Ouch, I had a look because of the health problems I had because of the medical certificate that has been introduced in the UK for renewal at 70. It was a while ago when the EU card version began here. I was a bit apprehensive that it would be made 70 here too. So, I do not remember exactly where I found it except that it was on gouv.fr in the driving laws. It is almost certainly enforced because of insurance and there is no need for a medical certificate stated if I remember rightly. I had a word with my doctor and he said it is a straightforward health check as far as he knew, but at that time had not been required to do any, similar to the five minutes he does each visit in my case.
Brian,
Can you point us to a link for that?
Is it enforced?
Is it necessary to carry a medical certificate along with the license?
Sure, the licence is for life here, except that once we reach 75 we require a medical every two years if you look at the law.
Quite so. You have spotted a lack of precision in my post. I should have said "latest to come to my notice." But this used to be dealt with by our local sous-préfecture, only a 15 minute journey.
It seems that you haven't lived in the UK, where DVLA in Wales, sends all licenses by post, to all parts of the Kingdom.
This is probably a good place to mention that UK licenses expire at age 70 and you will need to re-apply. But DVLA will not issue a license if you don't have a UK address. To the easiest way around this, if you are resident in France, is to change your UK license for a French one, that does not have any expiry date. So a lot of us will have to go through this ordeal if we intend to grow old here.
I don't think this is a "latest" saving thing. It was always the case that you were expected to collect everything yourself. Being able to talk to them over the phone is, however, relatively new, before you had to go to the Prefecture in person and ask. A pre-paid addressed envelope would not help, they could ask you for one though in order to send you a letter requesting you to turn up at the Prefecture to pick your documents up.
I hope I won't be disappointing you too much if I tell you that it is exactly the same in other countries I have lived in!
Who were you working for. I worked as a consultant for UNICEF, ILO, WHO and IOM although the first was usually country offices, NY or Florence. I was never a staffer as such but I still have my UN ID from a long spell in Beijing. I knew lots of people based in Geneva, some still living there, none of them have ever had Carte de Séjours problems and my family being Swiss in Ticino I already have a right of residence. Anyway, my OH lived in Geneva for several years, in St Jean, where we kept a flat until about 2002. Did I live blissfully ignorant of the fact I should have had a CdS?
Mike, we had a simiar problem when I worked for the UN in Geneva. They gave us one year Carte de Séjours as UN staffers so every year we had to drive 2 hours over the mountain to pick up the Carte which took one minute. I had to take a half day off to go and return. They were sending them in the mail the first renewal and then stopped saying it was for security reasons. I guess such documents can be stolen and sold.
*deep blush*
Celeste, I couldn't possibly answer that one :)
So it is not my Papas Tarmeñas then?
Yep, rotation improves the soil rather than deplete it by having a single crop in the same place forever. It amazes me that neighbours have rows of leeks and onions permanently, just replanting along the rows in spring and autumn. They must throw in tonnes of fertiliser! OK, soft fruits are fixed to one place, so too asparagus and artichokes but the rest rotate and some years it is well rotted cow and other years compost with a feeding rest between. Our potager was used for rows of tobacco for years, full of chemical feed at the time, now my 'imported' spuds are doing superbly. The four kilos of seed stock will be doubled year on year, the soil nicely broken up by the plants and ready for something else next year.
Now to cook some spuds for my two little angels who know mama is out overnight so have decided to make me suffer for that. Perhaps that is all I shall give them. Well it might have been gruel but I am all out!
Where are you Doreen? Here in the Gers we have an English butcher of all things pork, my freezer is permanently stocked with pork sausages, bacon, gammon steaks and gammon joints.
*coffee splutter* :)
I quite like the baked hams they have in those motorway caffs, L'Arche I think they're called. You have to stop them pouring the gravy before they serve the chips though :)
One is reminded of eating dinner at a restaurant in London run by Nico Ladenis who refused to allow any customer to add salt or pepper to the creations. A friend, an Australian lawyer with a love for a scrap, arrived with his own salt and pepper in nice silver and placed them ostentatiously on the table. As in the Bateman cartoons a silence fell on the restaurant. The meal eventually arrived but the service became incredibly slow and our bill eventually arrived at about 1.30 am. My friend offered to pay and said he would write a cheque. He did so and against my protestations he asked me to verify that the cheque had been correctly made out. On doing so I noticed that the payee's name was filled out as "Shit Nico" and the cheque was duly cashed.
The variety we grow is the "Samba" that we get from the farmer's supply store in Embrun. Always get a decent firm middling-size crop. The trick is to do the good old rotation system, Herself does a complicated geometry exercise each spring to determine what to plant where, then once I have the plot delimitated I obediently roll out me trenches :)
Only reason I go to my local Flunch is that they always have a baked ham on the menu !
Well, the gammon joint will be French, I told them how I want it cut :)
But the absence of proper bacon is a mystery to me ; my parcel from BCS is arriving today, with three packs of bacon, two packs of swossages and three kinds of cheese (Lancashire, Wensleydale, and red Leicester). Yippee, proper bacon sarnies here we come :)
I have an 'imported' variety what only produces spuds at largest two-thirds of the size of a ping pong ball, but mostly considerably smaller. They are from the Andes, brought back in small consignments in my luggage over about a decade, grown in my allotment as seed stock partly, that I then took to Wales and some on to here. There is a small box of seed for next year in a mouse safe place. They are far too small to peel so people may stare at them in horror/shock but when they see the number our older daughter consumes, then demands seconds, they soon get stuck in. The thing about them though is that they do not taste like commercially grown spuds, so despite them being 'different' once tried they may make no comment but there is no shyness about taking more!
Well done Brian! It will be my turn to do the meal next year :)
I have a secret temptation which is to turn up at somebody's house for dinner with one of those containers that keeps food warm, then when dinner is served politely saying "I hope you don't mind" then piling the lightly steamed, fresh veggies on my plate.
However, as much a rebel as I may be in many respects, this remains and probably always will be a temptation.
Gah, how foul was that stuff ! Good on your Mum there, eh?