Your wireless router is probably in some central part of your holiday establishment and may not reach all the accomodation - or may reach it unreliably. Either juggle with the router positioning until you get good reception everywhere or consider using power line range extenders such as these from Netgear  or a signal repeater such as this from D-Link.

Imay be that every other UK resident driving in France except me already knew this – but on a recent trip with a French driver at the wheel I was puzzled as to why she kept giving way to traffic from the right on unmarked crossroads. Apparently this is common practice, especially in rural areas where the old French system of giving priority to all traffic from the right is still used.

Road signs can override this ‘rule’ and one should never assume, when approaching a junction, that other drivers are aware of this convention – they might be English ;-)

It seemed like a strangely ‘wrong’ thing to be doing. If traffic is driving on the right and you approach an unmarked crossroad you naturally look left. Made me wonder how I’d avoided a dent in the driver’s door for the past 20 years…

More info on driving in France can be found here…

Wikipedia - http://wikitravel.org/en/Driving_in_France

Since July the first 2008 it has become a requirement for all drivers and motor-cyclists to carry a reflective vest in or on their vehicle when travelling in France. This was already the case in several other European countries. Road users face a substantial fine if they are found not to be carrying one inside the vehicle for each vehicle occupant. More information is available (amongst other places) on the Norfolk Line website.

We recently wanted to take some ‘spare’ plants from our garden in the UK to our newly purchased French holiday home. Trawling the net produced lots of the same questions but many fewer answers. Even official sites like DEFRA are a bit impenetrable on the subject.  As far as I can make out, this is the basic situation…

Moving personal household and garden plants between EEC countries is mostly fine with some restrictions on plants known to harbour aggressive diseases. Between the UK and France – for example – there are restrictions on Vibernums, Rhododendrons, Azaleas and Camelias which can carry ‘sudden oak death’ disease – ‘a deadly disease that kills trees by creating cankers which girdle the trunk and clog up their water-carrying veins’.

More info can be found here…

Sudden Oak Death - www.rhs.org.uk/advice/sudden_oak_death.asp

Restricted Plants: http://www.defra.gov.uk/planth/publicat/impguid.pdf

Most airlines now make provision for ‘special’ in-flight meals. Special meals need to be booked when you purchase your ticket. Some airlines accept later meal bookings but usually no later the 48 hours before the flight.

The food options on offer varies between very little (EasyJet?) and extensive (Emirates!). The In-Flight Food Service Association, an organization consisting of airlines, caterers and suppliers, is pressing its members to use the meal coding used by the Association of European Airlines which may make ordering easier and more reliable. Their codes include the following…

AVML: Asian vegetarian
DBML: Diabetic
GFML: Gluten free
VLML: Lacto-ovo vegetarian
VGML: Vegan / Non dairy / Vegetarian Meals - suitable for pure vegetarians

I have occasionally had problems getting access via  wifi networks which have a WEP key. The owners  passed them on OK but I couldnt get them to work! Best solution is to always ask if wifi access is 'open' (ie no security) - thats likely to cause less hassle.

You may have trouble sending emails (but not receiving) via your laptop if you are using an email client like Outlook (as opposed to webmail like Google Mail). That could be because the ISP (Internet Service Provider) such as Orange or Wannadoois restricting the use of port 25 for outgoing (SMTP) emails as an anti-spam measure. I eventually resolved this with the help of this link...

http://riviera.angloinfo.com/forum/topic.asp?topic_id=116896

In one case in point when staying in Normandy, I changed my outgoing email server to smtp.wanadoo.fr - tuned off 'My server requires authentication' and everything worked fine.

Another solution is to make sure you always have a backup webmail account via Yahoo, GMail etc. which will bypass such issues.

UPDATE! Having now purchased a house in France and (finally) getting my ADSL line up and running I discovered the best fix for not sending emails may just be changing the SMTP port to 587

In order to take your cat or dog on holiday with you to another EU country, you will need a pet passport. Most of the stringent rules actually apply to bringing your pet back to the UK. In a nutshell, you will need to complete the following steps in the right order..

1. Have your pet micro chipped
2. Have your pet vaccinated against rabies. (This can be done at the same time as 1)
3. Wait for 3-4 weeks and then have their blood tested to check the vaccine has ‘taken’
4. Wait for 6 calendar months from the date of the blood test before bringing your pet BACK into the UK
5. 24-48 hours before returning to the UK your pet must be treated for ticks and tapeworm
6. Have vaccinations against rabies at recommended intervals; (with dogs every three years)

Be careful never go over the due date or you will have to start again from scratch! Costs vary between vets so do shop around.

More information is available on the DEFRA website at www.defra.gov.uk