idun

Well there you go then, the oracles have spoken, so thus it will be[Www] Let's face it, no one knows what will happen as yet. My prediction is that there will be a bit of a mess for a while and then things will settle down. From what I can gather there are a lot of us who expect things to be a mess, but I daresay that in spite of that, if there is, there will be lots of whinging about it[:-))]

Without putting too finer point on it, our village notaire and the maire when we bought our land, imo were very very iffy to say the least. Ofcourse we found out later, but really too late then, and the problems from the time the lotissment was started, even up to now, still exist. Our old neighbours have had a right battle and lost, the current Mairie giving a permis de construire for a home that will in fact be built on land that should not be built on and I will say adjacent to the lottisement, but more or less of on top of it. If I were you, I would rather think that you should find and speak to a notaire in rather a big city, without connections to the village your land is in. French villages can be rather 'incestuous'.

Cathar Tours said: I will then await my callup papers to the EU army and the arrival of all these Turks when Turkey joins the EU next week not to mention the total collapse of the Euro and EU over the next 18 months. Dear me, you do paint an apocalyptic picture. Is the EU going to implode ? well if Putin has his way it will, that is for sure.

Any chance of posting exactly what they said, as formal french can come across as 'severe and inflexible' and all rather pompous. If we saw, maybe it would give an indication as to how miffed you should be with them[I]

I had been going to suggest that you, or someone did just that. IF you don't have an heure creuse contract, then why not have your water heater on when you want it to be on. We had a switch on our water heater that would override the heures creuses, but I never ever did, we had EJP for years and it would have cost an arm and leg to override.

How I disagree about the Carte de Sejour being unnecessary. When we moved to France, we had to have them, and in fact always had them. In spite of Prefectures from a certain point being reluctant to issue them, IF we had stayed, I would have insisted on getting them, because they are very very useful, the way the french have always been ID obsessed. Bit late now for people to start that ball rolling, but once all is sorted, I would imagine that everyone, well UK folks in France would have to have them.  And if I disagree about the Carte de Sejours, I do agree about other post brexit paperwork, I also would say wait and see what happens before going forward, otherwise it could be endless.

Seasons Greetings to All

You are always appreciated Hoddy. Would that we could give you a medal, you deserve it. Seasons Greetings to you and all the very best for 2020!

I have mentioned it several times on here, as I have had terrible problems with my computer, being unable to type, or being unable to input passwords, or any other information. Things would come onto a page and then go and then I would have things looping, you name it, I have had lots of things happening, it has been awful. It just about drove me round the bend. A friend came and looked at it a few times and a couple of weeks ago, found that ORCA had been automatically downloaded in an update and I have to go to the processor bit and scroll down to ORCA and 'kill it'. All seems to be working now. But when updates happen it all starts again, and I have to again kill the orca. editso do you have ORCA on your computer mint??? just wondering.

Our brains are programmed to react to 'strangers'. Babies usually react to 'strangers' picking them up or coo'ing at them.  Their sound is an alert! as parents always know their own baby's cry..... sort of serves as a baby burglar alarm. I think that it is easy to forget that we are basically 'animals' with a working primitive part of our brains which is there to protect us. And this thread resounds with me, as there could be a degree of animosity between the local villages. I never noticed it in England, but I was a townie anyway growing up and I suppose the nearest I saw to that was football supporters.

Sorry, but what do the continentals get right? I know you don't mean the tea, I have no idea why the french take it like dish water and never will.[:D]

But hasn't this been particularly bad and continued over a long period. I do think that often this is an odd thing, bullying in the work place, I was bullied when I started work and  I can only wish my bully ill, I can think of many expletives to describe her, and she was from a family of Salvation Army'ists, which has rather put me off them. And yet, it wasn't as if I was bad at my job, I was, very young,  keen and learning and I did make a few initial mistakes, but when I wasn't, it all got even worse, until at least another year later, a more senior staff member realised what was happening to the then very quiet Idun and more or less put a stop to it. Still, I know of two friends who have had problems with new staff members in their offices in France. Neither could do the jobs they were employed to do. One had worked for the company for a quite some time and was on a very big salary, a secretary, but could not use Excel or Word, but she was bilingual which was needed too. And my friend could not get rid of her as they were there on short term contract, for a specific project and was also told that they were bullying when work was not done. The other made such a hash of things, well just about everything and was making overpayments which the company had trouble recovering. She said that she was being bullied and was depressed, taking the company to the PrudHommes, who kicked her into touch. And eventually after far too long, this particular company did manage to sack her, but what a time. And that is the problem isn't it. What is that line between being told off all the time if one is not doing a proper job, and actually being bullied. It hadn't been as if I had not expected to be told and probably told off for those errors I made in my first few weeks. But then things got worse when I knew my job and was doing it well and very efficiently. And that is bullying.

