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Gemini_man

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Everything posted by Gemini_man

  1. funny you should say that - we have loads of bats and "behind the shutters" is one of their favourite roosting places :)
  2. As a family we are HEAVY internet users - we've been with Free for almost 2 years with a 2.4 mega connection - most of the time the service is excellent, occasionally it's been downright frustrating. I don't think it matters who you speak to everyone seems to have complaints about their server and Free is no exception - however I have no intention of changing simply because as far as I can make out there is not a better server available in France. I think the reality is that at peak times the internet and all servers are often struggling to cope and this is reflected in periodic disconnects and slowdowns no matter who your server is. I have to admit I did consider trying TeleconnectFrance for a month or two when their ad first hit "The News" but eventually I decided to give them a miss, I think it was because of all the extra cancellation costs if you want to stop having their service, despite their boast of "No minimum engagement, cancel at any time" plus the fact that they only guarantee ninety-something % internet connection during the year - I think it was 96% or 94% - probably very reasonable but it put me off! As of tonight Free say they have 4,920,602 clients and as Danny says you also get Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to 49 countries. Telephone via the internet isn't yet up to telecoms standard but it's perfectly acceptable and even better it's FREE.
  3. We've been very pleased with this one by Logitech: http://www2.grosbill.com/fr/peripheriques/webcam/48843/LOGITECH- as you can see it's only 15,90€ and msn messenger compatible - it's easy to install and just sits on your monitor in front of you - and in fact I bought a second one for my daughter to use with her laptop - just for info: GrosBill are one of the largest suppliers of PC's and computer parts in France and are owned by Auchan so they do have an after sales policy as well :) Hope that helps.
  4. I have a client who used decking in his courtyard area - after 18 months it was slippery as hell. Tiles in my opinion.
  5. Hi Platini, well I'm sort of in your neck of the woods - about 45 mins away. firstly - do yourself a favour: buy locally even if you do pay over the odds - if you buy cheaper on the net how are you going to get your machine dealt with under guarantee if or when it goes wrong? can you return it and if so how? and believe me they do go wrong! if you do buy locally try to buy from somewhere that has a service dept. If you want advice regarding the type of sit-on you need then let me know. secondly - if you don't find someone more local to you I may be able to help - I'm not cheap but I am registered and reliable [:)]
  6. Hi Vicki, Assurance scolaire is a requirement and at the begining of the school year parents are asked to provide a certificate. One of the most popular companies for assurance scolaire and the one I use is M.A.E. They have branches nationwide or you can sign up online, it's very easy :- Cahors branch details:   http://www.mae.fr/contact/departements.php?ID=46 Online link:   http://www.mae.fr/contrats/pi.htm The basic scolaire assurance is 10,50€ which gives cover from beginning to end of the school year. They also offer additional cover if you wish. Once you insure with them they will send you pre-filled forms in the month before the rentrée every year - you just have to tick which assurance you want and return the form with your cheque - couldnt be easier [:)]
  7. [quote user="chris pp"]"an artisan is obliged to charge upwards of 250e a day"  ???????? Give it a break, I normally keep out of these threads but it just gets too much sometimes, it's a wind up. I've been here over 11 years now and I've never charged anything like that and I manage to pay my charges and live a modest lifestyle. If you want to charge a lot, fine, but please, all of you stop justifying it with all this charges stuff, it just isn't true. That's my sum input to this. Chris (a working man) [/quote] Wish I could charge 250€ a day - I know I'm worth it but not sure my clients would agree!  * Tongue in cheek comment before the forum voyoux jump in with sarcastic comments [:P]
  8. [quote user="abbo"]please tell me it is illegal to mow your lawn with your large sit on noisy mower on a sunday afternoon in france[/quote] It's not as illegal now as it used to be - as in nowadays it happens quite often but 10 years ago it was unlikely to happen. anyway be reasonable - the weather lately has been so bad that you have to cut when you can  [:)] * Tongue in cheek comment before the forum voyoux jump in with sarcastic comments [:P]
  9. Bugbear, i don't have the time or the wish to argue stupid pedantics with the likes of you - if you have nothing better to do than make stupid arguments simply for the sake of it then I pity you. Maybe you are here simply to seek out any opportunity to argue with anyone who contributes. In my opinion thats very very sad. It's people like you who spoil forums like this which are based on the exchange of information for people who are either interested in moving to France or are actually in the process of doing so. Think about it! End of story so far as I'm concerned.
