http://www.normandyinsite.com "Love Normandy, Live Normandy" Tue, 14 May 2013 17:23:56 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 http://www.normandyinsite.com/magnificent-manor-land-outbuildings/ http://www.normandyinsite.com/magnificent-manor-land-outbuildings/#comments Wed, 03 Apr 2013 12:59:52 +0000 Suzanne Pearce http://www.normandyinsite.com/?p=8660 €585,000 Property Ref: SIF – 00263 Hab. Area: 317m² Land Area: 43,851m² Bedrooms: 5 Bathrooms: 5 2 Car Garage Total Rooms: 9 Broadband: Yes – Phoneline Floors: 3 Nearest Amenities: Cahagnes For more information, click here.]]> http://www.normandyinsite.com/magnificent-manor-land-outbuildings/feed/ 0 http://www.normandyinsite.com/cottage-style-house-with-gite/ http://www.normandyinsite.com/cottage-style-house-with-gite/#comments Wed, 03 Apr 2013 12:51:57 +0000 Suzanne Pearce http://www.normandyinsite.com/?p=8657 €161,000 Property Ref: SIF – 00262 Hab. Area: 125m² Land Area: 1,749m² Bedrooms: 3 (main house) + 2 (gîte) Bathrooms: 1 (main house) + 1 (gîte) 1 Car Garage Total Rooms: 5 (main house) + 2 (gîte) Broadband: Not Sure Floors: 2 Nearest Amenities: Cerences For more information, click here.]]> http://www.normandyinsite.com/cottage-style-house-with-gite/feed/ 0 http://www.normandyinsite.com/spacious-house-and-gite/ http://www.normandyinsite.com/spacious-house-and-gite/#comments Wed, 03 Apr 2013 12:45:01 +0000 Suzanne Pearce http://www.normandyinsite.com/?p=8653 €341,000 Property Ref: SIF – 00261 Hab. Area: 270m² Bedrooms: 1 (main house) + 2 (gîte) Bathrooms: 2 (main house) + 1 (gîte) 4 Car Garage Total Rooms: 7 Broadband: Yes – Phoneline Floors: 2 Nearest Amenities: Sept Freres For more information, click here.]]> http://www.normandyinsite.com/spacious-house-and-gite/feed/ 0 http://www.normandyinsite.com/superb-school-house/ http://www.normandyinsite.com/superb-school-house/#comments Wed, 03 Apr 2013 12:39:36 +0000 Suzanne Pearce http://www.normandyinsite.com/?p=8650 €224,700 Property Ref: SIF – 00260 Hab. Area: 170m² Land Area: 920m² Bedrooms: 4 Bathrooms: 2 2 Car Garage Garage Size: 100m² Total Rooms: 5 Broadband: Yes – Phoneline Floors: 2 Nearest Amenities: Mortain For more information, click here.]]> http://www.normandyinsite.com/superb-school-house/feed/ 0 http://www.normandyinsite.com/old-house-with-great-potential/ http://www.normandyinsite.com/old-house-with-great-potential/#comments Wed, 03 Apr 2013 12:33:02 +0000 Suzanne Pearce http://www.normandyinsite.com/?p=8647 €59,950 Property Ref: SIF – 00259 Hab. Area: 90m² Land Area: 647m² Bedrooms: 2 1 Car Garage Total Rooms: 4 Broadband: Not Sure Floors: 2 Nearest Amenities: Sourdeval For more information, click here.]]> http://www.normandyinsite.com/old-house-with-great-potential/feed/ 0 http://www.normandyinsite.com/detached-house-2-plots/ http://www.normandyinsite.com/detached-house-2-plots/#comments Wed, 03 Apr 2013 12:19:27 +0000 Suzanne Pearce http://www.normandyinsite.com/?p=8639 €139,900 Property Ref: SIF – 00247 Hab. Area: 95m² Land Area: Approx. 3,000m² Bedrooms: 2 Bathrooms: 1 1 Car Garage Total Rooms: 4 Broadband: Not Sure Floors: 1 Nearest Amenities: Saint Germain de Tallevende and Vire For more information, click here.]]> http://www.normandyinsite.com/detached-house-2-plots/feed/ 0 http://www.normandyinsite.com/le-biscuterie-de-labaye/ http://www.normandyinsite.com/le-biscuterie-de-labaye/#comments Mon, 04 Mar 2013 12:14:50 +0000 Anthony Duckworth http://www.normandyinsite.com/?p=8519 My Hidden Places A new series about food producers and craft industries in our region This month : LE BISCUTERIE de L’ABBAYE. Lonlay d’Abbaye, Orne Approaching the village look out over the hillside beyond the abbey and you will see a haze above the trees, if the wind is in the right direction you will have no doubt that biscuits are baking giving off the steam that hovers above the factory.  The name may lead you to think that this is an industry founded by the monks at the abbey but , in fact, it is far more recent. The famous biscuits, Sables, were first produced by the village baker,Georges Lautour, in 1941 and helped to compensate for the revenue lost due to mobilisation in 1939/1940. The fame of the biscuits spread and in 1964 his son and son-in-law founded the factory as it is today. It is still very much a family business but now employs 220 people and exports worldwide. The production runs to over 6000 tons per year and there are now about 200 recipes. As well as the ‘Sables de L’Abbaye’ they also produce biscuits for all the major supermarkets in France. The factory is a very long , low, building to accommodate the linear ovens, carrier belts run the length from mixing at one end to packing and dispatch at the other. The mixing room is the start of