Hi all, i have not been on a UK forum for some time.

[Oliver90owner]

A welcome back from me, too

Have you visited the Olive Branch since the covid restrictions?

We have not been out much as J is in the ‘extreme risk’ category.

I trust you have completely got over the scourge?

I would also like to see a rewrite of your freezer recharge.

RAB

[Stig]

Welcome back from me too. Having recently bought a place in the Vercors (with my brother and sister) which needs quite a bit of 'updating' I may be picking your brains about French regs., insulation availability etc.!

[ClockmanFRA]

Hi RAB, Hi Stig.

Wow Stig, in France Wow.

RAB, I have not been anywhere these last few years. Just working in and out of London. As we are all mostly down South. I do have a client up at Clipsham, Rutland, but these last few years i have not seen him.
Since Brexit my work has mostly disappeared and Covid was the death nail, as most of my customers are oldish and responsible, so we keep away from each other.
So i have gone into retirement in the out there working mode, but hell not here in France, huge amount of projects to be finished and many books to write etc. Looks like i will be teaching courses when this Covid calms down.

Stig, In France the rule for retirement is 40 to 45 years in paid employment then you can draw the state pension. So I am past that 60 age so the French officialdom leave me well alone. ! Probably never get my UK pension as they seem to move it ever older age, or now they seem to pay in many many months of arrears, suppose it looks good as a savings in teat pensions department.

Take care guys

[Hermit]

A very big welcome from me too, good to see you on here.

Cheers, Paul

[ClockmanFRA]

Hi Paul,

Nice to here that you are here as well.

[Mr Gus]

Vercors eh Stig!? ..lovely stuff, on the plains or more altitude? ..hopefully good solar potential? or have you siblings grabbed you by the shoulders & said a firm "NO(n)"

Does this mean someone is taking up parapenting? ..with lockdown & a greasy autumn road e-bike accident the previous november prior to lockdown 1 involving rest & rehab for both brain & body I'd likely need the biggest wing going nowadays.

I seem to remember something about the (WW2) German assault on Vercors not long after the American forces crazily dropped nearly 900 supply & weaponry cannisters in broad daylight resulting in a big german attack of heavy fighting by the French resistance & slaughter of 800 including a lot of villagers, a place i'd like to see the landscape of first hand.

[Stig]

It's on the plains, so only around 800m. Yes, should be good solar potential but probably not really cost effective if it's only used as a holiday home (which it was for the previous owners too) - depends what EDF pay for export and what administrative hurdles they put in the way (something Clockman could advise on?). Insulation work is first on the list though.

Yes, most villages have memorials for the resistance (and others) killed. Apparently there are still some villages that other villages won't talk to because of some collaborators there.

[ClockmanFRA]

Hi Stig,

Okay, The French state verses the people.

These last 5 years things are changing.

I noticed last year when EDF were replacing the poles around us, and when they got near us they visited me and asked to switch off our supply at the consumer unit, he said it would be about 4 hours.
Now we are connected to EDF and i do use their power in the winters when there is no sun and no Wind, ie like now. However i use EDF like a 15Kva generator and set aside 0.25 euros per kwh. Yes its still cheaper than me buying a generator, maintenance and the fuel.

Any way man switched us off and put a seal on the main switch. It surprised him and his mate that the power was still on here. Discussion took place and he said he had seen our PV etc, so we must be connected to EDF with GTI's, its not in his records that we are connected, but he said. "Today so many people just connect with micro inverters with a few panels, without going through the registration paperwork at the Department HQ."

Stig, It seems that the paperwork has now been reduced for connection to the Main Grid. Max input is still 3kW and there are moves in the offing for the self Consumption to be put on a better footing to try and save the planet. Now according to what i read here, don't put into the main Grid as returns are nearly Zero, but it looks like folk here manage with the main Grid operating their small GTI's .

This is a Facebook site, and if you are in France then you ask and they inspect you. CRÉATIONS AUTOCONSOMMATION SOLAIRE. Ask what you like in French of course they are reasonable, but keep it simple.

France is slowly waking up and normal folk want to put up PV and boy oh boy the crap kits being sold here is bad. But the folk on that Facebook are shifting from a few panels and DC charging to batts to cut that out altogether. I do post, but its not easy explaining AC coupling that we do without connection to EDF. But thats another story.

[ClockmanFRA]

Stig,
As regards War.

We have been here over 20 years now.

Be careful, maybe in a few more generations things may calm down.
Here in Normandy its not easy, and a lot of settling up happened as the Allies advanced. And remember that history is written by the victors.

As one old retired Mayor told me, "Some of the French were worse than the Germans", we chatted for hours, my wife's father and my father were both in the RAF, so he really opened up. He told us stories that he saw when he was an 11 year old, his children had never heard their dad talk about the war. In fact some stories shocked his grown up children. Sadly the old boy died 10 years ago.

I have kept all his stories and some are written down, one day if you ask nicely i will tell you some. And yes still find German ww2 hand grenades in the garden. Put them on the Autumn bonfires now as that incinerates the old explosive inside, some times nothing happen, sometimes the bonfire blows up!
We have a single track along side our field and during the War, "a German ammunition lorry was strafed by a Hawker typhon, the lorry caught fire and the soldiers threw all the ammunition boxes into your field". Sadly that Hawker Typhoon was shot down by a SS anti aircraft battery unit in the next Village and the Canadian Pilot is buried there with a Plaque on the Church. Our valley had a rail line passing up the valley and the RAF patrolled it very regularly looking for Targets.

A few years ago a French Play/Musical was done outside the church in a nearby town, where our Tiger Tank is, and one of our stories is now include, i think a French Film is now coming out. My wife's father was a Squadron Leader RAF, he checked his old squadron records and found that 2 Spitfire pilots logs that list shooting up the German staff car that Rommel was traveling in just outside the Town as the Invasion was getting under way. The logs were correct for the exact date, obviously they did not know it was Rommel. Rommel was put in the local larger town Hospital for some time, and it is said that his planning for pushing the Allies back into the sea was put on hold. Its a very small world.