Stilllearning

Christmas is much less commercialised over here, but there was an indoor Marché de Noël here 2 weeks ago, and it was quite busy, despite the pouring rain keeping people indoors at home by their stoves. I had a stall at the market and sold enough to make the day worthwhile. Hoping the stall at the neighbouring town on Sunday is as profitable.

Like Marvin the paranoid android, I have to tell you that I’m feeling very depressed. And I have a pain in all the diodes down my left side. It escapes me how anyone could read that speech and not understand the situation the EU and the UK are in, what rules etc both are working under, and therefore why the who shebang is likely to end very badly. Sir Ivan Rogers knows his subject and was speaking in an academic forum, where having a biased point of view would be unacceptable, and open to valid criticism. To still suggest that on 30th March next year all will suddenly be sweetness and light is clearly the stuff of fantasies. It gives me not one iota of pleasure to say this, btw. Quite apart from any other consideration, a weakened UK will impoverish me and hundreds of thousands of other UK pensioners living abroad.

You clearly read a different speech to the one I read.

That speech should make some quitters think a bit. Perhaps.

Anywhere that there is bare metal there will be condensation. This is why spray foam should cover everywhere. Steel that is going to have timber battening on it should be battened then foamed as well , I think, then the foam cut back off the faces to be used. Others may have differing information, no doubt.

I take your point about the dog’s name , but in our case the bluddy dog answers to his name when he wants. On a daily basis he will look at me when his name is called, but keep on doing whatever he wants, unless of course there is food in my hand. He would actually go to anyone who offered him food, without a backward glance at us, it is something huskies are known for. A restaurateur opposite us thought for some time that the dog’s name was “you bastard” for fairly obvious reasons. ETA he is a lovely dog, really. Or so we keep telling ourselves.

It is interesting, particularly the Japan/EU trade deal. The RR move seems to be only a partial move of engine approval business to Germany and “possibly reversible”.

Yes indeed. Give Ireland back to the Irish.

Happy memories of seeing the Bonzos, and the great Neil Innes. That always makes me laugh, my parents ran a caravan site in Brittany for many years.

Dogs and cats have to be either chipped or tattooed and apparently about 88% of dogs are and 46% of cats, according to one site I looked at.

No, the law is the same here, and it may well be that we will start keeping the collar on him on his country walks too. He is a husky, but 11 1/2 yo and walks slowly everywhere. Annoyingly slowly imo. He almost never runs anywhere, unlike all other huskies we know.

The relevant law here seems to date from 1904 and states that any dog that is on “la voie publique” which means on public roads or spaces, needs to wear a collar. So yes we are being naughty having him uncollared but he is chipped, and seldom more than 10 metres from us. The choke collar we bought yesterday is a first attempt at getting him to be collar free at home, but collared when walking. Other posters here have suggested alternative collars, and we are thinking about them. In the meantime, dog is back from a walk (collared) round town, and asleep in the courtyard, basking in the cold weather, as is his wont.

Our dog is a bit of a puller, but too lazy to really do any damage. He’s an ageing husky, very headstrong, and physically strong, who spends all time outside just looking for food, or sniffing his p-mails. He is chipped, it’s a legal requirement here and is checked annually when he has his jabs.

I like that idea, of flat braid working as a choke set up. Ours shows clearly that he has always worn a collar, a ring of flattened hair round his neck, which we hope will go now that he will only have a collar on for about an hour a day. He has thick soft dense fur of medium length, like all huskies.

I think there is an optimum minimum distance between a stove and a timber structure (wall lard etc). Someone helpful will be along to give you exact amounts, but I do know that heat can transfer through the air a bit further than one thinks. A neighbour set fire to his boat this way and woke up to a boatful of smoke. The worst bit was cleaning up the powder from the extinguisher afterwards. As his neighbour I had to help, and will never forget the mess.