the process, with three different Kneading machines mixing the flour and other ingredients to enable three types of biscuit to be loaded to the different belts. Large rotary presses made from bronze form the dough into the shapes of the biscuits, they then go Under a roller and Under a brush that coats them with the glaze of egg and milk. The belt then takes them through to long oven tunnels to the cooling area. The cooking takes between 5 and ten minutes and over a ton of biscuits can be produced every hour. Continuing along the line the biscuits are packed both manually and automatically ( The company protects the privacy of the workers so I was not able to photograph this area) before going through the doors to the loading bay. If you are interested in going to see them they do have a small shop on site and visits can be arranged to see the production areas. Their web site is http://www.biscuiterie-abbaye.com/]]> http://www.normandyinsite.com/le-biscuterie-de-labaye/feed/ 0 http://www.normandyinsite.com/le-tour-de-finance-2013-vip-invitation/ http://www.normandyinsite.com/le-tour-de-finance-2013-vip-invitation/#comments Mon, 04 Mar 2013 11:50:58 +0000 Greg Hughes http://www.normandyinsite.com/?p=8558 Le Tour de Finance is a financial forum for British expats which will help you with a range of different financial products and services. We want to reach expats where you live so that you can seek advice particular to your local area. Tax advice, pensions, mortgages, healthcare, schools, business advice and making the most of your assets are just some of the subjects that expats need to know more about. Le Tour de Finance is the ideal opportunity to find answers to the most pressing questions facing British people living in France, it will also be a moment to network with expats and companies]]> http://www.normandyinsite.com/le-tour-de-finance-2013-vip-invitation/feed/ 0 http://www.normandyinsite.com/your-garden/ http://www.normandyinsite.com/your-garden/#comments Mon, 04 Mar 2013 03:33:46 +0000 A propos du jardin http://www.normandyinsite.com/?p=8383 We associate March with spring – which has definitely not sprung this year. The bitter north-easterlies are wreaking havoc with any desire to get out and garden. But it just means that when finally, the wind changes direction, it’ll be a scramble to catch up. Snowdrops Once they’ve finished flowering – and if the patch is quite dense – now’s the time to transplant ‘in the green’. Snowdrops can be a bit ‘picky’ but once they’re happy, will multiply really quickly. Dig up a few now, and transplant to an area under trees. They tend to ‘take’ better when planted in the green and will love the extra space. Last week, I had lunch at the Manoir de la Pommeraie (on the Flers road just outside Vire) www.manoirdelapommeraie.com The food was truly delicious, very inventive and definitely worthy of a detour. The snowdrops in their garden can be seen here: So what can we do right now? Actually, quite a lot Cut back new growth of brambles When temperatures reach a minimum in the day of 12°C, you can treat the ground against an invasion of nettles, more brambles and giant thistles (chardons) – this latter must be kept at bay by law here. A good product for this is Fertiligène’s Débroussaillant, which you spray over the area to be treated Ground can be given a final dig, ready for planting or preparation of the potager. Some black polythene spread over the veggie plot will warm up the soil a bit as well as discourage weed growth Start ‘chitting’ potato tubers indoors, in a cool but light area. When you are ready to start planting out first early potato tubers, break off some of the new buds, leaving no more than 3 per tuber. This will encourage better growth and a heavier crop.   On planting Potato Tubers: This method is pretty much fail-safe and was taught to me by my grandfather: Dig a good deep trench and add a layer of well-rotted manure or compost to give extra feed through the growing season. Then line out the trench with newspaper. This layer of newspaper helps to retain moisture at root level during the growing season Then sprinkle some slug pellets into the trench. This stops attack from keel slugs. In very damp areas, these can be a real problem Plant potatoes (spacing will depend on the variety, but roughly the length of your foot) and cover with about 10cm of soil As the new leaves appear, earth up bit by bit, until eventually you have a mound If mildew is a problem in your area, a treatment with Bayer’s ‘Anti Mildiou’ will help. But don’t confuse mildew with leaves that wilt when the potatoes are ready to harvest. When harvesting, either dig up as and when you need them or if there’s a glut, then lift, leave for a couple of hours to dry off the soil and then store in hessian sacks, which allows moisture to disperse but keeps the spuds in the dark.   