Moriarty

Mr. Moriarty had the procedure ...painless and easy so you've nothing to worry about. His regime was very simple: dried biscottes, thos eawful crunchy things that look like stale cardboard, with slices of hard cheese. He doesn't like ham so that could have been an option. Sometimes he put some clear runny honey on it. And he drank plenty of infusions ... there's quite nice ones at the supermarket. Avoid the rose/lime/camomile ones ... they smell very nice but taste of nothing. He found some apple and cinnamon ones at Auchan which really had some taste. It's only for three days so although it felt like a long time it's not really. But he lost 5lbs in weight, enough to really feel quite different and his trousers were looser, he felt better. Nutritionally three days of just hard cheese, honey and dry biscuits isn't ideal but it's just three days and the doctor was pleased that he'd made the effort, said many people think that just one 'slip' on the list won't make a difference but it does. Good luck with the op.

and where is the Euro sign? I'm looking at a French keyboard and can't see it. To type it I use Ctrl+Alt+4 but, again, surely the French in day to day business don't have to do that?

Norman, thank you. Now I know!!! I'd wondered for a long time!

Norman thanks, so to get the é do they have, as default, that character on the top row and then press the capitals to get the 2?

thanks, but is that how someone who works in a French office would type the accents ... otherwise it would slow down their typing speed wouldn't it? The character é is used so commonly in words that I'm surprised it doesn't have its own key ...

I'm currently working with a French keyboard (changed system to English) but note that there's no è or é marked on them (I typed those using ALT+0232/02333). As I'm a touch typist anyway, I wondered how French typists would put these common characters in without having to resort to ALT+ and still keep their speed. Any ideas? I'm just curious. And bored. That's what being snowed in does to you ... you start to think about entirely unimportant things ...

cold here, no snow, but our lake has mostly frozen over part from one small corner. Very funny to watch the wild ducks come flying in and land on what they think is water, then go skidding off to the end. Should take a video and put it on 'You've Been Framed' and use the £250 to buy some more firewood!

Thanks Norman, that's a little too complicated for me. I'd prefer to buy ready-made if I can, but thanks for your answer.

Aaaagh I am banging my head against a wall here! My computer went 'pop' after a power surge (despite a power surge protector but that's another story). Decided to upgrade, I liked the HP Pavilion P6-2071UK so browsed on line and found it on Moondiscount.fr ... which is recommended by a friend. Online showed it had plenty of stock, ordered, paid via Paypal, waited ... four days later they emailed to say they had refunded as it was out of stock. Meanwhile the credit card company put a stop on my card due to this unusual transaction, which necessitated a phone call to assure them that all was legit, but that's another story as well! OK, went on Pixmania ... same item, a little cheaper. Ordered with 48 hour delivery, paid .... then rang last night to check a delivery time. "Nope, out of stock" they said, "so we're refunding it to you". OK, back to Moondiscount, hurray, same item is shown as in stock, 35 of them. Placed an order, paid for 24hr delivery, paid by Paypal, got the paypal confirmation email but not the moondiscount one, so have emailed them today to check all is in order. Now, I either get the computer delivered to me by the end of today (in which case all is solved) or it's out of stock again. If that's the case, then where can I buy this? I want Windows in English (yes I know I can buy French and Windows Ultimae and change language but you're paying twice for the same thing). I don't want an All In One PC for which I am finding loads of UK ones, I just want a good oldfashioned tower PC, preferably HP or Packard Bell, with Windows 7. So recommendations please, it has to be online. Nowhere around here sells them. Right, back to banging my head against that wall again ...

Brilliant! That works, hurray! Many thanks all, really appreciate your excellent advice!

Thanks, a good answer but I guess my friend wouldn't want this. I'm just baffled why I can't override the .fr suffix and put .com and get to the sites and search engines that I want. It's a case of the computer trying to be too helpful ... oh you're in France so you only want Ebay France and Paypal France, etc. Is there another way I can a\ccess them do you know?

Aaagh, I've borrowed a computer and am trying to access Paypal. Type paypal.com and it takes me to paypal.com/fr which is confusing. I want to stay in English as there's some complicated stuff going on in the account and I want to know what it says. So I don't want the 'fr' suffix, just plain old Paypal.com But it's defaulting to French ... what do I do ? HELP!.