  10. [quote user="mark and sue 71"]hi i've been quoted €4000 to have an rsj fitted to open up the living room the size of the gap will be about the size of a double garage door. is this as expensive as it seems????   [/quote] In a word, : Yes  [:)]
  11. Sorry Bugbear but before you accuse someone of talking total rubbish you should check your facts (why the hell do people on this forum have to make things so personal whenever they have the chance, don't you have anything better to do? [Www] ) - Your quote: "Our local farmers certainly do not see them as a major threat to crops (they are actually herbivores)" - so what do you think animals that eat maize crops are? carniverous? Wikipedia: "In zoology, a herbivore is an animal that is adapted to eat primarily plant matter" ie. maize crops. they do grow to be giant rongeurs up to 6 kilos weight: http://www.roc.asso.fr/protection-faune/ragondin.html and they do do a lot of damage to farmers maize crops - maybe in your particular locality they are not a problem but elsewhere they are - and if you don't believe me have a read here: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragondin Le ragondin est un animal gibier, et classé parmi les nuisibles du fait des dégâts occasionnés par ses terriers et son appétit pour les cultures à proximité de son territoire. Dans certaines régions il a fait l'objet de plans de lutte collectifs, à l'échelle de dizaines de communes. Les méthodes de lutte contre le ragondin sont les mêmes que celles autorisées pour les autres espèces nuisibles (à l'exception du tir au vol bien sûr) : tir au fusil, tir à l'arc, empoisonnement, piégeage, déterrage. or here: http://www.roc.asso.fr/protection-faune/ragondin.html Quels problèmes peut-il poser ? Bien que résistant, le ragondin peut-être porteur de diverses maladies et parasitoses, certaines transmissibles aux animaux domestiques et à l’homme, en particulier la leptospirose (les bovins le sont aussi ). Du fait de son régime varié, il peut lui arriver de se nourrir dans les cultures voisines des zones aquatiques où il vit, en particulier celles de maïs. En période de gel, lorsque les herbes aquatiques sont hors d’atteinte, il peut occasionner par écorçage des dégâts parfois considérables dans les peupleraies. Mais son principal impact touche les ouvrages hydrauliques, creusant l ses terriers dans les berges des canaux et les digues, il les endommage et pour les plus minées, elles peuvent céder lors des crues. Nowhere in my post did I suggest they posed a threat of aggression other than towards crops, specifically maize - maybe in Vienne the farmers don't grow maize, I don't know. Either way your assertion  "Sorry Gemini M, but you're talking total rubbish" was out of order, unnecessary and rude.
  12. If you pop into your local Gamme Vert, or whatever you have up there as garden centre, towards the end of the year they will almost certainly have by the checkout a display thingy with loads of copies of "jardiner avec la lune" or something similar. If you can't wait 'till then you can buy here: http://www.achat-caen.com/pro3229-jardiner-avec-la-lune-2007-jardiner-lune-jardin-lune.htm alternatively I would recommend this site: http://www.graines-et-plantes.com/index.php?Page=Calendrier-lunaire&lune=jardins incidently I find them excellent for seeds :) : http://www.graines-et-plantes.com/index.php?Page=graines-semences It's funny but in our area all the farmers and smallholders do the same work at the same time - as in: "Oh, this week must be muck spreading week". How do I know? The wind always seems to be blowing in the wrong direction [:D] Gotta love the countryside [:P]
  13. Benjamin, I've noticed it too with some of my English neighbours. Not sure if it's down to lack of planning, excitement at being abroad or just habit 'cos that's what they would do at home. Or of course maybe they just "like going out" [Www] PS. I've also noticed it with Parisians so maybe it's a city thing [:)]
  14. Agree with Panda - do not underestimate the difficulties of starting two children 10 and 11 years old, who probably (?) don't speak much French, in school over here. It will be traumatic for them and also for you. It can be done but it will need a lot of time, effort and support. So far as where to rent a property I would have thought a small town would make sense as you will need a local school and all the facilities. As for which area, well, that may depend on how you are intending to make a living. Going back to your original question - it's not difficult to find a long term rental, a lot of immobiliers handle rentals, so long as you aren't too specific about what and where and in my opinion renting to start with is a very sensible idea - give yourselves time to get to know the area a bit. Good luck [:)] P.S. I have to be honest - when we moved to France we stuck a pin in the map and ended up in the Dordogne and that was 15 years ago [blink]
  15. [quote user="Pierre ZFP"]OK, I had to look it up. I had no idea what 'Ragondin' were.  Now if you had said 'Coypu' ......... Anyway, they are so cute,see here , they could nibble my lavender if wanted [/quote] Sorry, Coypu are not cute - they grow to be GIANT rongeurs up to 6 Kilos weight - in other words they are ENORMOUS water rats and they do ENORMOUS damage to farmers maize crops which is why they leave ENORMOUS traps between their fields and rivers - ugly critters they are too, the Coypu not the farmers. Well probably the farmers also [:$] not at all like bunnies which are CUTE, cuddly and just part of the countryside - until they eat all the tops off of your veggies - GET THE SHOTGUN [:D]
  16. sandy, where in South West France are you thinking of basing yourself? (oops have to be careful of that word in France [:$]).
