Gardengirl

Bonne route to you and Mme NM.

Thanks for the link, Norman. I read your early comment about how it felt different to normal protests to you. I’m not in France now, but the feeling I got last Saturday when watching events in Paris was that it was more a revolution than a protest. Reading that article made it seem more true than I had thought. Is this perhaps leading to the beginning of the 6th republic?

Nothing new with shoplifters stealing to order - I’ve been aware of it from 1979, when I started work at a particularly difficult school on a problem housing estate in Berkshire. It was considered a normal thing to do by a certain section of the population. Some 20 years later at a school in a more prosperous area of the town, I was considered daft by some not to have a flash tv etc when all I needed to was ask ........ to get me one.

I understand that there are calls to protest in large numbers this weekend for higher pay. I always think of Kipling’s poem ‘Danegeld’ in such cases of blackmail: The most famous lines are "once you have paid him the Danegeld You never get rid of the Dane."

Goodness, Pat, you’re on very familiar terms with that person!

Bentham Pottery mugs have all been pre-ordered. However, Mary Chapelhow is now making 100 Brexit mugs, with 10% of the price going to MDNA, Motor Neurone Disease Association, which is the charity that Lee from the Bentham Pottery was supporting with a percentage from the sale of the brexit mugs. 33 of Mary’s 100 will be available by Christmas; the 2 I’ve ordered will be Christmas presents. They cost £50 + £5p. If anyone is interested, contact Mary by email - as she’s only making a small number she hasn’t put them on her website. [email protected] Norman, thank you for helping me to find Christmas presents for 2 friends who are difficult to buy for, who will love their useless brexit mugs.

The excellent GP practice we’re registered with in Our small town in France usually has apoointments available within 2-4 days with any GP, longer for your MT. Up to a couple of years ago an appointment was always the same or the next day. All of the doctors are quite young, so apart from such things as maternity leave, we’re unlikely to lose any. Fingers crossed. However, quite a number of apartment blocks have been built in the last few years, so patient numbers have risen a lot, Our excellent GP practice in the UK that we’ve been registered with for 40+ years almost always had same day/next day appointments until about 18 months year ago. Now it can be a week before one is available, possibly more. Some of the difficulties are due to maternity leave and the change by GPs to part-time work when the babies arrive. That applies to our 2 usual doctors at the moment. However, most problems seem due to funding, as our doctors use phone appointments, nurse practitioners and other innovative methods. If our practice, with maybe 20 GPs in 3 places around the relatively affluent area is finding difficulties it worries me that less innovative practices, maybe with only 1/2 doctors and in more difficult areas will be under much greater strain.

> ? ? ?

Thanks for that, Norman. Yes, being non-resident, there's usually a letter early each year on which we can opt out of paying the taxe audiovisuelle, which I assume all non-residents receive. As I mentioned, the letter didn’t arrive this year. It did occur to me that next year’s change, with those with an internet connection having to pay, might have been applied early. I’ve contacted our tax office fir infirmation and will report back when I hear from them.

Our TdH arrived at our home in the UK today. It included an amount for tv, which we don’t have, and I don’t remember receiving the usual opt-out letter earlier this year. Does anyone know if something changed about the tv contribution this year, if it is now compulsory? I’ve looked up Clair’s letter to the tax people from all those years ago, but hesitated about sending it until I’m sure it’s not compulsory, but it was listed separately.

Cajal, you’re lucky that none of you have caught flu. My husband did quite a few years ago and was extremely ill, took a long time to fully recover, and he was a young, fit man. Many didn’t recover. Are there separate flu jabs for under and over 65s this year, or us it only in the UK?

It’s a very long time since I had a jab in my bottom, an anti-emetic after being ill for hours. Our gp practice does hundreds each Saturday morning, all at the tops of arms, with everyone in the queue ready with sleeves rolled up. Just imagine the scene with whole rows of bottoms sticking up ready, under 65s on one side, over-65s the other - easy to spot which row was which as the under-65s could probably bend lower than we oldies! ?

? ? ? Or youtube might help..........