Thanks, that's really useful. I appreciate you taking the time to reply ... will write 'non verifie' and do as you suggest. Cheers again!

I'm expecting a delivery soon, a new computer (yippee!!) but know that I won't have time to check it ... it will be a van drop. So I want to sign the form and add "received, but not opened nor checked". That's what I used to write on parcel deliveries in the UK - would it translate as "recu mais pas ouvert ni verifie" ? Or is there a more concise way of saying this? It just seems a bit long winded to me. Thanks

I'm Lot Et Garonne, four hour south, but thanks for the offer. Jay, thanks for the link, might be what I'm looking for !!

now how do you do that, please?

Widescreen and 16@9 ratio just doesn't do it for me. My trusty Xerox screen was a nice square one, could read all the web pages entirely and suited the work I do. When it went kaput I bought a 21inch 16:9 ratio so now it's in 'landscape' mode. I'd much rather have a nice square monitor. Does anybody know where I might be able to purchase one ... either in person or online? Many thanks

A local restaurant serves a tomato and basil sorbet .... which is so refreshing and utterly delicious. Might be worth a bash in the summer!

I've had difficulty too and in fact friends bring over tubs of dried mealworms from teh UK ... places like Pets R Us usually stock them. But my local Gamm Vert has wormy wriggling things in stock for the fishermen and I buy a tub every now and again.

I'm certainly that Trailfinders offer travel insurance, both single and multitrip. We had insurance with them earlier this year ...

I can remember going to the cinema and watching the film through a haze of fog and whirls of thick cigarette smoke, as probably half the audience had a fag in their mouth!

We're currently resident in the UK but travel to France and the continent frequently and were very frustrated with the 90-day limit on our overseas car insurance - therefore we changed to Saga who don't have a maximum limit.  Your policy is valid for any time out of the UK (but I think limited to the EU), and there's no maximum duration for any one trip.  So you could go down to France for six months at a time or more.  The only requirement for Saga is that you live in the UK and the car is registered in the UK.  It's an excellent policy and, as far as I know, one of the only ones to offer the 'unlmited duration' overseas.  Highly recommended.  

I'll look forward to the response on this one.  We have a small cottage in the Creuse, bought ten years ago, when our neighbours' trees were very small.  They were Christmas trees that he'd planted as a family souvenir, but now they've shot up to an enormous height to the extent that they tower over both our houses and cut out the light.  His garden is in total darkness, for pretty much all the day, would you believe? They're about 6 feet away from our boundary.  Despite polite requests to ask him to cut the height (he says they are full of memories and that he likes a shady garden, ignoring that our patio area is blocked of sun for a few hours while the sun passes behind them), he has so far refused.  We've even offered to do this, but no.  They sway alarmingly in the wind, but he says that they're firm in the ground. I spoke to our local mayor who just shrugged and said that these things are best resolved informally but he didn't give me any firm guidelines on this regardin the law.  So I'll be interested to see if there is any legislation about this. I had thought that, if you plant a tree, then its distance from a boundary must be the same distance as its height, i.e. a 9' tree must be 9' from the boundary.  Or is this in Germany? .     

my deepest sympathy.  I know what it is like to have to make that decision, and the sadness and loneliness that follows.  Think  of the good memories, and often. Please know that we're thinking of you, as I'm sure a lot of people are. 

many thanks for your useful - and very quick! - replies.  As soon as we get to France we'll trot along and get him a French licence. Just as a funny aside - we were stopped for speeding on the motorway, 15km above the limit.  Gendarme asked for husband's licence and he produced the old (green) one.  "Where is the photograph" demanded our gendarme and we explained that this didn't have one.  "So where is his date of birth written?" he queried and, again, I had to point out that the birthday is encoded in one of the boxes.  Then, alarmingly, the gendarme unfolded the licence and explained that hubby was forbidden to drive, as he had no points on his licence and we must get out of the car immediately!  Where are the points?  I explained that in the UK you start a clean licence with no points, and he debated that - no - you must automatically have 12 points on!  He looked very sceptical when I told him that my husband's licence was clean and legal, and he radioed into his HQ.  After a long discussion with his superiors and, after examining our passport (and fining us 40 euros) he let us go.  I'd have thought that motorway gendarmes were a little more familiar with UK licences but it was an interesting lesson for us both (and expensive for us!).