Scooby
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Posts posted by Scooby
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[quote user="Frederick"]I am being forced to save money at moment as my wife has decided we need to eat weight-watchers meals padded out with green veggies .. They are £1 a meal at Iceland ...also the Iceland fish pie and other fish ones are a £1 a time ....If you are in the UK please buy them then with a bit of luck they will run out and I will get some real fodder ![/quote][:D][:D]
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We shop at a variety of places in the UK. Our meat we buy in bulk from the abattoir and then split it for freezing. We also have meat and poultry from my brother-in-law's farm. Fish (and also chicken breasts and cheese) we buy from the wholesale fish merchants (15kg packs usually but frozen individually / loose / interleaved). Our nearest supermarket is Morrisons so I shop there for some things (tend to buy 2 for 3 deals etc when things are on offer). Bread, cakes, biscuits, pies, pasta, jams, chutneys, soups etc we make ourselves with flour / dried fruits etc from Morrisons as they have a good selection. We occasionally use Sainsbury's if I need something unusual - e.g. star anise for bottled fruits. Fruit: apples (cookers and eaters), pears, plums, damsons, gooseberries, cherries, redcurrants, blackcurrants, strawberries, raspberries, tayberries, rhubarb etc, we grow ourselves. The first thing we did when we bought the house 20+ years ago was plant an orchard / fruit garden. Likewise we grow herbs, some vegetables and salad / tomatoes / cucumber in summer. We also trade fruit and vegetables with my parents (my dad is a keen gardener.) We used to keep chickens but they are too much work now so we get our eggs from a friend at work who keeps hens or from my brother-in-law's farm (duck and hen eggs). Where possible I will try and buy organic, fair trade or local produce - we buy very little pre-processed food. We have an Aldi a couple of miles away which we also use as we like the European foods they stock - German sausage, Italian hams etc.In France we shop at the local markets and the nearby Intermarche. We also use the big supermarkets in town (E Leclerc and Carrefour) - but less frequently as they are quite a drive away. As I mentioned before we have tended to eat mainly vegetarian meals / salads over recent months due to the relative price of meat in France.
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[quote user="sweet 17"]
Why don't you just not reply to any of her posts? No need to let all your feelings hang out like that! Goodness, let's just preserve a semblance of civility on open Forum, shall we?
In my day (yes, I know that makes me sound ancient), we were never brought up to making rude remarks like those. You could think what you liked but you didn't say it in such a loud, common fashion, dear me..........[:$]
[/quote]I've ignored and deleted her pm's, made subtle suggestions that I find her posts offensive, even reported her to the mods to no avail. So maybe a blunt and public statement will work?? -
On the subject of jaw dropping prices I went to our local hairdressers for the first time last time we were in France. A colour, four foils and a trim - grand total 75E!! My friend had foils and cut and blow dry and her bill came to 96E. My normal bill in the UK for the same would be £32!
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Sorry Buelligan - as far as you are concerned non of them are repeatable / permissible. As already intimated, I find you arrogant and obnoxious and have no interest in exchanging views with you - either on the forum or by pm. (From the pm's I have received - I am not alone in my views.)
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In Temple Bar it's 3E30 for a half pint! Glad you had a fab weekend - I don't think we've had a bad weekend in Dublin - despite the prices!!
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I'm guessing the second [:)]
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And why perchance, my dearest Buelligan, would I know that you would read it that way....
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[quote user="buelligan"]
Could I drop in for a mo' and just try a teeny logic test here?[:D] Why would one bemoan the loss of cheaper menus in restaurants but avoid shopping in cheaper supermarkets?[8-)]
[/quote]The point I was making is that NickP could only get his lamb at a half reasonable price by shopping at Lidl - i.e. he was not comparing like (Sainsburys, Waitrose etc) with like (Lidl) -
Sorry Gemonimo - it's meat and it's in a tin. You can get it for 6-7 euros a tin (that will feed 4-5) - well that was the price the last time we bought it (6 tins 3 weeks ago) See we do like to buy it to bring home [:)]. But it is a cheap option for restaurateurs. I agree, Gemonimo, I do like it - and it's a world away from spam but if only all the restaurants didn't serve it to the exclusion of everything else. If you are a tourist and new to the area then great - but if you are in the area for any length of time it would be nice to have a little more variety...
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Quillan - next time you go to Dublin, head for The Celt on Talbot Street (right off O'Connell (via Earl Street) http://www.dublinpubscene.com/thepubs/thecelt.html). Great pub with really good atmosphere and music and decently priced Guinness. It's not the 3E50 a pint place I referred to earlier but 4E40 which, given the fabulous live music, is a decent price. Give Temple Bar a very wide berth - complete rip off and for tourists only - no self respecting Dubliner would be seen dead in a TB pub! For the very best live music head to Doolin in Co Clare.There are lots of places in Dublin to eat for under a tenner - pm me if you want details.
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As I said - where we live the Lidl stores (like their Danish equivalent, Netto) are located in the poorest areas of the city.
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Last time I saw the Lidl shoppers they were loading their trolleys with cheap junk food (I use the term 'food' very loosely here!). Corner shop owners know that people only ever visit a corner shop when they don't have the luxury of going elsewhere - hence are happy to compromise on what they buy.
