I just got a text saying my French driving licence was winging it’s way to me Geof. It’s not been a doddle, and a two year non-doddle at that. Next thing that’ll happen is I’ll lose 10 points in a week. But at least it’s done.
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The worlds gone mad 
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JJ, 'tis done. S1 for FR by 30th Nov and an ‘instruction manual’ of what to do with it.
Those people in the S1 dept are SO helpful, so obliging, so clued-up. In fact, last time I talked to them, the chap broke off in the middle of our discussion to tell me he enjoyed the very sort of conversation we were having and helping people with these issues.
I get the same from DVLA and DWP. There has definitely been a radical change in the recruiting and training of these civil servants in my experience. We have to pray that D. Cummings does not set about putting the process into reverse as a way to get peope to hate the C.S and having to deal with it.
As an ex civil servant that improved my day! Thank you. (Although in my time being helpful was a top priority too! )
I like it, too. I’ve noticed it’s not uncommon up in these Norman parts. Scoping the property websites I see many houses with this tone of blue-with-a-wee-drop-of-lilac.
Anyone know what it’s called? I mean what the paint tin says it is rather than the ‘official’ name on the Pantone chart.
Depends on the make - you just have to test. My painter gave me a brilliant tip which was new to me, paint a m2 or so on cardboard and look at it from various distances, if it is for shutters and exterior woodwork - it is amazing how colours behave and end up looking quite different. You can easily get paint mixed to order, my shutters are the exact colour of a shirt I like very much but the paint in the pot looks nothing like it. Hooray for painters 
Looks like bleu charrette to me 
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I was going to say bleu charrette and also bleu pastel 
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I’m sure when we lived in the Aude (where we did both houses in that blue) it was called something else again. Very popular down there as apparently the indigo to make it came from the Toulouse area.
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I’ve also had this list passed on today and we are waiting to see if there is any more coming from the authorities:
• rental : lease contract
• staying with family/friends: “attestation d’hébergement”
• hotel: paid bill
• motorhome: “attestation de résidence” from the mairie where the vehicule is parked / if on a campsite, letter confirming that the “campers” are living there permanently
Happened to me once. Doing up a flat for someone, my pal working with me put a nail into a pipe in a wall behind oak panelling. (Don’t ask…)
The flood went through downstairs kitchen ceiling. Sir Thomas - for it was he - came up to complain, as you do.
His kitchen was a solid, mid blue. We got the nearest shade we could find and repainted the ceiling. It looked nothing like the walls. We were faced with stripping out the whole, very cluttered kitchen to paint the lot.
Then a miracle occured. It dried in to exactly the colour of the walls! The change was radical. Amazing.
I can’t remember how we dealt with the hole in the pipe behind the panelling 
I’m glad I didn’t know this two weeks ago. I would have tried to wing it in my ‘camper’ which is somewhat a camper but not a lot. No loo. No ablutions. Single induction hob if plugged into the mains. Contains a double bed mattress and dismantled steel frame for same, stored against the time I have bedrooms to furnish. No WiFi!
I would have missed out on the lovely little cottage with the blue shutters.
Just had a message back and yes a gite contract is acceptable at this late stage as part of proof of being here by the end of the year.
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It is indeed cocagne…
Hmmmm. Is one part of french government encouraging laws to be broken?? 
As I said in other thread, a short term gîte contract should only be given to someone with a principal residence elsewhere. They can give - like with Captain Endeavour - a normal 12 month one of course. And they can give an attestation if they don’t take any money.
All this probably best left as a stone not to turn over… if a gîte owner wants to do this then the liability is with them as the owner of the business.
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It’s all so bloody complicated! Anyway I just hope that those that want to be here by the end of the year can do so so they don’t loose thier WA rights what with lock downs both sides of the channel! I’d not want to be camping this time of year though, hopefully they won’t have too many of those!!
I missed that. Seems a bit pedantic as a law, perhaps one not taken too literally. I know we rented 2 different gites here, one house hunting, one waiting to sign and they were legit French run gites and it was no problem at all.
I agree Tory. We never even ask whether our guests have a ‘principal residence’ elsewhere! - so we may have broken this rule many times - we’ve had a number of house-hunting guests over the years…
Moreover, in the 8 years or so we’ve been running our gite complex here, the authorities have taken absolutely no interest in it - except to collect the taxes of course.
House hunting guests most often have a house elsewhere…
As with many things the law only becomes relevant when there’s a problem. I have heard of gîtes let over winter where people have struggled to get the ‘clients’ out as they don’t have a legal leg to stand on. In one reported case it took two years apparently.
It is pastel it is made of, not indigo - pastel was a big source of riches around Toulouse and the industry was destroyed by cheap indigo from abroad. Pastel is called pastel des teinturiers but its Latin name is isatis tinctoria which is woad in English, very ancient Briton 
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