Frederick

   Should anybody be planning to visit the UK during December and January and be thinking of a Travel Lodge stop over .... today they have come up with an offer of thousands more £19 a night rooms for those months . 

I heard on the radio that the UK experts are going to put together the Chinese Mitten Crab and the American Creyfish with the belief that the crab will eat the American pest that kills the local species  .........I have not heard of any of these in French streams ponds etc ....As the crab grows to the size of a dinner plate knowing the foragers of the Vendee they would have been on one pretty quick if they are edible ......anybody seen any creyfish or crab foragers in the inland waterways ? 

  Just as the price of fuel was coming down when it looked like we will all soon be broke.....along come todays rescue package and guess what.............up shoots the price of oil to keep us paying top doller at the pumps  !

Permitted in Australia and supported by law .....nobody  can object I believe ...I attended a meeting this year in Queensland and a mother fed an 11 week old during the meeting ... everybody took it as quite a normal thing for her to do .......

I dont know the name of it but I believe there  is in France an authority that concerns itself with streams lakes water courses etc ...I know my cousin has a visit from them occasionally to check the  stream and the sluices feeling their lakes and they are in trouble if the sluice gates  fail to work.its all to do with prevention of flooding down stream I think ....so when it comes to shifting stream flows etc I dont think you can just do what you like .I think I might find out who they are and talk to them .  I imagine sombody will know and put the details on here !

Charity that rescues cats had 11.2 million sitting  in one of the Icelandic banks ....do I want to see my tax pounds bailing them out  because they made the wrong choice in where to put this huge amount of money ..........no I do not.........I think the Iceland Governement should do it even if it takes them 20 years ..and in the meanwhile they will have to pass the hat round the cat lovers again ..

When it comes to supermarkets in France one expects to find the left hand does not know what the right is doing some times ....UK too it seems ...I drove into Tesco this morning as SKY news reported that they  had cut the price of fuel by 3p a ltr today  so filled up my huge tank over 50 quid  to find that they had not dropped the price at the garage I used ....manager .he siad they had not had an e mail from HQ about this so did not know what I was talking about.! ..Came home phoned customer service told them it would be a good idea to drop the price before the press office put out  price drop information and to tell the garages ......didnt know what I was talking about  so told him to Google  Tesco Fuel Price Cut ....result   "  I can see what you mean ..thank you for pointing this out sir ...I had better get onto sombody now about this  "...  wonderful ...but too late for me ! 

I think Barrym that Wolly is on the right path here....we had a boom in building a couple of years or so ago and  people got in on the act to try and make money as plots came up for sale at a good price .Houses were build and sold quite quickly and they probably did alright .....now with village houses taking a long time to sell .....over a year in some cases now which is unusual for this area 10 minutes from the beaches   and the prices dropping it just looks like the new build guys have adopted a  "wait and see what happens " policy when it comes to getting them completed ..gossip is some have been caught out .cant afford to finish them ...

Ooops.......... just spotted similar thread under "Gite Owners " so perhaps mods can move it.....not concerned with providing for others  just what we are likely to need that people find is not easy to get in France in way of medications etc ...... 

My first aid box only had the usual bandages and plasters and asprin /paracetamol ....but ....after getting a bad chesty cough and finding the local cough mixture a bit weak ...   I am now resolved to stack the thing with Vicks Vapour rub.... Covonia. Chesty Cough Mixture from the  UK  and whatever else I may need to have  to ship out .....What do you find you need in yours to keep you on your feet ?

I am inland a bit from La Tranche and we have lots of bungalow type houses now  with roofs on and no windows in bare concrete block construction un plastered that have not been worked on for ages round us and no sign of completion ....I was told that the retired from Paris and the second home buyers are not about in the numbers they were now ..?... Its a shame because unoccupied houses in a village  does not help support the local shops we have already  lost the butcher

There are now lots and lots of new build houses in South Vendee that work on has come to a halt. It has been explained to me that a lot of people who thought they could buy a plot of land  cheap .put up a house and then sell for a good profit have now realised that the buyers are no longer there and stopped work on them  ...40 houses I am told are  currently for sale in the area mine is in....One now owned by a bank I am told will go for the 38.000 they are owed ...so sombody will profit from the present troubles .....

