The Canary Dave

Morning all........ All packed for the drive south today.
We did our antigen test today... remarkably easy and only £29. We ordered a kit...did the test at home... basically a lateral flow test. Uploaded a photo of the result and our passport to the website and three ours later our certificates arrived....... plenty of room for cheating there if anyone needed to....

Have a good day folks.....

 

Morning all. Mainly bright, just a little cloud, and the forecast says it will be dry all day. Safe journey Yorkie, and eat the ham sandwiches before you arrive at the French border. Considerable fury here being shown by Brits who thought having been fully vaccinated they could now go to visit relatives in the UK without having to quarantine. They had only read the headlines, not the small print which says that is not the case. Even more comment about letting in a thousand Italians to watch a football match but not a national who wants to visit a dying parent. Hopefully the UK government will get its act together and have a system that can read a QR code, although with the figures for infections rising at an alarming rate in England many would rather not go unless they feel it necessary. Have a good day, will be looking for some bargains in the cave this morning.

 

Morning all. Overcast at present with the forecast that we will see showers this afternoon. Returning from my shopping trip yesterday spotted that the garage I used was open again with a sign to say it had new ownership. It was very good before the coronavirus stopped it in its tracks and the owners closed it. I have a very slow puncture in one tyre, so will go and see if they are any good and can find it before entrusting them with a service. Have a good day everyone.

 

Morning all. Overcast but dry and the sun should appear this afternoon. Totally quiet and peaceful here without even a breeze to rustle the trees. No workmen here and even the farm workers are not required as there is more than enough grass out in the fields for the animals. Had a spot of difficulty with the French language yesterday as the man in the garage comes from Brittany, and quite what he was saying left me a bit baffled at times. Was he actually speaking French? I am not certain. Still we did get there in the end, and hopefully he has found the puncture in the tyre and repaired it. Have a good day everyone.

 

Dave along with the like of GT , the 66 boys that have passed away and Bobby Robson etc are probably looking down on Wembley tonight thinking not again!




Both on and unfortunately off the pitch all too predictable.

 

Good morning folks.. Got into France ok.. But long queues at the border for checking all the papers etc...
.. Garden here overgrown.. Where has the man been we pay to look after it??
Meanwhile spent last night with Dutch friends whose Internet tv failed hakf way through the second half.. Managed to reconnect during extra time in two tablets and roaming.. And one was a few seconds ahead of the other... Then a walk home in the pitch black night through the lanes under the stars...
Life goes on.. after the Euros.

 

Morning all. Wet again and I despair of getting back on my vegetable plot. Managed to pick some more beans for dinner last night, but no chance to sow more for succession. I have noticed that rivers that you see on the Tour, instead of being dry stone beds, have water flowing down them, which is very unusual at this time of year. I have taken to having the secateurs with me as I walk along the green lane as the brambles are growing so fast a clear passage vanishes after a day or two. Weather should improve middle of the week, so we live in hope. Have a good day whatever the weather.

 

Apparently there's a heatwave starting in 10 days time, which coincides with my holidays there

Bet it rains solidly for 2 weeks instead...

 

Morning all. It is dark and water is flowing down the lane. It is one of those mornings where you feel like pulling the bed sheets over your head and going back to sleep. Lots of outside events planned for tomorrow as it is the National day, so I hope they manage to keep the fireworks dry. Meanwhile Mme has remembered some items she forgot to buy on Friday, so suggests a trip to the supermarket. That will really lift my spirits. Still get it over with, it might be better tomorrow. Have a good day all.

 

Morning all. Hazy sunshine and currently dry, though showers expected this afternoon. The parade in Paris is taking place in the dry and is quite a sight. Very much a military parade the only thing missing is an aircraft carrier sailing up the Champs-Élysées. Firemen and customs officers all able to march and even the detachment of quad bike riders. Must have cost fortune just to get them all to Paris. Have a good day everyone;

 

Morning all. At long last it is dry and sunny, and the forecast suggests it is going to stay like it for some days to come. A great day of spectacle, colour and culture in France yesterday. A two hour open air concert in front of the Eiffel Tower leading to a superb fireworks display to finish off the National Day celebrations. For some however it didn't turn out so well as the river burst it's banks flooding the small town near us. The picture shows what should be the town's campsite.

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I haven't been past it for sometime, but by now would expect that it would have quite a few campers.

Have a good day whatever your weather.

 

This is our local campsite today.

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Good morning.. Very wet here over the past days...
Finally signed up for the Internet here after years of roaming on a poor signal.. No TV at our French abode though..
Our 'lawn' us decimated after having our new fosse fitted... And we have a plodding builder converting the attic... Seems the rates people now think we have been underpaying for years as they believe we have no bathroom.. Odd as we were inspected soon after we bought 19years ago.. Meanwhile we have run thrm ten times and no answer... Our French neighbour has taken the mantle to sort it out for us...
Meanwhile two of our local restaurants have closed down...



A half hour talk with the English desk of Orange Telecom has clarified that I have to have a French mobile number to have Orange Internet... As UK numbers don't work.. And as we have no spare mobiles here that means I have to buy a cheap phone as well as a sim card... The complications keep mounting!

 

You get a mini 4G router thing Yorkie, just put a SIM in it and it'll give you internet.

 

I had a message from Orange a couple of weeks ago saying;

Vous avez actuellement la possibilité, d’accéder aux Hotspots Wifi d’Orange comprenant l’accès au Wifi public depuis les Livebox avec le service Wifi partagé.

Nous vous informons que ce service s'arrêtera à partir du 1er août 2021 et qu’il ne sera plus possible d’accéder aux hotspots Wifi d’Orange.

Vous conservez bien sûr, à votre domicile, l’accès à votre wifi privé sur votre box.

So would that still work?

 

Jesus Christ OFH, that is a flood.

Rains have dropped off here a bit, but it´s still overcast. Things are greener than I have ever seen them.

We are in a turd (3rd) wave of COVID here, but hospital cases are not too bad as most people 50+ have had one dose of the so called solution. People here are fed up and not really doing what they should be doing, as per human nature with these rules.

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/coronavirus/estimated-covid-cases-up-23/

On with the show as best we can.

 

That would only be in towns as far as I know. The world of mobile phone companies is a mess, Brexit would also cause issues with data usage overseas. I reckon a data-only SIM in a portable router would be the best bet (but only if there's an ok phone network signal).

 

Morning all. The sun was supposed to be beaming down on us this morning, instead it is overcast and is difficult to see where the sun might break through. Going back to the phone and internet discussion, I finally got a landline as the mobile signal was so bad. If you needed to use a phone it meant going out to the top of the hill where there was a weak signal. Things improved when they installed a mast about a mile away, but even today with that there is only a 3G signal that disappears in the house. Once we had the landline installed, and later the internet, things were much better, and with the package we have can chat, for the time being at least, to people in the UK free of charge for as long as we wish. Just tested our internet speed which recorded 17 mbps, and with Orange you can watch TV at that speed in HD without any buffering. Connect your laptop to a TV and bingo, although we can get both UK and French TV via our satellite dish. Have a good day without too many problems.

 

My Mum was 'too busy' (being retired) to answer the many letters she received asking if she wanted fibre to be connected to our village. They were digging the new cables through and a simple 'yes' would have given everyone in the village superfast broadband (I doubt anyone else knows what the internet is tbh).

Now when I'm over there and have to work it would be faster to send carrier pigeons over. Storms knock the phone lines out for days sometimes and you get 2mbps at night on a good day. I wasn't impressed