baypond

Talking of thrushes, these are Mistle Thrush chicks about one week old, taken this week in a palm tree in our garden in the Gers. I hope this works as it is the first time I have posted a picture . [IMG]http://i833.photobucket.com/albums/zz259/baypond/mistlethrush.jpg[/IMG]

Easiest just to copy and paste it into the address line. I am useless at loading links and photos! Giles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhPzVhkaxIQ

Frenchie, a new one if you havn't heard anything from this guy. JASON MRAZ "WE SING, WE DANCE, WE STEAL THINGS" I have really enjoyed this one on first listen.

great video thanks

How sad for John Surtees (75) to survive his 18 year old son. It looks like such an inoquous accident compared to the crashes John Surtees endured in far more dangerous machinery.

Steve, I got fed up with my livebox, but rather than throw it in the river, I decided to keep it and connect a Belkin WI-FI router to it. That way it is unsecured when you first go through Belkin wifi rather than worrying about the set up on the livebox and all their passwords. It works a treat, as long as you have a wifi card (all laptops have these as standard, but you may need so mething for a stand alone PC). By the way, you can ignore the Belkin CD, you don't need anything that is on it. Giles

I just bought Kid Creole and the Coconuts - Tropical Ganster released 1982. Frequented many a party with this collection belting out. Couldn't resist downloading it on to i-pod to be listened on holiday next week.

For hotels yes, never even thought about it for holiday rentals. Perhaps I am behind the times!

Forget the weekly food and the friends and the costs, she is a journalist who is trying to write a story everyone will want to read and comment on. She has done that successfully! I think on the surface it manages to touch on many of the emotions of owning a holiday home, however having read for years the drivel coming from londoners about how ghastly living in the country must be, I think she probably falls in to the category of someone who bought for the wrong reasons. The more amusing and honest read is on France Forum 'Im thinking of giving up gites' They should put that in print.

Teapot and John, The joys of owning a holiday home are that finding solutions to things like this get drawn out by not actually being at the property where the problem is! I am there this weekend and will test CYN levels and chlorine levels at the outlet,  but as an interim measure add some chlorine to keep the children free of random ear infections etc! I will look on the ph minus container for you as well as drinking a G&T...... Thanks again to all for their help Giles

John, I have no idea what is in the PH- bottle - I buy it in 20L plastic containers from pool people. Could be Gin for all I know !

Hi Teapot, To recap, my problem is that I had a poolsquad 95 chlorinator installed last year which isnt coping very well with keeping chlorine levels sufficiently high when ambient temperatures are above about 25 degrees (pool 26/27) and regular useage by us and our children. We have found that there is insufficient production (even at 100%) to raise levels back up to the appropriate levels the following morning. When I first asked about this on this forum on 31/05/2009 chem geek and poolguy suggested that 7.0 was a bit too low for good stabilisation of chlorine. I decided to ask poolsquad by email to see if it is possible to set PH higher, and they started to ask all sorts of question about the pool, I guess to find out if the poolsquad unit is working properly. The final task they have set me is to take a chlorine reading at the immediate inlet to the pool after the unit has been running 24 hours at 100%. I think that it is a bizarre and random test, but that is what they want. One of the answers that came from the 31/05 post was that I needed to add chlorine when high pool use is anticipated, hence the question about where best to place it! cheers Giles    

Chriss PP I am sure will do the honours, but the fact that the eyes are round (rather than slit) tells you it is not venomous. In fact Chris' own site has an excellent section on snakes. Take a look. I would say classic grass snake Great picture by the way

Thank you very much.I will follow your instructions!  In the mean time, I have asked Pool Technologie how to adjust the PH to run at higher than the 7.0 pre-set in production. The short way is to remove the pipe from the PH-minus bottle, but I really want to find out if there is a way to reset it to 7.5. They have actually been exceptionally quick at responding, and first want to know if the unit is actually working properly. I have to run the unit at 100% for 24hrs and then test for chlorine at the immediate inlet to the pool. I really am not sure why he needs 24hrs, and I am going to have to be pretty careful to get a reliable reading at the outlet given that the chlorine concentration must drop away very sharply within inches of the outlet. It all seems a little hit and miss. Anyway I'll let you know... thanks agn  

Hi Quick question, if I add chlorine to a saline pool (to keep chlorine levels up during high use/hot weather). What is best option? Do I place blocks in the skimmers or add powder direct to the pool? If I use blocks (which seems better as a pre-emptive step in anticipation of high use/ hot weather) does it diminish the capacity of the poolsquad to make its own chlorine if concentration of chlorine is higher because the skimmers are in line and precede the pool sqaud chlorinator?   Thanks guys  

sorry, given you yet another starter - should have read your post properly.

Great sociable starter - though I don't know what the cost works out at is:   Place a camembert in an oven dish, lacerate the top with a knife, then spoon on to the top of the cheese some chopped oil drenched sunripe tomatoes, and add finely chopped garlic and some milled pepper. Place in a very hot oven, and take out when the cheese has started to bubble on top (before the camembert collapses completely, but is still runny and hot). Slice up some baguette for dipping into the cheese. We find one 4/6 inch diameter cheese enough for 4 people. Very filling.  Preparation 5 mins and cooking another 5/8 mins

Is there a mediation service in France? When I divorced 14 years ago, we attended mediation for an evening a week until my ex-wife and I had thrashed out all the details with neutral representatives. We only spoke to lawyers at the very end, which saved an enormous amount of money, leaving more to split between us. Both parties need to be open and honest and ready to find a solution in difficult circumstances, but it is worth it.

Two things are making judgments on asset prices difficult at the moment. Firstly the economic outlook for a leveraged economy like the UK or US is difficult since the spending in the economy is being replaced by government spending to replace the gap left by personal spending. At 12/14% of GDP, the budget gap is not sustainable and so the economy will struggle for some years to come. The difficult part is that this outlook suggests that stocks should fall. However, the BOE is pumping huge amounts of liquidity in to the market (£150 billion) to try and create some inflationary pressures. Some of this liquidity finds it's way back in to assets (particularly stocks) and so while liquidity measures are maintained by the Bank of England (namely quantative easing and almost zero interest rates) we are likely to see stock markets perform better than might normally be expected.

Mooky, it looks like that was a hard post to write. I hope you find the sanctity in the UK that you clearly crave. You have, with your candid observations on French life, crystallized that France is not always the panacea that we are led to believe. Well done for making this heard decision. Giles

Hi thanks 'partout' .. The main problem is with the super king in terms of stocking. The size is ok 183 x 200 in UK and 180 x 200 in France

Do you know if these places sell them 'pret a porter' ? We have bought some beds in England to take down to France but it would be great if the mattresses were off the shelf.

I hear Carla Bruni Sarkosy is going to sing candle in the wind and Pres Sarkosy is going to break dance at the funeral. What a mess this is where society is willing to ignore all the evidence that MJ was at best wierd, and probably a lot worse, all because he performed a few great songs. How sad is it that black America  embraces a guy who spent most of his life trying to be white. I for one, am very uncomfortable with the whole thing. I thought his music was great at the time, but I can't bring myself to listen to it now, it seems too hypocritical.

I am good with numbers, but also find it incredibly difficult to write down words accurately when someone is spelling out their surname or something. I am also a laid back, but fairly confident person, but show me a urinal full of blokes and I can't pee after 10 pints! I also get conscious when writing out cheques and signing them in front of people. I don't have a problem with any of this, I see it as some kind of survival instinct which kicks in when you come to repeat something you have previously had an experience of that for some reason created a rush of adrenelin or stress.