Alternative ways of growing potatoes, where space is limited: Potatoes grown in sacks (above) – or in stacked tyres – or even in deep pots Perennials In March, perennials will start into life again and now’s the time to add to your collection. When planting, aim to have taller plants (like delphiniums or tall campanulas) at the back of the border, and graduate down with the low-growers carpeting the front of the border (pinks, aubretias etc) Perennials are always best grown in groups of odd numbers – single items look a bit like little soldiers and even numbers tend to look a bit contrived and not at all natural. This rule doesn’t apply if you have a ‘cutting garden’, where it’s far more practical to plant in rows, just like in the potager. Colour combinations are fairly important when planting perennials, too. To create a Mediterranean style, go for the hot colours of reds, oranges and yellows. If you want to add a feeling of distance/perspective, go for blues (think of a bluebell wood and its impression of reaching infinity) and lavenders. White can be used amongst the colours to make either a focal point or an ‘accent’. The only colours that don’t work well together are pinks with yellows – each colour tends to ‘kill’ the other.   www.aproposdujardin-direct.com email: aproposdujardin@hotmail.com  ]]> http://www.normandyinsite.com/your-garden/feed/ 0 http://www.normandyinsite.com/your-garden-february-2013/ http://www.normandyinsite.com/your-garden-february-2013/#comments Mon, 04 Mar 2013 03:33:46 +0000 A propos du jardin http://www.normandyinsite.com/your-garden-2/ With the days slowly lengthening, the garden will soon be springing to life. Snowdrops (and even primroses in my Normandy garden) are appearing and daffodils are showing leaf. So, there’s no time like the present for preparing for the new season. POTATOES February is a good time to order seed potatoes. Towards the end of the month you can start to ‘chit’ them. Chitting isn’t entirely necessary, but does tend to improve the yield, when harvesting. Place the seed potatoes in an egg box (to stop the rolling around) and allow the ‘eyes’ to develop into shoots. When planting, remove all but about 3 shoots per potato, which will allow the plant to grow much stronger, rather than more, but less robust plants. Earlies: Jersey Royals (International Kidney) are a favourite for us Brits. But they’re not really available here (culinary snobbery?) The nearest we’ve found for flavour and texture is the “Bonnotte de Noirmoutiers”. Extraordinary as it may seem, when bought in the shops, they are the most expensive potato in the world – they sell for over $400 a kilo in the US! But as a seed potato, they are, yes, a little bit more expensive than the rest (but so are International Kidney), but totally within budget. The reason for their exorbitant ready-to-cook price is that they come from a tiny area off Brittany where only 400 tons are produced annually – which sounds like a lot, but isn’t in the world-wide scheme of things. The excellent flavour, like Jersey’s, comes from the seaweed that is used to fertilise the soil. Don’t confuse ‘Bonnotte’ with ‘Bonotte de Noirmoutiers’ – they are not the same at all. “Amandine” is a sport of the well-known ‘Charlotte’. It makes an excellent new or salad potato, has firm flesh, a better flavour than ‘Charlotte’ and is ready to use rather earlier than its parent. “Belle de Fontenay” is also a good ‘early’ choice. Again, it is good for salads and new potatoes. The flesh is yellow and waxy. Second Earlies “Charlotte” is probably the best-known second-early potato here in France. The flesh is firm and yellow and makes a good salad potato. “Bintje” makes a larger potato and is used for baking, mash and chips. Again the flesh is slightly yellow. “Mona Lisa” is the choice if you like the British Potato “Maris Piper”. This potato is good for gratins, mash, chips etc and is a very good cropper “Vitelotte” is a superb purple potato – good flavour and excellent for adding colour to a salad or for garnishing. Maincrop King Edward – known as ‘Oeil de Perdrix’ in France, but is actually the same potato. This is a good all-rounder, well-known to us all, very reliable and brilliant for roasting. Grown equally as a second early. Not so easy to find here, so order in plenty of time, to avoid disappointment “Desiree” This potato should readily available in France. With its distinctive red skin, the flesh is white, it is firm and doesn’t become floury when boiled and will also roast well. Jobs for February Winter-prune wisteria Prune winter-flowering shrubs as the flowers