As this thread was old, I think that the 'database' person is trying to sell stuff. And yes, things can be complicated with paperwork in France,  my son took a load of paperwork for his dossier into his Mairie and no birth certificate, because it did not say birth ceritificate on the info sheet they had given him previously. He had wondered, but didn't want the tutting about extraneous information, but still got the tutting, as he should have known that they would want it[Www]

but that Judith depends on where one goes these days. There are a few places I go to that serve pots of tea and top up water. edit, must add, with tea leaves and not tea bags along with a strainer[:D]

[quote user="Patf"]As well as all the gossip etc, once the french in rural France get to trust you, they're very loyal neighbours. A few times we asked for their help and offered to pay, but they would never accept money. It was more like mutual favours. I sometimes wondered if it was because the french tax authorities etc kept a tight watch on anything done 'on the black'.And they were inspected as to how their farming subsidies were claimed. With regular visits to the farm, and helicopter viewings. [/quote]  We had some great friends and would all help one another, and then there were those we were 'friendly with' and if they heard us on about something, not particularly addressing them, would offer their help. And yet, these same folk would then ask for help with something that was:-  far heavier to shift or would take longer, or a harder job, in fact they always got more than their pound of flesh back. In the end we ended up by being careful about whom we helped and who helped us. So I have mixed feelings about getting help.

Three balls wooly, three balls! edit, sorry Three Golden Balls![Www]

Now this old lass has not yet lost the plot[:-))]. Ramsdens is a very old pawn shop in the NE and has got involved in currency exchange and gives very good rates. Do you know I have never had fish and chips from the other Ramsdens, nor from The Magpie in Whitby. Neither on my list of things to do[:P]

I am relieved that the 'normality' of my french village is reflected in villages in other regions. I say this, as when I found this board, it was about all the very very happy smiling french, who were always lovely and helpful and that was not what I was living. My village was a rare old mix including some really lovely people and friends who I love dearly. The good, bad and ugly always sums up my village.[:D]

If you are in the NE of England I would suggest Ramsdens, otherwise, the Post Office or even Asda.

It is rare when I feel like I have watched a decent night's telly but that is what I did the other night. First watched Bridge of Spies, which I have already seen and one of the rare films I can watch again, followed by Agatha and the Curse of Ishtar, which had a slow first few minutes and then, I really really enjoyed it. It made me think of how little viewing that really takes my fancy. Of the films I could watch again and again, and that made me laugh, both starred Brendan Gleeson, a wonderful actor. One is In Bruges, and the other is The Guard. Of other films, I would watch again are Paddington, and Eddie the Eagle without any hesitation. It isn't as if there are not other films, but those mentioned I found rather uplifting and the first too very very funny. To this day, the funniest french film I ever saw was Rabbi Jacob, I could hardly speak french when I saw it for the first time, but such was Louis de Funes acting that I laughed until I ached.

[quote user="Patf"]Very true, Idun. It was only after a few years living in our small commune that we began to find out what was really going on. Our nearest neighbour was a born gossip and she gave us (well me) the lowdown on who was having an affair with who, who was related to who. Who was feuding with who etc.You need to be able to understand and speak the language too. [/quote] My best friend lived opposite the local prostitute and would have blokes knocking on her door, and she said that the looked rather happy when she answered, but they did not look so happy after she had disabused them of their error and told them what she thought of them in no uncertain terms. She can be  pretty frightening when angry.[blink] And angry she was when this happened. Our village did not have a red light district, in my friend's quartier was an antiques shop, hairdressers, the GP and their Consultant spouse, a nurse, and a couple of teachers lived there too, as well as perfectly respectable people and the village putain.

LOL albf, we encountered some pretty incredible things when we lived in a city too, really we did, just very different to what we encountered when we lived in Nullepartville en Patelinperdu. If we ever move back, though, it would be to a town, big enough with proper services or a city. Let's see how Brexit will affect us... it could be on the cards, reluctantly on the cards, I must add.

You said that you had visited the village and have some idea, but took me several years to get to the reality of the village I lived in. The feuding, the enfants naturels, who were at school with their legitimate siblings, the near tortured and certainly abused boy who no one did anything about, even when he died. Endless stories beneath the easily said 'bonjours'. You need to read the french authors as suggested and maybe actually live in that village, and hopefully a few people will like you enough to open up, because in my village, strangers get a general treatment, polite enough, but it was  purely and deliberately superficial.

Interesting pomme and made me remember when we went to an open day at a local vauban style castle where there was much historical stuff from the local villages. The accounts for our village were there from, I think, the 1800's, and were in three columns with the heading:-  £sd, much to my pleasure to see such a thing.

Did, as we did need FF, as we were still using Francs until the actually € coinage came in. From 1999 when the value of the € to the FF had been decided everything had it's € value marked on it too. An overlap period. Then about 2? 3? years later we had our  €'s issued and I seem to think that for some time the ff value was also shown. But in spite of what the government said...... everyone I knew believed that all prices had gone up, maybe just a fraction but money was not going as far. edit Yes Maz and Col,  I missed your post, and you answered my doubt about the date when we started getting €'s actually issued..........my time is not really my own at the moment, as I start a post and then 'demands' are made on my time and I end up finishing it later, sometimes much later as I don't get back to my computer.