nectarine

I didn't always agree with his politics but admired his courage of convictions - he certainly wasn't a hypocrite, and his diaries are very good reading. He was certainly never a boring politician.

oh good glad it wasn't just me. I have been known before now to press the wrong button and break the entire Internet ...

... and I've answered my own question ... here I am back as a duck with my 1000+ posts credited. Technical hiccup, obviously ...

... yoohoo all, back again after six weeks away and found that I couldn't get back into the forum. Didn't recognise my email address, then the page just hang. I had to re-register and I'm not sure if I've kept the same log in name of Nectarine .... so I'm typing this to see if I'm now back in my same old familiar form or whether it's going to show me as a newbie. Not sure what happened this morning, did anybody else have any problems?

I agree with the above, use Mme over the age of, say 40.

My husband has a traditional radio and can pick up some stationsbut the signal varies and is erratic. During the night he likes to have the radio on quietly but often can only get 5Live Sport (which, as he doesn't like football, is nigh on useless).

Or rather, London does, due to the growing French population - £150,000, now that's a good trade to have! http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2547299/Anyone-know-U-bend-French-Appeal-bilingual-plumbers-surge-calls-wealthy-Gallic-expats-fled-London-escape-Hollandes-supertax.html

seems she didn't go quietly, being a feisty kind of woman. I'm sure she gave him the earbashing of a lifetime before departing for La Lanterne ... Segolene Royale must be chuckling to herself over her morning croissant and coffee this morning ...

EuroTrash's advice is spot on! We don't have a motor home but have enjoyed renting them on vacation. In our experience, the smaller the better since you can drive in towns, down smaller streets and don't need a space the size of a supermarket car park to turn around in. We've rented one with a proper bed space, and also one where you had to turf all the cushions off the seating area in order to create the bed - OK if you're travelling from day to day and don't use the seating area much but if you were installed at a camp site and needed the seating I agree the night time/day time change might prove to be a slog.

We have a big diesel Kubota, excellent heavy duty mower but doesn't mulch ... I wish we'd opted for the mulcher as, you're right, it would save hours of work. Another factor .... the blades are directly under the machine which means to sharpen or service you have to lift the machine and detach the mower deck, which is big. That's easy, it's getting it on again and lifting it to reattach which is very difficult - it needs two of you, of whom one must be a double-jointed gymnast with eyes at right angles, to see what you're doing. There's other mowers where the mowing deck is in front of the driver and I'm now thinking that would be much simpler for maintenance. Just my input. But diesel/Kubota is an excellent tool !

From a chicken forum, of which I'm a member, I found this reply to someone's posting about thier egg-bound chicken: "http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xnj32v ... _lifestyle http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2012/0 ... ptoms.html http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/h ... ckens.html Moist heat is the way forward. then quiet and rest under a heat lamp to help her get over the shock. If you need to get an egg out then you can use oil just as effectively as KY jelly as recommended. Good luck. If you are coming across softies then that says they need more calcium in their diet, oyster shell or calcium supplement in their water will do the trick."

I come onto this forum every day and have found it invaluable, just reading all the subjects and 'taking in' the information, filing it away in my brain. Even if the subject doesn't immediately interest me, it's useful to know for the future. Originally I posted a lot, asking lots of questions, then gradually felt able to answer a few questions and pass on my own experience. I also belong to a couple of regional forums which are quite active ... they certainly serve a purpose in asking "where can I buy xxx" and problems with local services and the quirks of local prefectures. For here I go straight to 'active topics' and rarely look at the board overview. It seems to me that the Forum sections are very clear and well laid out, you'd know where to search on a specific topic. Perhaps, as someone said, there aren't as many newbies in France, housing market and all that. Is there any way to check how many people are logging on and not responding? Perhaps there are many who, like me, check in regularly, read a lot but don't feel able to reply (not enough knowledge) or the subject has already been dealt with, but our 'silent' visits do count towards forum activity?

