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.

Hello All,

Perhaps someone can advise on our current health insurance problem, as follows, which is driving us mad:

My husband has been an auto (now 'micro') entrepreneur for about one year. Our mutuelle created a 'professional' contract for him with coverage for myself on the same contract for 2017 (I am not employed.) Our renewal contract arrived this week for 2018 stating again coverage for both of us but attached was a note from the administrator stating that my being on the same contract as my husband was now an anomaly. (Then why were we sent a joint renewal?!) She provided a new contract for me to sign. However, there was no separate contract for my husband to sign (wouldn't he need one as well?) As you can see, we are very confused as to what to do. The renewal joint contract comes from Poitiers and my new separate contract comes from Limoges. We brought the problem to the attention of our local branch of a major bank (who administers our insurance) and were told that they have no one on sight who handles professional insurance; the Poitiers office deals with it. Calls (no English speaker available on the English line), emails for clarification are  in vain.

I have until 27 Dec for my signed contract to arrive at the bureau. 

Additionally (sorry about yet another chapter in this saga), we greatly fear the effect this will have on our joint RAM (Primary) insurance as we know it will be yet another horrible fall down the rabbit-hole of paperwork, lost paperwork, no answers, etc. as they unravel what my husband has so painstakenly set up.

If anyone has any advice/same or similar experience, I would be so grateful to hear from you. We simply do not know what to do at this point.

 Many thanks for even reading this tale of woe,
(a very colourless) PastelPainter

If you have or will be receiving RSA in November or December 2017 you will getting a Christmas Box (Prime de Noël) sometime after the 15th December.

The amount you will receive depends on your situation and the amount of people in your family.

To get the bonus you need to have claimed RSA in November or December.

1 Person: €152

Couples: €228

3 People: €274

4 People: €320 - €335

5 People: €381 - €396

6 People: €442 - €457

Per extra person: €60

*There is nothing you need to do and it will be paid into your bank account in time for Christmas.

Can someone enlighten me as to noise restrictions as regards building activity at weekends? We are currently renovating/converting two properties into one and, until today have received no complaints from our neighbours. We are employing French plumbers and a French electrician who work 9:00-12:00 & 14:00-18:00 Monday-Friday which seems to be the norm. However, our Moroccan builder can normally only work Saturdays, as he indeed did today. We have always tried to keep noise to a minimum (especially between 12:00-14:00) and today he was merely laying floor tiles in our new kitchen which is hardly an activity that creates environmental noise pollution! However when I was innocently on my way to the Boulanger way for the proverbial Baguette I was both physically and verbally abused by a French neighbour for having building work done on a Saturday plus a stream of invectives as regards Les Anglais in general. From what I have read noise restrictions as regards Saturdays are the same as Monday-Friday - am I correct in this?

If you are effected by Brexit and want to have a voice here is your chance to take part in a Lobby Campaign set up by Site: remaininfrance.org

*This isn't about stopping Brexit, there are other campaigns out there if your interested. But personally I don't want to stop Brexit, I just want to continue living my life in France as I do now and that is what this campaign is all about.

The campaign "Lobbying MEPs on citizens rights" can be found here: remaininfrance.org/mep-lobbying-campaign.html

A full explanation on how to take part, along with ready made templates is available and it's just a matter of sending an Email.

*You will need to copy the link as it doesn't conform to the security filters in place on AMF. But the site is safe.

I've just returned from a few weeks back in the UK to discover that one of our roof tiles has slipped causing an internal leak on the occasional days when it rains

Unfortunately I don't have a ladder high enough to reach the roof so fixing this is, literally, beyond me.

Can anyone recommend a local builder/roofer who could help? I'm based between Moulismes and Adriers.

Thanks,
Brian