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Maybe Lidl in France is different than the UK? It's mainly families on benefits that shop at UK Lidl stores...or Asians stocking up on cheap stuff to sell at their corner shop! It's certainly not somewhere you'd want to linger for any length of time!
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[quote user="Quillan"]Mind you if you want to complain about prices try Dublin. Went there last year for a 6N match and my Carte Blue is still hurting and Mrs Q won't let me go there again (so its Rome this year [:-))]).[/quote]We were in Dublin a couple of days ago and ate for a fiver a head - Guinness 3E50. It depends where you eat. We were with locals and avoided the tourist places. Iceland was the most expensive place I ate - £25 for a cheese and tomato pizza and a glass of coke - but that was pre the crunch. The 12E menus near where we are in France have long disappeared - we tend to go veggie and cook in rather than eat out now.
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[quote user="nectarine"]But on my return to France, what a relief to find quiet roads, proper home cooking in restaurants rather than the boil-in-the-bag stuff you'd find in most Harvesters, villages that start and end with countryside in between rather than the urban sprawl that is southern England ... and of course good weather![/quote]Our local pub (here in England) has a full time chef and the food is fabulous. You can eat really well for less than a tenner. Where we are in France it's mainly confit, green beans and sauté potatoes - every menu is the same... The cheapest menu is 16E so over £14 for what is, basically, tinned meat. To get a half decent meal you have to spend over £20. It's very rare that we eat out now in France.The urban sprawl and scruffiness is the same (if not worse) in France - except that most on here would call the scruffy French buildings 'quaint'.
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It is a pity, though, that one has to slum it at Lidls now that one has left the home counties and Waitrose....
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NickPNo idea what's going on in good old blighty (or France for that matter) - busy backpacking around Europe, though there has been a lot of flooding in Galway (where we are atm). Glad to hear you are from the home counties old chap - good egg etc.... Not sure where Loir et cher is though. You sure you spelled that right??I take it the mint cake ran out...or you choked on it?
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We love our troc and have got some amazing bargains. The solid oak dresser: 4m long, took 4 men to carry in and which is universally admired...for less than 400 euro. Matching pair of single beds for 10 euros the pair (ok needed some minor fixing up but are great). Two uplighters at 5 euros each. Leather office chair - 20 euros...I could go on ad tedium. My fave place.Ok there is some crap there too - but tis so much fun browsing [:)]
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[quote user="sweet 17"]
The latest............I am saddened (although I'm likely to be a beneficiary) by the number of Brits that just need to go back to the UK.
One case of a widow now on her own with large grounds, one of a couple having had to leave France through lack of work, one where the husband is ill and one where the wife is ill. So very, very distressing............and, believe me, they are practically giving their properties away.
I don't really feel like a vulture because I think that if I don't buy their houses, they'll be in even more of a pickle.
But I do find it inexpressibly sad and I wish I could buy 4 or 5 houses instead of only one.
Anway, off to the Loire Atlantique area to see a house tomorrow. Would LOVE to fall in love on Tuesday when I see it.............
Life can be so harsh, don't you think?[+o(]
[/quote]I'm guessing that many of those selling will have bought when the exchange rate was 1.5 to 1.7 so what they lose on a reduced price they gain on conversion. Even if they are selling in sterling the outcome will be the same. -
I'm not sure. Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS) charities would have to be high up there (just because I have EDS and know how little understood and poorly recognised it is). Mental health would have to be another. It has less funds than most of the other charities (including animal charities) and yet mental health problems are wide reaching and devastating. Drugs rehabilitation would be another - too many people get to the point where they want to kick the habit only to find there is a 6 month waiting list for rehab and the moment is lost. This is a completely crazy situation IMHO. Animal charities wouldn't get anything I'm afraid (sorry Christine). In the UK animal charities get more funds than most other causes which I find bizarre - why should animals be treated better than human beings?? (And yes, we are animal lovers and have had a series of rescue dogs...but perspective, please)Would I want to win £45m? I really don't think I would. I think a win of that size would change your life irrevocably and not for the better. Imagine being constantly suspicious of peoples motives, being worried about the welfare of your family, of the risk of kidnapping, extortion, fraud. My elderly parents would soon be known as 'the parents of the lottery winners' and be hounded, be forced to move, lose their circle of friends... It would become a nightmare. A win of £1m -£2m would give you a wonderful life without all the above - which would be a good reason to give most of it away I guess!!
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[quote user="Richard"]Isn't war crap?[/quote]Totally and utterly crap, Richard. There are no winners just varying degrees of losers.
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http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_French_women_and_children_were_killed_as_%27collateral_damage%27_in_the_invasion_of_NormandyI would add that my Uncle Francis was an RAF bomber pilot and he had nightmares to his dying day about the bombing raids he carried out. When he reached his eighties and developed alzheimers the nightmares became more vivid (as he relapsed back his earlier life). My Auntie Pat became so distressed she didn't know what to do to help him. War and its effects last for a long, long time,
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[quote user="Cendrillon"]We were discussing once whether Britain had a holiday on Armistice day and I still remember one very good Fr friend saying to me that the Englishwere not in the first world war so perhaps that was why we didn't have a holiday !!! [/quote]I am horrified that she didn't know that. It is terribly sad given the immense sacrifices that were made by those English soldiers who died alongside the French. It was a horrible, horrible war.http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen1.html
France is getting a bit pricey?
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