11-year-old girl from British family shot dead in France

Awful news.

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Tragic. St.Herbot is a beautiful place, we used to visit the area a lot for walking at weekends and the chapel is lovely, dedicated to the saint of cows. Trouble is, no one knows the full story unless you live there but it sounds like the dutch man had a mental problem and again, disputes over land ownership are not worth killing for,especially a child.

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Same news on the BBC this morning.

It sounds like he just pushed his shotgun through the hedge and fired blindly, rather than intentionally shooting the child, but hard to know right now.

One minute you’re having a little BBQ with your family, next
 A dreadful event. I hope they have a lot of support around them, especially the poor little eight year old.

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Updated this morning:

“According to the first elements of the investigation, “the neighbor of the victims, a 71-year-old Dutch pensioner, suddenly appeared, armed with a firearm” and shot at the family who was in the garden.”

and, yes, there will be help/support of all sorts
 available for everyone who needs it

https://www.ouest-france.fr/societe/faits-divers/fillette-tuee-dans-le-finistere-une-cellule-decoute-psychologique-ouverte-au-college-de-huelgoat-f6051e34-08eb-11ee-ba55-0a72f336f6ba

It’s awful the way these disputes about ‘property’ and associated issues build up into boiling resentment to the extent that appears to be the case here.

I recall advice on SF to a prospective buyer, “If there is a right of access for a neighbour, walk away.”

In my case, this week past I began to get a bit antsy about the parking situation in my lane.

There are 4 parking spaces 200m down the lane. Of the houses here, all have garages [mostly doubles] except me and one other house. Yet two of the four spaces are always occupied by residents with garages.

Fortunately, the three regulars know that one particular space is ‘mine’ because there is enough width for me to park without obstructing the lane but with enough space on the right for me to open the door of my RHD car.

But my neighbour across the road has acquired a car for his daughter and is rebuilding it from the ground up in one half of a large double garage. This is clearly a weekend and evenings project and will take some time.

The other half has a large pile of plasterboard and other buiding materials stashed. I’ve been told that progress on the interior refurb is going ‘very slowly’. Since the arrival of the daughter’s car, one of their two other cars has been parked in ‘my’ space, when found to be vacant.

:angry:

My mind turned to having discussions with the neighbours about using garages for purposes other than parking, at the expense of those two of us with no garage, to approaching the council about designating parking spaces - res park. Even pondering getting the doc to get me a blue badge on account of my gammy knee and subsequently a reserved space.

These ‘propriatorial’ issues can run away with ones sense and sensibility.

I’m back [for now] on ‘my space’. I’ve calmed down. The issue still exists and will certainly arise again. But I remind myself that I must retain a sense of perspective about this and not work myself up into an unreasonable state over it.

Everything is negotiable.

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That’s a really good idea :slightly_smiling_face:

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Do you own the lane or is it commun owned

According to the 13h news, the shooter was full of alcohol and stupifients and had taken shots at the family before. There are a lot of english people living out that way which is just south of Huelgoat, a big english enclave.

It’s a public road, ‘owned’ by the town of Vire/highways dept [I presume] The spaces have painted boxes and there is a yellow hatched box at the end of the spaces.

This resident - my pal Jean-Luc [#24] - has a garage 50m from where he parks on the road, in the space behind the silver car.
image

Resident of #22 has this garage
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50m from the spaces but always parks in the space in front of the red car.

‘My space’ is where the silver car is. The road is wide enough there for me to open my door on the right. The other ‘regulars’ leave that space to me. Vistors to any house at this end of the lane will take any space if it is vacant, as they are perfectly entitled to do. My house is 200m back up the lane.

Unlike a yellow box in UK, this one doesn’t have a camera which automatically generates a FPN and summon a tow truck. I parked on it for 36 hrs, then J-L tipped me off that ‘my space’ was free.

This could get tricky if the spaces were all taken for days on end. The box is presumably there to allow access to the public footpath that leads off into the bushes to the right of the seat.
image

It’s a townee’s issue. I once found a fuming chap at the door of a house I was visting in Bath, raving about calling the police because I was parked [on the public highway] outside his house. I told him to go ahead. He did. The constable told the guy that he had no rights to park in any particular place on the road and that res-park was the only long term solution.

A [now ex] friend lost his temper with me because I parked in the spot he always parked in, outside his house in Muswell Hill. He had to park one car’s length away!

People do get very overwrought about ‘territory’.

And creatures, too. I watched two gekkos fighting on the wall opposite my kitchen window over territorial rights to the underside of the zinc capping on the wall. I read that butterflies doing a ‘dance’ in a shaft of sunlight in woodland are actually in combat for rights to that shaft of sunlight!

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The yellow box is to allow access to the fire hydrant!

If this is commune land then you can’t insist ona parking space as it’s not yours. So tread gently. Honey traps more flies than vinegar.

(Blue badges are not very easy to get if you are not registered as handicapped)

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One of the reasons we bought our house, apart from the view, is that it has good parking.

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We have a Dutch couple in the gĂźte who are equally horrified. The Dutch reporting seems to be more about mental illness.

Exactly. We’ve always tried exceptionally hard to get on with our neighbours.

There’s probably a psychological reason people encroaching on “our space” makes us angry. I frequently have to give myself a slap when someone parks outside and I notice.

We’re staying somewhere the parking space is on the right-hand side of a narrow street.

I push the driver’s seat as far back as it will go; get left leg into passenger footwell (using both hands to pull back), bum on centre console; then bum on passenger seat, pull right leg back and then out.

Mrs Porridge threatens to video the procedure and put it on TikTok.

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Well aware of this. It would take some delicate discussions with the council and the neighbours with garages to designate two of the spaces to the two of us with no garage.

It would tricky with J-L as he has been a pal and more - he swapped out my ancient 200l balon and installed a mod 100l one f.o.c. That has made a massive difference to my lekky bill.

As for Blue badge, it’s only a matter of time and my dilapidated rt knee.

Ah so!

Yesterday there were two cars parked on that box.

Opposite the yellow box is this private 3-car space. and garage [not used for parking]


The owner of the red car also has an older MX5. It was on the box, along with my over-the-road neighbour’s car.

Parking is a touchy business. People get very proprietorial, even when they have no formal rights. Parking in London for 25 years cures one of that - unless one lives in bosky, no-restrictions Muswell Hill, like my ex-friend.

Visiting, I parked for a few days on this unrestricted stretch, careful to be clear of any access. The madman in the house on the corner drilled a hole in the sidewalls of all four of my tyres. You can’t repair damaged sidewalls.

.

It doesn’t take much and some people just lose it. The gradient between selfish thoughtlessness and violent, mindless ‘vengance’ can be short and steep, as we have seen in Brittany.

A lot depends on whether your doctor will sign. Generally it will be given to you if you can’t walk 200metres or need a walker to do so. You ask for a carte mobilitĂ© inclusion from your MDPH - maison departmentale pour des personĂ©s handicapĂ©s.

From what I’m reading 
 anyone with “neighbour problems” needs to ensure their anger and emotions don’t run away with them

and having drugs like cannabis around
 is NOT a good idea, in case one is tempted to use 'em with perhaps catastrophic results


I find myself having to “bite my tongue” more frequently these days
 is it an age thing?? no idea
 but with the rubbish and horrors going on in the world at large
 most of us (I reckon) have little to really complain about and, personally, I need to take a deeep breath and
 reeeelax.

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Can’t you have a knee-op ?

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Not with pondlife.

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