Gardengirl

In England my apple trees have the June drop. They sort themselves out as they are about 60 years old and big, but the lawn is covered with the drop for several weeks. Wooly, do enjoy watching your apple tree and please add the progress of your fruit to the thread.

Of course there are things I agree with so much in that editorial, but with the thought of Mr Corbyn and his sidekick Mrs/Ms Abbott in charge I can't help thinking of the last Labour messiah - BLiar, and what he led our country in to.

There's a huge amount of vitriol about Mrs May, but the thought of Mr Corbyn in charge of the country really worries me. There's much about the current and last governments that concerns me and Mrs May and her team don't always seem to see the picture clearly and many policies obviously haven't been thought through properly. What the last Labour government did to the country seems to have been forgotten, and the money to pay for all the increases Mr Corbyn plans to put in place can only come from higher taxes and even more borrowing.

Heavens, that's going back a bit, woolie's sister, of course.

I've received some PMs but can't answer them via the link as it wouldn't accept my password. I even tried a new password sent by LF but it also wouldn't work. So I replied via a new PM.

? ? ?

I wondered what was meant by 'the right country'............

I've been told that that is so, Pat. On a French course at the British Institute in Paris a long time ago, the main prof said that he had found that to be true over many years, as many vowel sounds are similar. I'm also from the NE; I'm told that my accent is good - but it's dfficult to know oneself how good or bad it is.

Loiseau, sorry to hear that, broken ribs can be so painful, and there's not much can be done apart from taking painkillers. I used to crack ribs when sneezing - yes, pretty enormous sneezes, had to sleep sitting up, and when going to work I would put the car in 2nd gear and drive all the way in that, too painful to change gear. Both my husband and I were in hospital in Nîmes last year, both had several hours of waiting after a quick triage, both taken in by ambukance. My husband was amongst about 20 people on stretchers lined up in a corridor as all the curtained-off bays for stretchers were full, 60+ in those. Very few visits from staff overnight (I sat next to my husband's trolley all night) and I brought bottles of water from the machine for whoever wanted it, having checked first with a nurse. I went home for a quick shower early next morning and on my return they had lost my husband, told me he had gone home; no clothes, no keys, no money, no phone.......... I eventually found him in a corridor further away - still on a drip! So much for him already being discharged. I hope you're not too uncomfortable.

Oh, Norman, you're a pussycat - and a really helpful one too. ?

> That doesn't stop some people! ?

So nice to see a name and avator from the past; getting shut out of the forum is no fun.

I've seen signs prominently placed in B&Bs which said that if anyone smoked in the room a fixed charge of €70 would be added to the bill for steam cleaning. We were told by one couple that they agree with guests on arrival whether or not there was a smell of smoke in the rooms before they settled in. They said it worked, no more rooms smelling of smoke - but they didn't ask us to agree about any smokey smell in the room we stayed in! We don't smoke, by the way.

Sorting out after flood damage really can take time; friends of ours had an enormous amount of damage following flooding and it seemed to take forever. Eurostar direct to Avignon is showing for our September trip down and mid-October trip back to England plus up to 4th November, all those dates on Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays, I think it was. I'm hoping they will run some right through the window - a forlorn hope, probably.

We travelled back on Saturday and, as Judith said, plenty of help was at hand at Lille with luggage or anything else if needed. All Standard Premier carriages moved together as there were only a few people in each. It was all very civilised, with coffee and snacks brought round once we were back in our seats. The only thing that wasn't good was that the train was old and creaked and swayed a lot more than the Eurostar we travelled down on; I felt unsteady for a good couple of hours after arriving at St Pancras. We've already booked to travel south in a couple of weeks time and our return to the UK in July, Standard Premier at £99 each for each leg.

It's a blessing the homework didn't use the word 'gotten'. Some members of English classes we take in our town used to have an American couple teaching them before we took over. We found members used quite a few American phrases, which really grated, such as gotte, cowlick, parking lot etc.

Sitting up in bed this morning in our hotel in London I saw part of a news item showing the early morning queues snaking round the buildings; French people waiting to vote in the presidential election. I suppose they would mostly be voting for M. Macron. His choice of people for his cabinet so far is interesting, no doubt to appeal to a wide range of views. I really wish him good luck.

Bliar did make the peace process a major priority of his government and worked hard to bring it about, with Bertie Ahearn, George Mitchell and Bill Clinton and many others, not forgetting Mo Mowlem. But it's often forgotten that John Major helped to develop a framework for the peace progress.

Remembering the length and breadth of his election publicity, I should say nil points.

So - we could find another side of you on an unknown (to the rest of us) forum, Chancer!

albf, you keep saying thst posts you write are meant to be fun, but it seems many of us don't appreciate that they could possibly be in fun. You don't mention fun until people post in such a way that you take offence. For example, we started responding helpfully to this thread. You need an alert to let those of us who think you are a prat know that you might still be a prat, but you're a prat who wants some fun.

Exactly one of my points, Idun; receiving a nice note back from the teacher doesn't mean there won't be repercussions. Of course, not every French teacher would be deliberately unfair to a child because of the behaviour of a parent, but I have heard from so many friends that this can and does happen. ''One may smile and smile and be a villain'', Shakespeare, Hamlet Act I, scene 5.

Albf said: Two whole decades - nearly as long as some others on this forum! You didn't read my post correctly. I didn't say you epitomise everything I dislike about the UK, but in people from the UK. Especially those who think they are a cut above others from the UK who live in France, such as you. If you intend a thread to be 'tongue and cheek' (sic), maybe you should label it as such, then everyone would know that.

ALBF, do you feel better now? How very rude you are. You epitomise what I intensely dislike in people from the UK. I really hope that your child isn't treated unfairly and marked down because of your action of sending a note to your child's teacher pointing out her error, which several posters on here had said wasn't a good idea. A more sensible person, of whatever nationality, would have left well alone, apart from helping their child to learn a very valuable lesson - that one tailors one's language and behaviour according to circumstances, while remaining true to oneself. In this case, that she should use appropriate language at home and at school.

Despite the article in Norman's link going on at length with examples of 'got' and 'have got', it ends with: