menthe

I am completely with you about the "urban". On an afternoon when I am too lazy to do anything, I like to watch those place in the sun programmes, mainly to see places in different countries. Today, I saw a charming house somewhere in Spain and I immediately said to OH I don't think I could bear to have neighbours so close! Ridiculous as this is only the second detached house I have ever lived in.

It does seem that there are different types and levels of service. I think the NHS is the same. I hear horror stories but also very good ones from people in the UK. I suppose you are very lucky or maybe UNlucky to have something serious or preferably potentially life threatening in order to get wonderful and smooth running services?😂

Noisette, I hate to disagree with you because you have always seem to me to be "in the know" and to hold reasonable views. BUT our experience (OH's and mine) have not been as you described. OH had a second melanoma op recently and his MT sent him for a TEP scan (in case of metastases). I rang for a RdV and was told that after an op it was essential to wait 6 weeks before a TEP The secretariat gave me a date 6 weeks from the date of his op (note, NOT 6 weeks from the day I rang). He duly went, all that we had to do was confirm his attendance 48 hours beforehand because it was explained to us that the cost for a full body TEP costs 1.100O€ All took place as arranged and he was given the CD with the results on the same day and even given a snack before the VSL brought his home. As you live not too far away from us, I was actually very shocked by your disclosure.

Starmer will have his hands tied, bound, manacled etc so that he will be unable to make any changes which might actually be useful.

Well some people, even politicians, have come out to say that they thought Barnier a good choice in the circumstances. Eduoard Phiippe (have I spelt his name right?) but then of course those two are in the LRs aren't they? Anyway it seems that Philippe is planning to stand for president in 2027. BTW, isn't it telling that Americans run for election but the Brits merely stand for parliament? Bah! Do they do anything energetically?

Hélas I, and most of my French friends, discuss this (maybe not discuss but certainly talk about) frequently. That goes for left- as well as right-leaning friends and neighbours. I don't of course know their political predilections but I believe that most people think this. Don't know about the Brits I am acquainted with. None of them seems particularly interested (or interesting!!!)

Yes, his party has the fewest number of seats amongst the 4 main groupings. I can imagine the left-leaning group whose solidarity did produce the eventual result and le Pen's lot would be mighty angry.

Noisette, if mine is one of your "first two comments", here is my reply. Firstly, I was looking for a form of words in the title in order to provoke responses. I do this quite regularly here on the forum....yikes! I have worked in a limited capacity in one of the biggest advertising agencies in Cardiff (serves me right but I didn't last!) You had to generate catch-phrases!!! What I really mean by a Tory grandee is not necessarily pejorative. I am not thinking about scumbags like Johnson. I merely mean that Barnier has this air of being in charge as of right, that he is open (but with reservations to all sides of an argument), his manners border on the courtly and he is naturally as reasonable as you could expect of a politician. He himself has been quoted as claiming that he is not a technocrat but a politician by inclination. I too am waiting to see what he does in the job. I am also very pleased that it is him and not, for example, Bardella or Mélenchon.

Wooly, I don't think Haute Savoie, I read Savoie. That's close enough but I have walked fairly extensively there and I sense some differences. Haute Savoie has higer mountains, for a start!😆

is he the French version of a Tory grandee? Anyone else thinks as I do on this one?

SPIKES? Those are not spikes, they are little skin protrusions. If you want to talk about REAL spikes, you want to try and cut open a durian😁

Lucky you, bramleys are lovely baked. Don't think I have ever seen them on sale here in France.

Lovely singing. Pity that cathedral is not lovely.

Threw open the window this morning and saw...nothing but white mist! Hooray, the first day of autumn and the air is cool and I couldn't see beyond the large dip behind our house and across the field to the dwellings beyond! I breathed in deeply and hoped the mist would stay some hours. Alas, in no time at all, the sun was out (again!) and the mist was burnt away and the mercury was once again rising. So please don't even mention that this is the first day of autumn or whatever the meteorologists call it. But to Lori, Happy Labor Day🙂 Er.....what do people do on Labor Day? NOT work, surely?

Do you speak for Norman as well as yourself?😝

Allez les gars, keep the entertaining insults coming.....ONLY to each other, mind!😁

Just to give you our situation for comparison. For us, 2-person household, the rubbish collection is 250€ per annum for 2 30-litre bags a fortnight. In this weather the smell and the maggots are enough to give you the pip. And we are lucky in that we have a shed as well as a large sous-sol to keep the bags until we have 2 bags and it is a fornight since we last took our rubbish to the bacs. As my husband has been ill recently, I take the bags in the wheelbarrow because I won't put those smelly things in the car. Last year, we opened the bacs 4 more times than our agreed contract and we paid 45€. Next week, we will have 2 people visiting from the UK (they don't stay at our house but at a nearby gîte) and of course being vacanciers, without the necessary card authorising opening the bins, they will once again be asking if they could leave their rubbish with us. I don't know what the really elderly and unfit do about taking their own rubbish to the bacs. And, as you have all said, the TF has gone up exponentially.

