez qui I'm renting a room just now has only been working in IBM for 3 years, but she's got this 3-bed house.  Okay, so she needs me or A.N.Other as a lodger for a while, but she has it.  I know I'm repeating myself a bit from other threads, but it's because I am so astounded by the level of comfort here compared to France.  It's certainly given me food for thought.         

People tell me that you simply MUST put fleur d'oranger in your crêpe mixture.   I find that it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference. but I realise that French palates are much more sensitive than mine, and where I would put a load of, say, cumin seeds in something, they will detect the cumin if you just waved a single grain above the pan while you're cooking.  

Mini-habits? Is that if you only smoke one cigarette a week?    Or bite only two of your nails?   

[quote user="Missy"][ I mean like the gingercake as in Tate&Lyle Jamaican ginger(bread?)cake not the flat gingerbread man biscuit thing....  [8-)] [/quote] This is the sort of thing I mean by gingerbread http://www.bbc.co.uk/shropshire/food/2003/05/gingerbread_recipe.shtml   It is a cake baked in the oven, I've just never heard it called ginger cake, that's all, and thought ginger cake might be something different. A gingerbread man may be called a gingerbread man, but he isn't actually made of gingerbread.   He's really a gingerbiscuit man.   Just a little vagary of English. Run, run, as fast as you can You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man! 

Congratulations, dotty! Expat Brit kids seem to do very well in French schools, and usually end up near or at the top of the class.   Especially in French, oddly enough.    Brit kids are bright, it's the good start they get!  [;-)]  I asked a teacher friend (French, in France) why she thought the standard of spelling and grammar in French was so low among the French pupils, and she said "it's their own language, they don't think about it, c'est normal".   So anyone who is of the opinion that literacy standards are falling in Britain, think again - c'est normal!  [:)]       

I would agree that  it has lapsed lamentably.

As long as the Angsouchongs remain lapsed.

[quote user="Missy"] Oh! [:(] you don't like pain d'épice .... It's only a ginger cake. [/quote] I don't know ginger cake.   But I do know gingerbread, and that is a universe away from pain d'épices.   Gingerbread has got super-yummy things in like treacle and syrup to make it lovely and moist mmmmmmmm, and is just deeeeeeeeeeelicious.

How nice to see this thread.   I thought I was the only person on the planet who didn't swoon with delight at the thought of a brioche.  I've seen someone making it, so I know that it's not made with talcum powder and sawdust, but it sure tastes like it!  

[quote user="Pun"] the locals bought the freezer fish it must be good. [/quote] Locals also buy Harry's American sandwich bread.   And McDonalds.    IMHO, the important difference is not the cost of electricity (which should be a LOT cheaper in France if nuclear is SO brilliant, non-imported etc, now there's a major con for you).  The important thing is French incomes, which are generally low, so electricity is relatively very expensive.   You can see the difference straightaway - UK houses are generally much warmer than French ones, and Brits aren't nearly as tight about every centime as French people are, because (generalisation coming up) they don't have to be.    

[quote user="Pip"] No, you are still a kitten Jean-Luc.[:(] [/quote] Oooooooooohhhhhhhhhh no he's not, he has changed into the gorgeous Jean-Luc.  Better than a one-eyed kitten ANY day.   Or am I just imagining lovely things through my Happiness Haze?     

Wow, you lot have got some staying power! My husband and son and dog are still in France, and I miss them, but so far I'm not missing anything else.  The weekend here was grey and rainy, and they phoned to say they'd had lunch outdoors and it was lovely and sunny, and I felt not even the merest twinge of envy.     I'm not so dependent on wine that its higher price here makes any difference to me, and to be honest, I've enjoyed the non-French wine I've had here much more than I was enjoying French wine in France. I may well still be in denial, of course.  [:)]   Or on drugs.   Maybe someone is injecting me in my sleep (am I allowed to say that?).   A Francophile here mentioned La Fete de la Musique, and even that didn't titillate me.   One day a year?    I can have music every night of the year here!    Last night I was the only fiddler, surrounded, by a strange yet simple twist of fate, by FIVE accordions.  [blink]    Heaven!  [:D]    You can never have too many accordions, that's what I always say.    Certainly a lot less graffiti here in this part of Englandshire than in my part of France.  Over there it's on everything that doesn't move. Funny old world, eh?   Stay happy, y'all.  [:)]   xxxxxxx  

Dear Tozzer, You remind me of someone I haven't met.   But you do make me laff. And that cute little kittie with the bad eye, it rings a bell too.

