Gite maintenance
In our gites we have the usual challenge when things go wrong – our window of opportunity to put things right only lasts from 10.00 am to 4.00 pm on a Saturday, and only then if the problem is spotted quickly. Unfortunately people don’t always rush to tell us that the dishwasher is playing up [...]
Breaking the law – again
In our third (when will it end) look at why you might be behaving illegally or at least be uninsured without knowing it, it’s back to drivers again. You know already that your car insurance might be invalid if you are driving illegally, and we have already seen that a UK registered car without UK [...]
Looking a bit too good
One of the big challenges of visiting places and writing about them for possible future visitors is striking a balance - should we be brutally honest if somewhere is, frankly, not all that lovely? What if it was raining when we visited, or we were tired and really it is a very nice place? Likewise if someone [...]
Contemporary extensions in Lot-et-Garonne
Note: this entry is inspired by the ‘weekend of patrimony’ in France (this weekend) when many of the great buildings are opened free to the public. Our daughter has just started her second year at lycée and one of her subjects is history. Turns out her history teacher is in training to be an architect, [...]
Picking grapes in Burgundy
I’m a long way from home travelling around Burgundy at the moment, which presents me with a challenge – whenever I go away, Mrs B and the girls complain that I don’t think of them at all. This is based on the fact I that I never buy them presents from whereever I’ve been. Earlier in [...]
France carbon tax
Good news for the Greens this week – starting next year France are introducing a Carbon Tax of 17 euros for each tonne of carbon dioxide that gets emitted into the atmosphere. Well, good news if it has any impact on our behaviour, sorts out the planet, and gives our grandchildren something like a breathable [...]
Is your UK car in France insured?
Back in April I posted about a problem with house insurance – or rather the startling finding that our (and probably many others) gites were not properly insured. You can read about that at ‘oops I forget to insure my property‘ (as it should have been called). Now a new and equally startling insurance quirk [...]
The school rentrée in France
The rentrée – return to school after the holidays – takes on a significance in France that it doesn’t have in the UK, or perhaps elsewhere, so I thought I’d give a quick run-down of what it’s all about. It’s always a stressful time when the summer holidays come to an end – not for me [...]
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