Returning to Europe with pets

[Old Daffodil]

Just had the rabies blood test done on our dogs.  Madame the vet is very good, although our large dog is very wary of her since she introduced him to the thermometer in a place he was not expecting her to approach him from!Madam shaved front leg for the test and he did not mind her doing that. Everyone made a fuss of him and he loved it!

[Old Daffodil]

We have just had the results of the blood test from Madame vet and they show the dogs are ultra resistant to rabies,not surprised the amount of injections they have had!We will now have a 6 month wait from the date of the blood test,10th of July. This means we will have been in France about 7months by the time we actually leave.

Love France though, temperature in the mid twenties ,good food,lovely walks and historic villages. :DIt is really quiet and you can drive for miles without meeting another car,I found it very strange at first.
We have had to use the French health service and if you are over retirement age you are covered for 70per cent of your health care. Diabetics are treated for free if the illness is diabetes related.
They also have their pepper and salt in the opposite pots to the English, like in Turkey .

Sorry I never answered the question of the dogs nationality,one was chipped in England and one was a Turkish stray we adopted who was chipped in Turkey. Turkish chip may have caused problems if we had tried anything a bit iffy!

[cheers]

Thanks for keeping us up to date with you and your dogs travels.  I have thoroughly enjoyed reading your thread.  Please keep us update!

[Old Daffodil]

Our Kangal cross dog is enjoying his holiday in France as is our British border collie.
The Kangal has had a short stay in a kennel in Mallicornd sur Sarthe whilst we were away and was very well cared for.The kennels are situated on a farm and the accommodation was beautiful (slept on sheepskin rug and had the run of a paddock big enough for a few horses.)Some owners of other dogs in the kennel were familiar with the Kangal dog which surprised us, they must be more well known than we thought.
Yesterday whilst walking our Kangal decided to take of into one of the huge corn fields. He is the same colour as the corn and it was so hard to spot him,he did return eventually thank goodness!

Life in France is an eye opener for me.
Where we are living in the Loire Valley there are no collections of rubbish and everyone is responsible of disposing of their own litter. There are smart wooden cabins for recycled goods and a big bin which is below ground level with a lid on for general rubbish,which are found in each village somewhere easy to reach such as the village sports ground or a lay by at the edge of the village. It appears to work really well and it is not often you see any litter,even a cigarette but.
The villages also have flower gardens and tubs,pots or hanging baskets scattered around and no graffiti. I have the impression that anyone with  a paint can would be chased out of town by french matrons wielding a big yard broom if they dared to desecrate so much as an inch of wall.
It is so quiet on the roads that it takes some getting used to.
Every town also flies the French flag at the local mayors office and the mayor really is a big influence in his area.
I am finding it very interesting learning about how things work here.

[hubblebubbles]

Please keep this thread going Daffodil with all of your thoughts. I too am really enjoying reading them and wish you luck with this episode of your journey through life. I am sure the dogs are finding it interesting too !!!

[Old Daffodil]

Glad you are enjoying it. Hope that the the posts helps anyone travelling back.We have used the Angloinfo forum for lots of information, it is a forum for expats in lots of countries.

We took the dogs for a walk yesterday in a park near a lake and there were lots of picnics going on. The local people play a game called Petanque which is played with a small plastic ball and some larger metal ones. They find an area of ground which is dry and hard and throw the small plastic ball then throw the bigger balls at it. There were quite a few games going on between mixed teams of men and women then everyone hit the cool boxes of cider and wine.Some villages even have a special petanque pitch.
Where we are living there are thousands of acres of maize growing and wheat fields. The farmers harvest 24 hours a day and are working all through the night. The corn is put into round bales that look like big rolls of carpet!As I look across the valley now there are hundreds of them sitting in the fields. The working men go into the cafes in the morning for cognac and coffee and it is a very man only type of thing to do here. We wandered in for breakfast one morning and they looked so surprised,we wandered out again.I find that there is nowhere to go for a breakfast. Lunch is eaten from about 12 o'clock and eating places are all required by law to have their menu and prices outside. The plat du jour means dish of the day. Everything stops for lunch and we were told even the police are hard to call out at lunch time. Farm machinery is abandoned at the roadside and everything closes!

[tintin]

That sounds such an interesting experience, we've often talked about if we were to go back, dogs must be with us and we would think about going thro France as you are doing. So will keep up with your journal and learn things as we go.  It's really hot sitting here on the balcony at the mo and the thought of cooler weather is really entising, but we all go thro that at this time of year here.  Hope you enjoy the rest of your time there, it does sound a lovely place to be. Have you found it expensive living there, say as opposed to Turkey?

[Old Daffodil]

We owned a house with a pool and paid somebody to maintain the pool and garden so it is hard to compare with a rented property.

Petrol here is about 1.32 or 1.33 euros which we have noticed is a big difference in prices. If you are of retirement age and you need medical treatment you do pay for it but then claim for the money.I do not know all the rules but I think you are reimbursed for about 70%of it and diabetes related illnesses are treated free of charge. We  have been given all the veg,salad,fruit bushes  in the garden as the people who own the place are back in England at the moment so have had that free.A lot of gardens here have vegetables and fruit in. I think that a lot of people grow their own pototoes,beans, salad,berries etc. Hubby does the shopping so I will ask him about food prices!There is a cider factory not far away over the Normandy border and we have had a crate or two of that for about 2eures a bottle.They are very strict that the apples in the cider are from Normandy and a British couple who we have met who own a farm say that they will not buy their apples as the farm is just over the Normandy border. This is France so wine is very cheap here!There are not many houses with pools, there are pools in lots of villages and hot tubs in the garden are very popular.
Of course we have no visa or residency to pay for.

[starman™]

Happy to hear you had a good journey. Thanks for letting us know. I guess the only down side to living in France is all the French people.

[Old Daffodil]

I can only speak about my own experiences.The french people with whom I have had contact have been fine. The young girls who have been waitresses in the restaurants are sweet and they must learn English at school as it they speak it very well. We have a local baker who drives up here every few days with bread,he is very jovial and wears really flamboyat t-shirts and shorts,his two little daughters are beautiful.There is a lady postwoman who delivers dead on the dot of half past eleven every day,she also takes any post that I may have and she is very efficent. The local farmers and I are on waving terms as they are usually driving some massive peice of machinery. Madam the vet is under five feet tall and has very good English, she has been extremely good to our dog and polite and efficent with us.I take it all a day at a time. This area is very rural and even French people who are not locals would probably have to wait a few months to be accepted into the community.