[quote user="Miki"][ I  replied but have decided to delete my posts myself to save the Mods the job. Regards [/quote] LOL!!!  [:D] [:D] [:D]

[quote user="Gastines"] After hearing today that 90 HGV drivers from a firm in Yeovil  have been replaced by a total Polish labour force, I expect I'd be pretty miffed as well. The Poles are apparently quite happy to kip in their cabs and after a 6 month term apply for their tax back and take it all back to Poland. The add-on being that the insurance companies have already noticed an increase in claims from HGV's.  Same story as the 3 workers who died whilst living in a container on a building site.  Paid the basic minimum so they can't even afford to live like humans.I expect we all find the Protectionist stance of the French Govenment a bit frustrating but I'm beginning to wonder who's got it right. [/quote] But aren't there complaints in France about building sites being staffed with Polish (and other non-French) workers?   Something about the employers being able to pay them the "living wage" of their home country?  I'm sure this came up recently, either on here or over on TF. But you know, if Brits are allowed to move to France to avoid disillusionment with their home country, why shouldn't Polish people do the same?   Think how bad it must be if living in a building-site container is better than what they left behind.   I saw a prog about them before i left France, one lot was an Eastern European family with 2 or 3 children, living under the Paris péripherique in atrocious conditions.   There are sooooo many people sleeping rough under there, you wouldn't believe it!    Anyway, this family was eventually tracked down and housed, but they could still get sent back to the country they came from. So I'm not sure that France has got it any righter than Britain.  Look at all those Africans that died in that hotel fire in Paris last year, that was horrible.   So many very poor and desperate people packed into substandard hovels like that, it's not good wherever it happens.

Yes, lack of political/social/cultural awareness does give you a different view of a country. What with the excitement of my job, and the rigours of an active social life [;-)] I don't have much time to keep up with the UK news at the moment.   Result?   I see no Armada....... [:)]    

[quote user="Deimos"] I certainly have a lot more to do in France than in the UK. Ian [/quote] Yup, horses for courses, I guess.   I've done loads of things in France, I've done patchwork and pottery and porcelain painting, I joined a choir, I've done gym classes and randonnée, I taught English in the village school for a year, I've helped every year with the village duathlon, I've done belly dancing, I've done guitar lessons, I've done cookery classes....... and so on and so forth.   My French is fine.   But they've had no results, if you can understand that?   You turn up, you do the activity, and you all go away again.   People say "bonjour" very politely, but there's no obvious friendship-forming or socialising going on.   It's all very functional and individualistic, and what should be a social life gets to be like housework, just something you have to do and then you go back to your empty house. I think that's it, it's the spontaneous socialising that's missing in France.  It all has to be organised and prepared for.   Big meals are good, but in between times you just want a chat over a beer, you know?    Just some friendly human contact without having to worry about the quality of the lettuce.  Chat is good.   Beer is good.   Maximise that human contact!  [:)]                

Well, soon I'll be going back to France - for a rest!! I'm just overwhelmed by having a social life again.   And I mean a real one of my very own, not just a flurry of visiting long-forgotten friends or anything.   I've already met plenty new people who are friendly and welcoming and all that stuff.  Maybe it's just the circles I move in, if that doesn't sound pretentious!   Sure, "les voeux du Maire" gives you a chance to see who else lives in the village, but the truth is that not everyone is great buddies outside these situations, and it does only pass an hour once a year, then everyone goes back chez eux. I was really quite nervous about coming back, having heard so much about how unfriendly the UK is, and how rude everyone is, but 6 years in France have taught me that once you're out in public it's pretty much chacun pour soi, so for the moment it all seems quite normal..  The news is exactly the same in both countries. The cinema costs the same. I think it'll be nice to get back there for the summer, but much longer than that and France will start to feel like prison again.   I'm just too much of a butterfly brain to be happy doing nothing.   I can't help it, I need to keep on having little challenges, and it's just not happening in France.   I feel France is very inhibitied, things always have to be labelled, you know, like "pédagogique" - I mean, come on, why can it not just be FUN?         And you know something else, I haven't been grumped at in a shop yet.   How good is that?   [:D] I do agree that British women could put more effort into brushing their hair.  [;-)]    And yes, people do eat VERY fast!  [blink] 