fade (eg: Viburnum tinus or Mahonia) Finish off pruning apples and pears. The prunings can be cut up, dried and stored for kindling for next year’s open fires Start removing determined weeds that will have grown during the winter, despite the cold weather. If you’re lucky enough to have a greenhouse, early crops of broad beans can be started off. The variety ‘Aquadulce’ can also be sown into open ground if you have a fleece or polythene tunnel. Carry on planting bare-root trees, hedging and roses, so long as the ground is not frozen. If you have bought bare-root stock that you are unable to plant, don’t worry. You can either dig one big hole and heel everything in together, or put into a big pot of either compost or sand. The plants can be left outside and the elements do the watering.]]> http://www.normandyinsite.com/your-garden-february-2013/feed/ 0 http://www.normandyinsite.com/thoughts-reflections-and-cosmic-jokes/ http://www.normandyinsite.com/thoughts-reflections-and-cosmic-jokes/#comments Mon, 04 Mar 2013 03:20:32 +0000 Chris Carthy http://www.normandyinsite.com/?p=8523 I always find this time of year a time to reflect, a time to enjoy the warmth of my home, read by the fire in the early evening, think and consolidate; learn from my thoughts and experiences over the previous year; prepare my mind and body for the spring and summer months, whatever those months might bring. Hopefully they will be months of warmth, pleasure and friendships enjoyed, sunny light evenings and beautiful Normandy sunsets. However, sometimes life can play one of its cosmic jokes and gives us a real problem, a really difficult time. Well, there are several ways we can help ourselves to cope with those occasions. We can assume and believe that life does things FOR us and NOT to us – and if you believe it you’ll always discover it to be absolutely true. You’ll never see it at the time, but keep believing it and you’ll see that the jigsaw DOES just fall into place, eventually. Of course, if you don’t believe it, then you will never observe that happy fact because you won’t be looking for it, and you will find instead, that life treats you badly and that it’s not fair. Not half so useful as believing that good will come from even the most uncomfortable experience and discovering it to be true. We can discover what part WE played to bring about the latest catastrophe – most of the time, a lot of the time we seek to prove that it was NOTHING to do with us, that it could not have been avoided…..  so that we can very easily have exactly the same thing happen again. We have to believe that it was out of our control, while those who seek out their part in the event(s) recognize that they are at least partly in control of their own destiny. It feels better that way. We can recognize that once something has happened it can never be  ‘unhappened’ and no amount of dwelling upon the event will ever change that fact. Shouting, yelling, accusing and apportioning blame just makes us feel worse by changing our body chemistry – and whatever has happened has still happened. And when somebody criticizes you or upsets you unnecessarily recognise that they are telling you something about themselves, not anything about you. YOU know how YOU are – the other person is only telling you what THEY think – and what they think is based on their own self and is nothing to do with you at all. So I intend this spring to strive for happiness, take responsibility for my actions, be myself, take life as it comes in all its forms and believe that life is doing something FOR me and not TO me, and everything will fall into place as my destiny determines. Chris www.christophercarthy.com]]> http://www.normandyinsite.com/thoughts-reflections-and-cosmic-jokes/feed/ 0 http://www.normandyinsite.com/the-price-is-right/ http://www.normandyinsite.com/the-price-is-right/#comments Mon, 04 Mar 2013 02:30:19 +0000 Judy Mansfield http://www.normandyinsite.com/?p=8516 How do you determine how much to charge for your goods or service?  What is costs you, and add on a bit?  Do you carry out meticulous research, or is it gut instinct?  Do you just find out what your competitor charges then undercut him by 10%?  Or maybe you offer rock bottom prices that you know no-one else can match? Do you panic that you won’t get any clients if you charge too much? These are all symptomatic of confusing Price with Value, which is one of the most common mistakes in business.    Pitching your price correctly isn’t easy, and here is a great exercise based on something I learned at a recent training course. Look at this painting – it is quite a large, original canvas.  