Help - Mortain area knowledge

[thelestalot]

Help - Buying house in Mortain.  Don't know how to get hold of the Thomson's local directory, local newspaper and trade papers. Really I am after the small ads for second hand goods and other buits and pieces. can any one point me in the right direction please. Also details of the car boot sales around the area.

Much appreciated - any responses.................

 

[Will]

Hello

No such thing as Thomson local directory - it's all in the phone book, from France Telecom or on line www.pagesjaunes.fr

Local papers look in La Presse (on the corner where the steps go up from the main street to Place de la Jumelage) - La Manche Libre, La Gazette are the main weeklies, the relevant Ouest France edition also includes coverage of the area.

Trade papers - not quite sure what you mean, but unlikely they exist either.

Boot sales, again not the same culture as in England. Look for 'vide grenier' in local papers and in posters in shops etc. Also get hold of 'Calendrier des Brocantes' from La Presse when it comes out for 2007.

Don't necessarily expect second hand goods to be cheap - again, this is a different culture you have to get used to.

[thelestalot]

Thanks Will, it seems visiting the local bars and getting the local newspapers is the best way forward.

Looks like Internet'ing and finding out things in France is not the culture unlike the UK.

I am going to have to go back to using a library again !

 

 

[Catalpa]

Definitely find a local bar, make friends with the proprietors (assuming you like them!) and ask them about stuff. Our local bar in Gathemo is owned by really friendly, helpful, trustworthy people and we took their advice on a lot of things in the early days.

And though it kills me to say it, for buying / selling / etc, AngloInfo Normandy is very useful. As a forum, it does not (she says diplomatically) have the class of this one, but it is relentlessly local and therefore scores in a way that this and, say, TotalFrance can't. IMO. If you google AngloInfo Normandy, you'll get a link to the site.

[Dick Smith]

Not many boot sales, but there is a depot vente at Sourdeval, and one at Husson - but avoid that like the plague!

There is even a fish and chip van once a fortnight!

[Cassis]

You'll probably find your postbox handily ready stocked with free papers like 'ParuVendu' or 'ParticaPartic' which are stuffed with classified ads for secondhand goods.  Annoyingly, the advertisers often do not put the asking price! 

Unless the previous owners took the postbox with them, which they may have done if it is one on a pole. [;-)]

[Catalpa]

Those might be local to you, Cassis - we don't get them (unfortunately) and we're Mortain / Sourdeval.

[Cassis]

Oh.  I thought that you would have some equivalent freesheets for lighting your fires in Mortain, not necessarily those particular ones.

[Catalpa]

Nope. We are clearly in a deprived area. We get the usual supermarket / Point Vert / But etc pub but no freesheets like wot you describe.

[Llwyncelyn]

Dear Catalpa we used to have a paysagiste from Gathemo (is it near Villedieu) called M Gomel.  Do you know him?

 

rdgs

[Dick Smith]

Gathemo is near Mortain/Sourdeval.

Whereabouts around Mortain are you moving to? Permanent or holiday home?

[Catalpa]

I know of M. Gomel but haven't met him.

[Weedon]

Try this http://www.leboncoin.fr/

[thelestalot]

A big  Merci Beaucoup to all those that have enlightened my darkness