Eos

In a slightly different vein, a friend's husband regularly travels abroad for work, usually necessitating hiring a car. On his last trip to Germany a junior colleague, eager to impress on his first trip away for the company, offered to make the hire car arrangements and drive his boss, my friend's husband, for the duration. On presenting his details at the hire desk, the Junior Member was told he had outstanding speeding offences on cars cars hired in Spain through the same company and that they would be in no position to offer him a car prior to sorting out the fines. I don't know if this is the done thing  across the board. Anyway,  JM said, not that he wouldn't speed again but that he would pay his fines in future so I'm guessing he must have had some sort of notification that he ignored.

I have been known to cry all weekend after a dodgy do here, there or wherever!! So I was amazed to hear myself say to my new French, male hairdresser to do whatever he thought best. I have never had so much time or care taken over my hair. After a minimum of discussion, he cut, coloured, trimmed & tweaked my usually unocooperative hair into a style that I may not ever have considered but that I now love. He wrote my details on a card to be retained by him & said that only if I change my mind will he deviate from what he did this time!!   I noticed that the other posters referred to female hairdressers so maybe it's a male thing...

I would suggest having a look at Montpellier in the Herault. It's a university city with an obviously young population, good public transport, close to the Med and the swimming pool is pretty good too! Scenery is varied, wines are good and living is not too expensive. I don't live there but I do like to visit.

They say the phone connection is for automatic programming updates, on screen messaging for competitions etc. I think you can email through their package aswell. I know since we got the + box whenever it came out first, we don't receive Sky cards. Before we got broadband, we had two lines into the house each with it's own number but we had the facility to automatically swap between the two. If one line was taken up with a phone call, we could use the internet or fax machine on the other. Sky sent quite a few letters advising us not to move our Sky+ box between addresses as we were contractually obliged to have the box at the address nominated for these updates etc as presumably each time they updated our box, they came through a different number. They finally understood the situation a couple of months before our area was broadband enabled but we weren't cut off and nor did the promised engineer arrive to check things out.

I've just had a look at the BMJ which says that the virus can survive for long periods in a lot of fresh, partially cooked, cured and smoked meats and also in inadequately pasteurised dairy products. Crossing from one species to another is very rare and even if it does, humans suffer little - the reverse of the animal situation where it's highly contagious and can affect some wild as well as farm animals.  With humans,  I think close contact with affected animals, as opposed to ingesting infected produce, is required. It did make the point that the onus is on the public to be careful, not perhaps to protect their own health or even that of the poor animals but to avoid economic hardship as other countries may refuse to sanction imports.

Cerise, the foot & mouth virus can survive for, I believe, up to a month in cheddar type cheeses. Gernerally the acidity levels are too low to destroy it completely.  

A friend had a similar experience two years ago. She only found out the value of the tiles from a non-interested third party after her builder had removed and kindly disposed of the "waste" free of charge. She kindly chooses to believe that her builder didn't know. However as renovating and extending older properties is quite common, the need for such salvage must be growing and builders must be aware of this. Yours sound like hers but I guess it's like everything else, something is only worth what someone is willing to pay.

Exactly my point, Iceni. The original post did have a "whatever" included in the question and in my late night response, it was actually the whatever rather than the place names I had in mind! Guess I'll have to stop this late night trawling as I'm only too tempted to reply when clearly not alert enough to do so!!    

In my opinion PTAs can be pretty fraught wherever you are and no matter how well you speak the language. There will always be an old guard resistant to outsiders either from outside the village or the country and equally there will always be those happy to have new blood as these associations can stagnate, particularly as children move up through the school system. A lot of parents are enthusiastic when their children are young or if they have an axe to grind. Usually support is welcome and they may be excited to hear what you as a non French person have to bring to the table in terms of new ideas.  

Keep things simple is my advice. Small, flat glass ramekins half filled with water & each containing a different flower head or coloured tea lights & placed in front of each diner is quite effective.    

Particularly if paint has been opened at some time in the past and then left to "mature" before the next use! Presume it's because emulsion tends to be water based and wouldn't have the preservative effect of the oil based paints.

From our campsite visiting days, if I remember, the objections were twofold. Larger shorts cause greater water displacement  & in a country where water is money, that is important. Also the detergents, of which most of us use too much, that remain in the fabric can have an effect on the overall chemical balance.   No idea if that all stacks up. Obviously in a campsite there would be greater numbers of people so it did sound plausible.   With our own pool however, not an issue as the odd bit of skinny dipping has not been unknown!

Would also anticipate insurance implications.

[quote user="Just Katie"] Eos, please accept my apologies if I am wrong and also for insulting you.  However, it does seem a little coincidental that Wen again tips the apple cart with her childish and arrogant ranting.  Then, hey presto when other members express their anti-Wen opinions, a newbie pops up to her defence.  Also, you have shown no interest in any other thread but quite a passion to defending Wen. Hmmm. [/quote] JK, I have no interest in prolonging this bickering, believe I am Wen or don't. My passion was to see the angle at which hunting was viewed and what caused so many posts. I didn't expect to become so involved in this irrelevancy. As a "newbie", it could hardly be surprising that I haven't made many contributions so far although there have been some. What will be more surprising is if there are any in the future! As the hunting thread deteriorated into a series of what seemed to be personal attacks,  I found it very uncomfortable. I would be very disappointed if writing with that content appeared in my teenagers social networking pages. I also find this uncomfortable. That so many of you dislike Wen through whatever history you share, is not my problem and from now I am ceasing to let it be.   Thank you Catalpa for the sense of humour!    

I found the sonic device worked really well against the mouse (mice) we had in our attic. Downside? Perhaps. We now have a lot of spiders at ceiling height in all the rooms while the attic is a cobweb free environment!!

[quote user="Just Katie"] [quote user="Suninfrance"]Did I miss something ??????? [8-)] [/quote] It is so nice of Eos to be so defensive and protective of our 'lovely' Wen [;-)][;-)][:D] [/quote] You've missed a lot more than you realise if you think I am Wen!      

I disagree with the poisoning of any animal in any circumstances but on reading through this whole thread, does it smack a little of a Wen hunt...?

Bugbear, Irrelevant to the thread but for the sake of clarity, the right turn the tractor took was into the ditch on the other side of the road, through/over my husband's car with ne'er a junction, field entrance, layby or carpark entrance in sight! However I do take your point about being careful about things such as those. The burden of care though should go both ways. Eos.  

Hi Hagar,   I too find French drivers not much worse or better than those anywhere else I've ever driven, with the exception of Italy. There every journey undertaken showcased at least one example of how not to drive whether it be car, scooter or truck. With regard to the overtaking driver not being at fault and your difficulty contemplating that concept, my husband had his new car written off on a straight road while overtaking a slow moving tractor and trailer that had no road tax, insurance, indicator lights, tail lights or wing mirrors after the unlicensed driver decided to take an unsignalled right turn as my husband was mid manoeuvre. His insurance company took the tractor driver to court where the judge found in my husband's favour. This however, did not happen in France and things may be seen differently there. Eos.      

My first post so please all be gentle!!   In our experience Saturdays, while awkward sometimes for the flights that might suit guests more, tend to work better if you have to get cleaning or pool staff in. The other advantage, particularly if a booking is a little early or late in the season, is that your guests have the chance to do a bit of shopping to supplement all the goodies left by you! I guess if you're looking after things yourselves, then the choice is yours. Hope that helps. Eos