bubbles

Who's going to let the MP's (from Germany) through immigration?

Of course, there is the Catalan "x". Our favourite place used to be Baixas (Bash us!)

Must agree that they can be very useful on long country walks for example.

Am warming to you at last, Pach!!

I would try sending them an email and explaining what you want to do. It might just work. Nothing to lose anyway. We used to disconnect our phone every winter when we went back to England. Seem to remember one year when I wanted to reconnect they said I had to send them the exact amount of my last bill - to the very centime. I just replied that I didn't have the bill to hand. They let me off and reconnected me anyway. All done online in pigeon French. Not sure if it helped but I always began my emails with an apology for my dreadful French (even though I checked every verb ending at least three times and used the big dic). ps just re-read your post and see that you are talking about phone and internet. In our case it was just the phone line that we managed to reconnect on line. Bizarrely, we had to go into the Orange shop to reconnect the internet!

Oh, Stan. This is for 40euros - right? I'm sure your relative wouldn't want you to go through all this angst for 40euros. If it were me I'd want to pay in the 40euros at your bank for you and you can pay me somehow - bring me some nice French wine next time you come over to UK, or order me some books from Amazon or something. I know how you feel about this being like borrowing money but just try to think out of the box perhaps.

As it's only a small amount, maybe the relative would pay it in today and then you could investigate the best way to repay him. ps. Western Union does exist in France. We used it once to send money to US. It was based at a large post office in Perpignan - quite an expensive way of doing it I seem to remember but it was an emergency.

Our French agents wanted 10%. We sold privately in the end - not to the man who looked in the estate agent's window and then used Google Earth to deduce which street we lived on and then cold-called us!!

So you just walked off and left the earring on the ground? Or did some gallant gentilhomme retrouve it for you?

Yep. That's me - Jean. Face to face I always had to say - "comme les jeans" and shake a trouser leg at them. When filling in forms online I often had them returned with a polite message saying the equivalent of "You put Mme (or "f") - haven't you made a little mistake? Good job we are back in England now.

Don't you find that a restaurant menu in French always sounds more appetising than the translation? Am going to google that magazine now - yum yum. ps have just duly googled. merci beaucoup. some truly delicious recipes there. miam miam.

Unfortunately, since the arrival of whiteboards, chalk is no longer available for aiming at misbehaving pupils.

We went on one of these. During a very long wait at CPAM I worked my way through all the reading matter I could find. One of the leaflets was offering this checkup so I filled it in for me and OH. We were sent an appointment at Nimes (about 50 miles away from our home). We decided to treat it as a minibreak, booked into a little cheap hotel, saw the sights and had the check too. We had to present ourselves with a urine sample at 8.30 a jeun (nothing to eat) We had a long form to fill in before we were seen - all sorts of health questions to answer. we had weight, eyes, ears and teeth checked, they took a blood test, blood pressure. As I was due for a frotti (cervical cancer screening) they provided that. At the end there was an interview to discuss the results and time for questions and advice. And then they gave us free breakfast! A couple of weeks later we received written results to include blood and urine tests. This included advice on how to improve our general health. We put in a claim form for expenses - they paid us petrol but would have also paid loss of earnings for the day if we hadn't been retired. If you get the chance for one of these tests, take it!

Yes, a friendly chat and perhaps ask them to set a time limit after which they will clear the area.

That makes a lot of sense to me, L'Aiff. And I say that because a lot of the other comments didn't make any sense to me at all. My ignorance was at fault probably.

Have sent you a PM, Idun.

I remember them too - at Victoria Station. A great novelty at the time.

I think that was really good of you to offer all that advice and information given your present circumstances. So sorry to hear of your loss.

No, please don't, Bugsy.

That,s a coincidence Megan. We too have moved back to England during 2010 and this week received a French tax bill for the exact same amount (76 euros). We too tried to get Moneycorp to pay it but were told that 250euros (or £, I'm not sure which) was the minimum they will deal with. Lucky for us, someone actually deposited money in our old, empty and about-to-be closed, French bank account this week - totally unexpected but perfect timing as it happens - so we can just send the Impots people a cheque. Not sure what is the best thing for you to do. Maybe if you know someone who has a French bank account or who will be visiting France they could pay the bill for you. Then you just have to find a way of repaying them in sterling. Have a feeling that there will be exorbitant and out of proportion charges for your UK bank to send the money for you. Good luck. Would be interested to hear how you resolve this. ps OH's advice is to ignore the bill !!! Not a good idea I'm sure.

Mine (sociaux bit) arrived here in England this morning. Drat. Thought they'd forgotten all about me.

toiDt?

Now you know how we feel most of the time!

More details please.

I know someone in 66 who might be interested. Send me a PM if you want more details.