Hello all,

As many of you will know, Fred is retiring gracefully in a haze of cheese and Merlot and I am taking over day-to-day management and operation of Around Montmorillon.

As part of the changeover, we are moving the forum to a new server. It's a bit like moving house, and we all know how simple and stress-free that usually works out.

Part of the process is locking up the old house and unlocking the new one before moving the old furniture back in. We're planning to do this over the weekend of May 12th and 13th 2018. Some time on May 12th, if you try to visit the forum you'll see a 'Forum Closed' notice. On Monday morning, the forum will be open again and you will all be most welcome.

You don't need to do anything. Your user names and (encrypted) passwords will be automatically moved and you should be able to log in as usual. If you can't please send an email to [email protected]

As with all house moves, you may find that some of the furniture is not exactly where you expect it to be after the move. If this is the case, please let me know and I'll try to put things right!

So if you'd like to say goodbye to our home of many years, now is a good time to do it. I'd just like to sign off by thanking Fred for his sterling efforts on Around Montmorillon for many years, and thanking him even more for his help and support in moving everything over to the new server - and trying to break it!

Bye for now,

Brian

A passing youth told me the other day that the Mairie in Montmorillon is closing in the near future.

He said it was going to the "Old Guildhall" if I understood him correctly.

As he had spots and one of those fuzzy attempts at growing a beard I wasn't sure if he had been on the Jamaican Woodbines   or I had got the wrong end of the stick.

Any truth in this folks?

And, if he proves to be correct, where is the Old Guildhall?  Or something like that.

Hi all, just wondering if everyone could list which local markets they tend to go to. Just checking to see if we’ve missed any, or if any have sprung up whilst our backs were turned. 
When we’re over we tend to go to Montmorillon on a Wednesday, Lussac Les eglise (correct spelling I hope) on a Thursday sometimes. Les Herolles on the 29th of the month. 
Any more we’re missing?

So the renovations continue......slowly.
Looking for info on where the best place around Monty would be to get a big piece of structural oak beam.
Needs to be 2.5-3m long and about 18" square. Green or seasoned.
Does the place by La Trimouille supply things like this? Ive never seen anybody working there!
Any recommendations for acquiring the above greatly appreciated.
Also acro props? Anywhere to hire locally or anyone got any going spare?
Again, all replies thankfully received.
Many thanks in advance forumeers.

Any reasonably priced places around selling large planters for outdoors? Am I best bringing them over from the UK, or has anyone found a not too extortionate garden centre or DIY place selling them?

From July of this year the speed limit on departmental roads wil drop from 90 km/h to 80 km/h.

No one seems sure at the moment if this is a trial run by the government to see how it works or if it becomes permanent from July.

Massive objection from our French chums with an opinion poll showing more than six out of ten people opposed to the change and 83% believing it another money-making exercise in raking in more speeding fines.

You have been warned.

Bonjour,

I am in need of a picture framer, hopefully located in the general area. There is a fellow who advertises in Etcetera but he is in 87 and I was hoping not to have to travel so far.

Anyone who is a framer or knows of one, I would greatly appreciate hearing from you.

Milles merci,
Pastelpainter

Hello, I've been inputting my details for login but not sure it's going through. Still get the Login link at the top. Notably, I'm allowed onto the forum anyhow. 

Anyone else reporting this problem?  Or maybe it's just me having a bad tech day..Thanks.

Given the recent cold spell, I burned rather more wood than I planned and was in urgent need of some more. As you probably know, finding good wood this late in the burning season is difficult, but I phoned the chap who delivered our last load 18 months ago and he said he had some 2 year old wood he could deliver.

He is based in Sillars but delivers pretty much anywhere - we're in Adriers and that was no problem.

He turned up with 6 stere exactly when he said he would. The wood was 65 €/stere so not cheap but it is very good quality.

In case anyone is in need of a reliable supplier of quality firewood, give him a call. Jean-Marc Delaveau (dad) on 06 85 20 05 87 or Victor (son) on 06 87 30 32 50. They also have email - [email protected] and have always tried to me within a few hours.