About two months ago our phone line suddenly started dropping out, and the internet connection was hit and miss, which carried on for about a week. Kept ringing FT who asked if I'd changed settings on the computer ("no"), asked me to restart the livebox, etc. but it carried on. Eventually they said they would keep a log and ring me back the following day to check activity - I got the call and the engineer said that, somehow, my livebox service had been migrated over to another server (or something like that) which I shouldn't have been on, and that he had flicked the switch to put me back where I should have been (this is my less than technical interpretation of the problem!). Anyway, no problems since then. So speak to the FT engineer, keep a log of time/dates it happens and be persistent. Good luck!

yes, Schumacher is an infuriating man but immensely brave and talented. Hoping that he pulls through this ...

I've never seen 'It's a Wonderful Life' which I really really really want to see but it's never on the box at the same time as I'm sitting in front of it. I've also never cooked a Sunday roast which is dreadful, really, when all the other women of my age can knock together an impromptu 3-course supper for ten that's worth of a Michelin star, at a moment's notice. I'm hard pressed to throw together cheese on toast for me and Mr. Nectarine (he does the cooking) I've also never watched Strictly Come Dancing!

I've used Transferwise ... got the best rate out of the lot, easy to use, efficient, good communication. We don't transfer very often but will definitely use them again.

A very useful posting .... one of my shutter openers has also fallen apart on the telescopic crank bit ( didn't know how to describe it before so thanks for that). Thanks for the website link ...

There is a lot of hunting around where I am and certainly I would be wary of walking in the hills with a dog off the lead, just in case. However, the chasse do park their vehicles at the start of paths, to indicate that they're up there. Once, walking on a path I bumped into a hunter who looked really shocked to see me, and advised me to stick to the path. Re. animals, I have several cats and haven't lost one, nor heard of one being lost to hunters.

I was five and remember both events : the first Dr. Who which had me and my brother hiding behind the sofa, but entranced by the programme (the music on the credits, radical for its time). And also the assassination of JFK, when it came on the radio my parents told us kids to shut up as they were listening intently to the news. But back to Dr. Who .... science fiction is a rich source of invention, it would be interesting to see what gadgets they were using which are now in common use. A bit like 'Tomorrow's World' (anybody remember that?) which forecast the first microwave oven .. I remember my mother saying "piffle, it will never catch on". !!

If you're purchasing a property then consider the taxe d'habitation rates. We live just outside a small village with a shop, about four miles from a small town. Friends who live about three miles outside of that same town - but who are considered to be part of that commune - pay considerably more on their base tax rate, purely because they fall within that town's collective area. They don't have any more services than us - we're all on fosses septique - and are definitely out in the countryside as well. But our habitation and fonciere bills are about 2/3 of theirs. Worth thinking about when you are searching.

Saga insurance would insure a UK car for overseas use for, I think, 364 days a year meaning that you would have to bring it back to the UK. If you had a UK reg car then you'd have to bring it back for an annual MOT anyway. As long as you are UK resident then I'm fairly sure this complies with their requirement, worth giving them a ring as they had the best kind of insurance deal for overseas use (as I remember)

How very sad. I'd been hoping that she might survive against the odds, and the length of time she's been missing. Great sympathy to the family, but at least she's found though that will be little comfort.

The same Milliband who never got around to putting his name on his eldest child's birth certificate until the papers made a hoo-ha of it and then, being leader of a party, decided to get wed (makes him a little more respectacle). That says a lot about the man ...

We have three garden cats that we had sterilised but I certainly wouldn't pay for them to be chipped. They are ferals, strays, whatever, although they live in our woodshed. I just didn't want to keep having bundles of kittens so caught all 3 and got them sterilised. Do I have to legally have them tattooed or chipped?

I'm way too glamorous, thin and sexy to post my real avatar on here as it would drive you all to a mad frenzy of jealousy plus a stampede to my front door to witness this creature from paradise. Hence the duck. .