We invested our money in a home in the south of France, signed to buy nearly 12 years ago. It’s in a lovely, small, historic town which is friendly and to which hundreds of French people, among others, retire each year. We had visited for 20+ years, knew it in all seasons before buying, love the countryside around it. We don’t stay in the summer, avoiding the worst of the heat and the height of the tourist season

Norman said: Norman, I hope that your energy consumption goes down like ours did when we had reversible aircon installed. We had assumed that our bills would go up dramatically as our apartment is south-facing and became extremely hot even with the shutters closed and the awning out from early morning. Our aircon made it much more comfortable, but we though it would be at a cost, worth paying fir us. Plus our apartment becomes extremely cold while we’re back in the UK, especially during the few weeks around Christmas/January, as no neighbours are at one side of us in winter and those underneath us are there only intermittently. So the heating part had a lot of work to do to warm the apartment up and keep it comfortable. Not only have we been much more comfortable in the apartment in both summer and winter, but the savings compared with previous bills have been considerable.

> You’re very derogatory about British people - the people you come across must have given you very strange ideas to have such low opinions of other people.

The smart motorways aren’t for me either, 3 lanes are more than enough for me. It seems that the more lanes there are, the bigger the traffic jams become.

We’re in the Gard not the Herault, but we know several people near us who rent out their properties for varying amounts of time, who would be very happy to rent to you for the months you need. The price would be reasonable too as it would be out of season. Have a look at homeaway, holidaylettings, booking.com etc for each of the places you’re interested in, although I think that your dates might be too far away just now. Some companies won’t allow you to search for more than 30 days, but contact the owners of places that interest you; you might well get a good price. One thing to bear in mind is adequate heating and if a place hasn’t got good insulation your bills could be high. We once rented a gite in the Ardèche in winter, where we were extremely cold indoors. We used the oven and hob to try to keep warm plus there weren’nt any comfortable chairs to relax in when spending winter evenings indoors. In summer it probably would have been lovely, spending a lot of time outdoors. Another place we rented twice in winter, in the Drome, was kitted out well, heating was very good - we tested it well as we had snow both times, and the armchairs were very comfortable. The owners rented their property out all year and they clearly planned well. Good luck with your search.

ebaynut said: > I always thought that the Daily Mail was fanatical about brexit, pro-brexit at all times. Until now, with a new editor and opinion around the UK starting to move towards supporting those who always did want to stay in the EU. And didn’t ‘leading fugures’ such as Johnson, Gove etc constantly ‘spout their spin every second’? I find it hard to imagine that Macron’s government would want current EU residents in France given a hard time after brexit.

> Oh, not that hobbyhorse again! Rein it in, please.

I believe that the new regime will start in March. I remember reading that member countries will choose whether to stick with summertime or not. My neighbour (95 years old) said of it a few days ago that it will all turn out to be ‘une grande pagaille’. It’s very nice to see you, Clair. I still use my Remoska a lot, bought on your recommendation and cook all sorts of good things in it.

albf says don’t move to rural France - hundreds of thousands of people live in rural France, many of whom were born there. So your advice is that they all stay hidden in their houses? Really? We don’t live in rural France but in a small town of about 10,000 inhabitants. Our French neighbour in the next apartment goes hunting each week, as do several French friends. Their families go out into the countryside, some on the same walks as me, including our hunting neighbour’s wife - every week regular as clockwork. Most of those in our walking groups are French, quite a few born and bred in villages and hamlets near our little town. Try telling them that they should stay indoors - they’d tell you what to do in no uncertain terms, an English man trying to tell French people to stay indoors......

So sad that so many people have been killed, particularly in tge last few years by hunters out enjoying their day and trying to keep numbers of sangliers down, which do so much damage. I know that in some areas, numbers of hunters are dropping; many hope that the recent announcement that licences will cost less will encourage younger people to join local groups. I feel that an eye test would be appropriate for hunting groups, although some people have difficulty arranging eye test appointments. Another concern is that local groups in our area indulge in a lot of alcohol before, after and indeed during shoots.

I hope that they are well away from water courses, safe and dry with no damage to cope with. It doesn’t seem long since Judith’s house was flooded. She posted this morning, so hopefully all is well with her. I was following the storm alerts - we had some out for the Gard but fortunately for our area they moved further west, where they received large quantities of rain. I read that the death toll has risen to 13 with other people missing. A terrible time for many people, thank goodness for the emergency services.

We now have 3 pharmacies, serving a town of around 10,000, with several villages of varying sizes nearby whose inhabitants use the twn pharmacies. We had 4 pharmacies until a few months ago, when one moved to the local commercial centre which has grown rapidly. An optician has also moved down there, leaving plenty of others in town, plus there’s one of the newish breed of cheap specs shops there - I’ve not yet seen anyone go into the cheap specs shop when I’ve been going in and out of the next door bio shop.