As in "Touche pas à mon pote", the slogan of SOS Racisme http://www.sos-racisme.org/

[quote user="LanguedocGal"]You have to come back for Freche's endless spring and summer parties...[:)]   [/quote] Ah, bless him!   A politician who says what he thinks, isn't it refreshing!   What's he up to now, the dear old dufflepud?   When I left, his harki court case was starting.    He was having a bit of a moan about how France is the only Western country where free speech isn't allowed, and where political correctness was taking over.    Yes, Georges, whatever you say, Georges.......... [:)] 

[quote user="Coco"] I have to say, my OH recently worked in Nimes for a couple of weeks and he said that it wasn't a France he recognised until he was about 2 hours into the TGV journey north when at last the landscape turned to green trees and fields with animals in them. [/quote] Coco, Nimes and Montpellier are really the only France I know!    I live somewhere between the two, in sight of what is allegedly the busiest stretch of motorway in the country.   So I do miss cows and sheep!    And it is very dry.  To be honest (and I know that many of you won't approve!) I think if I had more money it would be okay.    There just isn't that "quality of life" thing going on that apparently happens in other areas of France, so a limited income is just that - limiting, and you can't make the most of what's on offer, because even the famed eating out costs money.   Neighbours pretty much keep themselves to themselves, they're there if you need them, but tend not to in for impromptu drop-in visits.   I have absolutely nothing against France, but where I live isn't so different from the south of England on a day-to-day basis, except the sky is bluer.   I've really been wondering what on earth I've been doing for the last 6 years!   I have a horrible feeling that the last 4 of them were a waste of precious time, but I can't get them back, so I won't think about that, my middle name being Pollyanna and all.  [:)]     But the man, the boy, and the dog (and his fleas!) are there, so I'll be back.   Thinks, must book my next fright with Ryan-scare....... Sorry to go on, but it's kind of difficult, you know?    Life decisions and all that....... [:$]   

Oh yes, and it's also nice to have lively, enthusiastic people round about me, people who think things could be better.   Such a change from the fatalistic Gallic life-is-shit shrug and the accompanying "kesstuveux". Whatever the faces in each country look like, I find that British people have a higher level of happiness and optimism than French people.  Probably just because they're financially more comfortable.   The news is the same in both countries, full of conniving politicians and people being nasty to each other. I drove in to work this morning, and the fields and trees were as lovely as anything in France.   The traffic was the same.   And you know, I've seen more animals in the last 4 weeks here than in the last 4 years in France.   There are real cows, and I like cows!   There are sheep!   There are free-range chooks!!  There are badgers and foxes and deer, and there are donkeys that gambol!   And I've got a social life again that doesn't revolve around drinking cheap French plonk!  

Qui, moi? Mais non!   Much more likely that my men had it on Tuesday, after flying back off to la belle France on Sunday night and eating oysters with some French potes. I drove back down from Gatwick along the M25 and the M3 in my Aston Martin Cavalier in all that nasty stormy stuff, just like a big girl, and straight into the arms of some Brit potes, who fed me and watered me and made me play Jungle Buzz (I was a yellow monkey) and made me drink wine and eat some more stuff.   I seem to remember that they also allowed me to TALK a lot. Today I went back to work - brilliant!!   Keeps me off the streets, it does, and allows me to go SHOPPING. Ta ta for now, y'all, I'm going to take off those rosy-tinted spectacles and lay me down to sleep, perchance to dream rosy-tinted dreams.  Or I might just get out of bed again and go and have a wee chat with my blonde housemate.   She's very nice. Ciao!  xxxxx     

Le Pen said recently that he didn't mind immigrants who integrated into the French way of life.  It's those who don't integrate that he thinks should "go home". The clever thing about this line is that it's exactly what many "reasonable" people think anyway.  You know, like many Brits in France.   Got to integrate and all that, eh?    Otherwise England awaits, non?  [:D]