Came to me today in Email from Australia .....

In the last 7 days the Origami Bank has folded Sumo Bank has gone belly up. Bonsai Bank announced plans to cut some branches. Yesturday.it was announced thet Karaoke bank is up for sale and will likely go for a song. while today shares in Kamikaxe Bank were suspended after they nose dived. Samuai Bank is soldering on after sharp cutbacks Ninja Bank is reported to have taken a hit....but they remain in the black .. Furthermore .500 staff at Karate Bank got the chop and analysts report that there is somthing fishy going on at Sushi Bank where it it feared staff may get a raw deal..............

Guy next doors land has other side of his hedge and therefor at the road side a great crop of blackberries growing ..Last week I noticed they were ripe when I left my car in the road ....My wife was in the garden so I called out .." Lot of big blackberries ready to p;ick out here  " We  assume our neighbour who speaks good English heard the call and rallied the troops !  By the time my wife went out with her bowl there were two people already  out there picking and a guy with a set of steps coming down the road for the high ones  .....We still got enough for a blackberry and apple crumble that evening and one put in the freezer ...The hedges are full of them this year .....

White  van mans seat covers ....now   if we can get some printed with football club badges on for the lads and some frilly ones for the ladies  designed  there could be a bob or two to be made here .....designer floressance  could be all the rage !    Brico depot  get the triangle and the gilet together in the same red bag under 6 euros .....could not resist it so now have two !

Last week I saw off my 78 year old sister and husband from Nantes Airport Ryan Air to Bournemouth ...The flight was delayed due to the late  arrival of the incoming aircraft .....the passengers however were called  into an area by a boarding gate with no seating.. being a glass walled  corridoor  and they were left standing in line for 45 minutes where it got very warm indeed  . Some people resorted to lying on the floor and my sister not in the best of health found standing for so long difficult .......Is this normal at Nantes ...and who calls the flights to boarding gates the Nantes airport people or Ryan Air staff ....anybody know ? 

I once bought a house with  a shed / workshop sitting on them........the shed was still on sound sleepers when I sold the place ....calculate a good 30 years and the shed is still  there today .... that got treated with parafin and old engine oil .

They dont just have a coating of tar to preserve them.......remember the sign..... "Do not pull the chain while the train is standing in the station " .......dont take sandwiches ...

Callie........I agree its facinating looking into your family history.....mine also went to America in the 1700's and even ended up married into two native American tribes....so I have indians with my surname .....I dont suppose I shall every find out how that came about but there must be a story there .

I would definatly follow Rons advice and check out your local SNCF ....they might just be glad to get rid of them .....I can only speak of Network Rail who used to sell off theirs ...or burn them ..Reading triangular sidings site was the place for burning hundreds ! SNCF  must be the same the track laid today comes in made up sections with concrete sleeepers attached and laid by a rial lift track layer  machine . Sidings /marshelling yards  tend to still  have the wooden sleepers ...you may find them  stacked up round sidings  from where they have been replaced by modern track....I would call in and  chat up the  SNCF staff ...they will know where the old wooden ones end up .

Qullan .........Faith  schools are too popular to ban  ......lots of people have moved house just to get their kids into one .......suicide for any governement  to go down that road ....and the lot in now will need every vote they can grab at the next election ...wont happen

Bright red ones in the garages...... E3.60 when I paid for my fuel and bought two last month .....You might find a stall in your local markets doing them like they are in ours at the moment where they are about  E 6 ......

Where are you ....from UK to France or what ?

Ryan Air Bournemouth to Nantes which is the route my family use for the Vendee is doing  no tax flights  for a pound in October...they use Nova for reduced rate car hire ........no connection with them ..just love a good deal !