  17. Pfff, a few showers that's all [:P] (hopefully).
  18. Well this is France and we do have BIG bunnies also known as hares [:D] Hmmm, creatures that will break branches and dig holes are probably only deer, sheep, badgers or elephants - my money's on deer :)
  19. junebaby do not fear - at 6 years old your daughter will not have much problem integrating into the school life and should very soon start speaking some French  - one of my greatest pleasures was when my daughter, she started at maternelle when she was 4, started to talk French in her sleep, I think she was 5 at the time and it was lovely [:)] I don't know what your plans are but we only ever spoke English in the house, except when I was helping the children with their schoolwork in the early years, and now we have two totally bilingual children, one at Bordeaux university and the other at Lycée. The downside of only speaking English at home though is that it's not good for the parents French but you can't always have everything [:(]
  20. sounds like a rabbit to me - get the shotgun [:)]
  21. [quote user="Ford Anglia"]Oh, and to get back on topic, waht's the difference between mulching and just leaving cut grass everywhere?[/quote] The difference is 100 odd Euros depending on what make of machine you have [:D] and what you get for your money is a lump of plastic on a long plastic handle which nicely blocks the grass output shute so the cut grass has nowhere to go and gets "mulched" into even smaller bits of cut grass and left behind on the lawn where in theory it helps stop weeds growing and breaks down putting any goodness back into the soil - in reality that only happens when the grass is pretty short and dry the rest of the time it just leaves lumps of mushed grass cuttings. and just leaving cut grass everywhere is ...... well it's just unsightly isn't it [8-|]
  22. flower, if your garden doesn't have much of a slope then 16.5 or 15.5 would be fine but I would try and go for 107cm cut if possible - one other thing to recommend is automatic, it's so much easier when you need to do forward/reverse a lot. you can usually tell just by looking at the different makes which ones come from the same factories, the basic body parts are the same but have different add-ons according to the badge and the price. So far as I know Husqvarna are one of the more expensive brands and usually sold through independant dealers whereas the Bricos of this world often have better value own brands BUT do ask about after sales service, some of the large stores just have a man who "deals with that" as opposed to a proper service department - and mowers always go wrong when you most need them it seems [:)] so it may be worth paying more from an independant just for the Service après-vente especially if you don't have the means of transporting your machine.
  23. OMG why do so many threads develop into petty arguments [:)] flower - if I may get this back on topic - there's one piece of advice I would give you from experience: if your garden is actually rough grass and not a lawn then a side ejection sit-on would be a lot better simply because it will be a lot less likely to clog up when the "grass" is long, lush and possibly wet - the disadvantage is that most side ejection mowers don't collect the grass. the other thing I would say in your case is to go up in power if possible and if the slope that you have is quite steep I would recommend a twin cylinder 18.5hp or more as this should have an oil pump which would keep the motor lubricated even on steep slopes. also, do not go for the widest cut, 107cm is ample - here's a possibility but it's rear ejection rather than side: http://www.bricomarche.com/index.asp?famille=231&id=MOTOC07V463851576. last comment: it will pay you to buy from someone who will also service the machine even if it costs a bit more! hope that helps a little [:)]
  24. This reminds me of the second house we rented when we first moved to France - it was on a fairly steep hillside overlooking a wide valley - the vegetable area was more or less below the house and it grew the most ginormous carrots and parsnips amongst other things and rarely needed watering - only later did we find out that the owner had spent many years in Hong Kong where he had developed an interest in growing vegetables fed by the the water outlet of fosse septiques - it didn't seem to affect the flavour though, just the size [:$]
  25. La Vette - going back to your original post: I've lived in La Belle Dordogne 15 years and have 2 children one of whom competes in high level judo and I've spent a few hours at Les Urgences over the years - my experience is that the service is usually excellent and extremely thorough but I can't compare it to the NHS as I try not to spend too much time in the UK [8-)] - personally I find the health service generally in France is excellent but my doctor insists on telling me it's "going the way of the British Health Care system" - can't say I agree with him yet!!
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