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[quote user="David"]
................. We had hoped to get back to our house in France where we would be much better suited to weather the virus storm.  In France everything is on the ground floor for the wheelchair, the garden is large, the neighbours are helpful, and there are walks along the seashore which are empty of people.  As opposed to a pokey place in UK which is quite unsuitable for long term incarceration and with no neighbours. ................................................ [/quote]

I suggest you fly back to France asap, while it is still possible.

Travel to the airport by private taxi, and have another taxi waiting for you in France to take you home.

If you need a car in France, for shopping, etc. if this is necessary after you get home, book a small hire car from the airport and arrange for it to be collected from your house if you don't need to keep it.

Our son just managed to get our grandson, who has a serious condition where CV could kill him, home from York university to Denmark on an almost empty SAS plane.
He checked the occupation of the flight with SAS, hired a private taxi to take him to MC airport, and picked him up in CPH, on Friday, just before the Danish border was closed.

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Gardian,

Thanks very much for that, yes you are correct we are French residents seeking to return to France, and we are registered under the French healthcare.

The reason we use Brittany Ferries is because in the UK we are based in Weymouth, and it is a long way to Dover/Folkstone, but that is something we will look into.  Thank you indeed for the suggestion.  I did try phoning the hotels en route, but they had no information and were waiting for "Head Office" to tell them.

I will revert when we have followed up your idea.

Thank you also to Chessie and Pomme for your very kind, considerate and helpful posts.

David

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[quote user="David"]Another problem is that our car insurance requires the car to return to France by mid April, and the car is due a Control Technique in mid May, so I don't what we are going to do about that. .........[/quote]

Our son's first plan was to drive from Copenhagen to York via the tunnel, but he was worried that so much could change in a short time without his knowledge that he could be stranded anywhere in between, or even on a ferry. What he did was the lowest risk option, and turned out the best.

Re your car. If your French insurance co. can't extend the cover in this exceptional case, I think you can insure your car for UK and France car here, andrewcopeland and get an MOT in the UK, which Copeland require if no other is possible, and may be accepted in France in the event someone asks for it.

I know the website says it's for UK residents, but I haven't been one since 1963, and they never asked me if I was. Worth calling them when you get back to France anyway.

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I usually hire cars in UK and elsewhere in Europe from Auto Europe. They accept drivers over 70, which some outfits don't.

There may have been changes in this policy due to EU discrimination rules.

I previously used Holiday Autos, until they said I was too old to drive their cars. I think they now accept 70+ drivers.

If you decide to leave the car in the UK, you could arrange your return trip on line, and sort out your own car when you get back to France.

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[quote user="chessie"]

Keep safe everyone; spring's here, summer's on its way - and in 4 or 5 months time we'll wonder why we all (or some) became so paranoid and panicky.   Didn't our grand-parents use cut-up squares of newspaper instead of toilet roll for years and years !!!!!!!   Sometimes the old ways.........!!

Regards to everyone - we'll all be fine.

Chessie 

[/quote]

Our grandparents might have used cut-up squares of newspaper but did they have a French fosse? [:P]

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Thank you nomoss,

Unfortunately I am in a wheelchair, and with my wife being less than fully fit I can no longer travel by air.  Further, I need a large estate car to take my wheelchair, in addition to our packing for the journey to France, and shopping trips while in France.  It is also a French registered car, so we could not leave it parked unattended in the UK - we do not have a garage to park it in.

As we would have intended to be in France until a return to the UK for Christmas 2020, and we need a car for every journey away from the house, it does not seem feasible for us to hire a small car.

However, thank you very much for your thoughtful suggestion.

David

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Yes a bucket next to the toilet if there is no toilet paper and using alternatives. Had to do that on a tall ship I was on, and friends who have holidayed in Turkey and I think Greece had to do the same.

Life is a changing.

Been to lunch at friends and they were saying that their son's girlfriend, not english, could not understand all the joking about it all. Seemed very odd to her. And we swopped jokes we had seen right through the meal and had a really good laugh.

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I’m hearing that not only some flights, but ferries from UK - France are ‘drying up’.

David - if I were you, I wouldn’t delay about getting going. Once you’re back in France, you can take your time and you’ll always get some kind of food somewhere. Apparently drive-through McDo’s are OK !!!!

Whatever you decide, do pls let us know how it all works out.

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Mint wrote: Our grandparents might have used cut-up squares of newspaper but did they have a French fosse?

Do as they do, or used to do in Greece not so many years ago, put the paper into a bin. We always used squares of newspaper during the war but we did have main drains.

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'main drains' - luxury !

Our buckets, we had two, were collected once a week by Hookey Smith who had lost his hand in WW1 and came round with a special kind of trap pulled by a pony. This went on until the polio outbreak in the early 50s. Meanwhile the newspaper blew about in the fields
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If there were no toilet paper to be had, I'd like one of those "muslim" toilets, where there are 2 raised tiles to squat on and a tap with attached hose next to the toilet pan.

Wonder whether people really have toilets like that in their homes or are they only to be found in motorway services?

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I have never seen a hose next to a turkish toilet.

In theory they are 'clean' things but as it would seem that most folk cannot aim any bodily functions into the hole in the floor, they aren't just dreadful they are a thousand times worse than disgusting.
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[quote user="woolybanana"]Germany said to be shutting the frontier with France tomorrow.[/quote]

This made me think of  the brexit debacle and all the talk of borders and how they no longer existed in europe and the UK shouldn't have been reinstalling them ....... well, in this almost dystopian world, they have soon been put up again and how quickly.

Amazing innit.

Tonight on CNN there is a debate between Biden and Sanders,   they remind me of the two old codgers on the balcony on the Muppet Show and  earlier septuagenarian Trump was on saying that all of this will just go away, like magic.  And I wonder if his test result fake news I really do wonder.

Nothing seems to make any sense........

..........will I wake up in the morning and all this has been a rather surreal dream......  or is it just a very very strange world we live in at the moment.

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 I don't believe anything that comes out of the White House, so have no faith in Trump's claim of having taken the COVID test with a negative result.  His many followers who say they don't believe there is a Corona virus are scary as he**.  Mainly because they will be voting in November; that is if they don't get the virus and die....

Very quiet in the building today.  Don't hear everyone going in and out like yesterday.  Maybe they've heard the latest talk that if folks in the Paris region don't begin to take this seriously, there will be a total lockdown. 

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Well, we're following the rules...  The most exciting event of the day was taking the trash down the stairs to the bin.

Yikes, not looking forward to this for any extended period of time.  I also will be very surprised if most people (in Paris anyway) follow the stay inside rule.  Tomorrow is supposed to bring excellent sunny weather.  I guess we'll see if folks stay indoors or go out to get some sunshine and air.  Well, I won't exactly get to 'see' as I'm trying to follow the rules and stay inside.. But, I'm sure I'll read about it in the news tomorrow.

I hear the kids in this building barreling up and down the stairs several times a day today to go in and out.  Adults too.  It was fairly quiet until around lunch time, then quite a few seemed to begin going out.

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