I hope this is of use to someone.

Brian

We've been on a tour of Chateau Guillaume, in Lignac, about 2 years ago, but are there any more chateaus open to the public in the area?

I have the name of the place in Liglet, Le Sapin Vert, which does fish and chips etc, which I'm going to visit in May, but perhaps we could have an updated list of suggestions on here of everyone's favourite places to eat lunch or evening meals. I'm interested to hear of all areas, thanks.

Rather fed up with the UK weather at the moment, although we've been much luckier than most of the UK, as we didn't get much snow. I'm looking forward to coming back to La Trimouille in May and then again in the Summer. Has anyone got a list of brocantes, fetes, music festivals, or anything interesting at all happening in and around Montmorillon this year? Any suggestions welcome. Thanks in advance.

Be careful if you have stopped on the side of the road to use your mobile phone as you could get fined.

The court of appeal has said that a person who was fined for using his phone whilst stationary will still have to pay the fine. The court said that using a mobile phone ion a car that you are in control of is illegal even if you have stopped on the side of a road.

* The only exception is on private land, in a designated parking area or for vehicles that have broken down.

So be careful or you risk a fine of €135 and the loss of three points on your licence.

There are some big changes coming to the contrôle technique in May.

Instead of 124 checks there will be 400. So if your car is due it's contrôle technique soon it may be worth you booking it in early to avoid the extra checks.

It's still going to be every two years, but it will be harder to pass.

If you want to keep an eye on the flood risk in your area here's a handy government website:

https://www.vigicrues.gouv.fr/

If like us you grow your own veg and struggle to find a decent seed potato at a reasonable price in France, I have some good news for you.

Last year we tried Quickcrop in Ireland and this year we have gone back to them again. They give excellent service and the quality is very good. No soft potatoes and they are of a decent size too. You can pay in Euros or use their UK site to pay in GBP, and they deliver to your door at a very reasonable price.

They also sell seeds, not a huge range but again they are good quality and much better price than here in France. We can highly recommend them, and keep an eye out for their offers.  

They still have some potatoes left but they are going quick so get in now if you want very good seed potatoes.

You can find them here: https://www.quickcrop.ie/

Hello,
    After years of searching various areas my wife and I finally settled on Montmorillon and bought a holiday home in the Brouard. We hope some day to spend much more time there. We have already made connections with some wonderful people in the town but were happy to discover this forum. Thank you for the helpful information that you selflessly offer and I hope to see you all about town.
 
Best Regards,
Ryan

I have a small load of furniture ( 2 chests drawers, Welsh dressers, books, table and chairs)
In ‘big yellow’ storage in west London, anybody doing a run to Montmorillon I’d be willing to share costs, anytime soon? 
Jan J

Our little old Coolpix camera has broken and I'm on the look out for a cheap one to replace it.

I don't need anything fancy, just a little camera I can carry around that is simple to use and can take an SD Card.

Thank you.

If anyone got a nice new shiny laptop for xmas and is thinking of throwing their dead one away would you mind throwing it my way please.

My old laptop recently gave up and instead of buying a new one I got my Mums old one that she got fed up with as it kept crashing and decided to see if I could fix it.  After a good clean out and a lot of fiddling around I managed to get it running as good as new and I'm now using it daily.

Since then I had a go at fixing my own old laptop, and I'm pleased to say I too managed to get that going and I'm now using it just for listening to music. But unfortunately it has a lot of bad sectors on the disk and keeps going wonky, and now looks like it's on it's last legs.

Anyway I enjoyed getting them both working again and it got me thinking how people just dump their laptops and buy new ones. So if you are one of those people and are willing to give your old laptop away I would be grateful as I can have a little tinker with it.

This is just a little hobby and I'm not going to be selling them, I just want to play around and see if I can get another one working for my music and one for Mrs Fred to use.

I don't want to pay for anything as I do have one working fine, but thought if by any chance someone out there is throwing their old laptop that has WIFI away I can probably make use of it.

Thank you.