Well done you, Lehaut! Not bad for 20€ to be reassured. Last year I had both an electrocardiogram AND an échocardiogram from a cardiologue and I paid considerably more but it was mostly paid for by the SS and the mutuelle. Like you, I was a mere fraud, nowt the matter at all.

Thank you for posting about your experience. I have had a look at my box of tricks and it says Esoméprazole, so the same class of drug. I really did think that my asthma was not properly controlled and my pharmacien said to speak to the pneumologue. As it happened, I had my yearly check-up last week and I explained about my excessive coughing that was not relieved by my asthma inhalers. I took the usual performance tests, breathing into tubes etc and she had a good listen to my lungs. No problems with my lungs and so she told me I had this acid reflex (actually called GERD in English hm...sounds a lot more impressive, doesn't it?) Are coughs dry coughs? Yes. Do you have trouble swallowing? No. And a few other questions. I couldn't think what it was all about and shrugged everything off. So, took the 2 drugs from yesterday and I must admit that since then, while the coughing is greatly reduced, I now fancy that, yes, I do have a burning sensation in my chest, I do have trouble swallowing, and my voice I think it is rather hoarse and maybe a touch of nausea and perhaps....and so on. Shouldn't have read up on the symptons, should I? 😆 It reminded me of those "Doctor in the House" books by Richard Whatisname where he described reading the household encycopaedia of A -Z diseases when he first went to medical school. He went through the alphabet and decided he had every disease in the book except perhaps Housemaid's Knee.

Customer service in France? Well going by the customer service I received today, I have nothing but praise! The nurse came today to our house at 8.30, as arranged on the phone, and took my blood. By 4.00 pm today, had a text message from the lab to say my results were ready. Downloaded these onto the computer, printed out, 7 pages, and ready to take to my surgeon (yearly check-up) on Tuesday.

Trashing your own vehicle is one thing, how about trashing someone else's vehicle? And perhaps inflicting some life-changing injuries at the same time?

Now I understand, Norman. That is plain obstructiveness.

I go along with Woolybanana on this one. Here is a story I might have told before. It involves an occasion when I was at a village near here and had with me a parcel for return to Amazon (postage prepaid). Went to their little Bureau and found it closed as it was one of those agency places that did not open everyday. Then along came a factrice in her van to collect the letters in the box. Seeing the parcel in my hand, she said shall I take that for you? Thank you, madam, but I need a receipt for this. She asked what my name was and where I lived. So I told her my name and address whereupon she said don't worry I know your village and I know your husband via the table tennis club. I'll get your receipt and ask my colleague who delivers in your village to put it in your post box. I meekly handed my parcel over; just notice that level of trust of someone I'd never seen in my life. Sure enough, the very next morning, the receipt duly tamponné, was in our letter box!! How's that for going the extra mile?

Yes, Loiseau, you are right about French postcodes covering far bigger areas than UK ones. My village's postcode is shared by, I think, about 10 to 12 other small (and not so small) villages alentours. Never had problems before, all the facteurs and factrices knew all our names (surnames, fore names, even previous surnames) and everything came on time. However, since we have had fibre installed, we were told that all our homes would have new addresses so that they could be digitalised. Imagine the consternation in this very conservative (small and big C, I think) village and all the other nearby villages. In our village, we had a meeting for everyone and we were consulted about the names of our roads. As our little "allée" only had 5 houses and only 3 lots of proprietors turned up, we quickly decided we'd keep the name of our road and just have our numbers changed. But the majority of roads, named and unnamed, had brand new names and now nobody, even long-time inhabitants, has any idea where each newly-named road is. If you needed to find someone, you'd have to give the occupants' names, if asking directions. The upside is our allée is now a rue. My best French teacher gave us a list of the designation of roads in order of importance. So Chez Menthe would be the lowest, LD Menthe next up and so on from allée to rue to boulevard and every other designation in between! There has to be as many designations for roads as there are for different types of bread😄

Those of us who have lived in the UK and now live in France will know that UK adresses have the postcode of the town after the name of said town. So eg Swindon SN1 ***. French addresses have the post code in front of the place. So chez moi, it is 24*** I think it's great as the départements are numerical as well as arranged in alphabetical order. So 24 is Dordogne and the next 3 numbers give the location. Sorry about about this very basic introduction but bear with me. Recently I ordered a book from World of Books and although they are a dot com company there IS a French site. After several days of no book, I had an email to say it could not be delivered as the address was inadquate but, without my doing anything about it, the book came today. I have had this problem several times including from when I have ordered on amazon fr. If the item comes from the UK, then the post code, for us, is the wrong way round. Eventually the things do arrive having gone through some procedure. I am wondering if the first "scan" is done electronically, then when the address is unrecognised, it goes to wherever "inadequately" addressed things go within la Poste, a human being looks at it, scribbles on the covering the address as it should appear and the colis is delivered after a short delay. Can anybody explain whether this is how it works? Has anybody had this problem? Maybe in future, I shall write my postcode as well as my village on the same line.