Putting aside your own personal taste, how much would you expect the price tag to be if you saw this painting for sale: (a)  At a Vide Grenier (b)  In your local Jumbo store (c)  In John Lewis (d)  In a very upmarket art gallery in Paris or London   I dare say that the price tag would vary widely, depending on where it was on sale.  This is your perception of value.  Yes, you may be saying “My 5 year old could do that”, but if it was in the window of a Bond Street art gallery, the price would be much greater than if you saw it for sale in Jumbo.  Yet it is the same item!   Many of us have great difficulty in pricing our value to the customer.  I know artisans who hate doing quotes for work and will put it off as long as they can, just to avoid putting a price figure in the invoice.  The temptation is to go in cheaply on your quotation, just to ensure you get the work.   We have all had the customer who wants our product or service, but who doesn’t want to pay much for it.  This is true whether you are a builder, a website designer, an estate agent or a famous artist.  How do you answer someone who says you are too expensive? Picasso was a great artist – but he was also a very astute businessman.  Here is how he dealt with the Price Objection.  A woman once spotted him drawing in a pavement café.  She asked him if he would sketch her for payment.  He did so, and in minutes, there it was: a Picasso original.  She asked how much she owed him for the sketch, and he told her it was 5000 francs.  Shocked, she told him it only took him 3 minutes.  “No”, Picasso replied, “it took all my life”.  He established the value of the painting, not the customer. Now look at your charges, and remember to consider your value when estimating the price.  Develop a value strategy and consider the following: What do you charge? Why do you charge the price you do? Is it a true reflection of your value to the customer? What would happen if you increased your price? If the answer to the last question is that you would lose customers, go on to consider whether that is necessarily a bad thing.   As Jackie Jarvis says in her book 85 Inspiring Ways to Market) Don’t let your own beliefs about money get in the way of customers who want to buy something they value! Last month, I mentioned the UK’s number one marketing expert I had come across called Robert Clay.  I was immediately drawn to his clear, no-nonsense approach and he generously shares his strategy via his website and a free eBook you can download from his website In his book, Robert says there are only THREE ways you can grow a business: Increase the number of your customers Increasing the value of each transaction (putting the price up) Increasing the number of times a customer buys from you  – your repeat business   Most businesses, large and small, will concentrate their efforts on the first option – to get more customers.  More advertising, special offers, exhibitions and so on.  But he goes on to show that options 2 and 3 are actually much more effective for business growth and thus for income. Getting more customers has its risks to your business.  Sounds mad, doesn’t it?  But think about it… Advertising, if not thought out properly, can make a massive hole in your budget.  Not only that, if you double the number of customers, are you sure that you can manage the extra workload?  Would you need larger premises? Would you need to take on more staff?  And what about training up those new staff – who will do that?  If the answer is ‘you’, then who will be running the business?  Robert Clay points out that increasing the number of customers will increase your revenue, but it is also the hardest, most expensive, time-consuming and stress-inducing way of growing your business.    Happily he does go on to demonstrate how a modest increase in your customer base, combined with an increase in frequency and value of transactions from those customers, will dramatically improve your business. The Normandy Business Group will be running more MasterClasses throughout the year on various business topics.  You don’t have to be a captain of industry to be a member – many of us have our struggles with one aspect of our business or another.  What IS certain is that you will have support, encouragement, and lots of help and advice from other business owners.  We are also very keen to celebrate one another’s success stories, and there have been many over the year since the group started. Our group is now one year old, with over 100 members of many different nationalities, skills and experience.  We have seen joint ventures and alliances form, a natural referral process, every single member has met someone new that they can do business with, and we have all learned new skills….   And had [...]]]> http://www.normandyinsite.com/the-price-is-right/feed/ 0