Category Archives: Life in France

Avoid Currency Rip-Off charges

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There is a lot of talk online and in the journals this week about the excessive charges made by banks when you change currency. This article in The Independent newspaper sums up some of the problems.

Currency exchanges vary on a day-to-day basis. There are many websites which show these fluctuations in real-time, xe.com for example, or even simple just type in your query into the Google search bar type something like  “1 GBP in euro” – I have found that these queries do not give exactly the same results – two comparisons a few seconds apart using these two services gave me a difference of a quarter of one percent when I tried them.

The exchange rate shown is what is called the “mid-bank” rate – this is something neither you nor I (unless you are a bank) will ever get – the poor old banks have to make a profit moving their (our) money around so they charge a fee (commission) for doing this.

Tourist rates are the prices you will get from banks, high street exchanges and cash machines. It this moment the mid-bank rate is showing at 1.14 euro to the pound (to 2 decimal places everywhere) the typical tourist rate is 1.11 euro to the pound – so the commission charge is about two and a half percent

The best deal I have found shifting lumps of money through currency dealers is what they call “30 points off” mid-bank rate – in other words they charge about one third of one percent, but this is for buying a house or transferring a largish sum of money.

So the best tourist rates for going on vacation and wanting 1000 euro is going to cost a minimum of 25 euro – but be careful, ATM machines often charge an extra three percent and there are many other charges not shown clearly by currency exchange services.

This soon mounts up and even with the nicest bank people you are in effect buying them a very expensive dinner, with Champagne, for the simple job of moving your money from one place to another.

If you are coming to stay with us in Villa Roquette, we can help you save money. You can transfer your booking payment directly into a bank account we specify, either in the UK or USA, paying us in pounds or dollars, we will calculate the money (all our prices are in euro) owing at the actual real mid-bank rate at the time and not make any charges at all, you get the full listed exchange rate.

Add this saving to our plane or train shuttle service saving you up to 200 euro in taxi fares and your saving on baggage as we provide beach towels and many extras as standard and you could save enough to stay an extra couple of days.

I was thinking of ways of helping further,  for example, you could transfer your spending money and we would repay you in euro when you arrive, we then only need charge the much smaller currency exchange rate when we transfered several clients payments across by a large sum transfer. But when I spoke to Carole about this idea it made us sound like a Nigerian scam, so perhaps I will keep this for a future project.

Villa Roquette Guest Hose in Languedoc France

Private Pool at Villa Roquette

Whats On In Herault

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WOW l’Herault is a website giving news and information about What’s On Where in our department, Herault, in Southern France.

The editor (and founder) , Robin Hicks, is a very experienced Press, Television and Radio journalist – he has a flair for delivering current news and the latest local events, accurately and interestingly in a well presented and unclutterred website.

A natural organisor, Robin has also created the local Christmas Cracker Fair – and annual event attracting hundreds of local artisans and producers to exhibit and sell their goods at a local Chateau in the weeks before Christmas – with live entertainment , food stalls and exhibitions, this isa major local event.

Not only that, Robin also finds time to arrange special concerts and recitals for local musicians, again in magnificent settings, these events are always sold out.

Follow WOW l’Herault to keep pace with the latest happenings in this lively and active community here in the heart of Languedoc The Real (and Original) South of France.

Plus ca Change But Different

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I discovered something very important, for me, this week.

I decided to save 300 euro by changing the timing belt on our Renault Clio – the car has done over 200,000 km and the belt was last changed at 110,000 km, so it was due for renewal to avoid very costly repairs should it break – at the same time I decided to change the water pump as this can only be accessed from behind the belt casing.

How hard could this be I thought, I have changed and set timing on many cars and motorbikes including V12 Jaguars, so I bought the kit, belt and locking pins and prepared for the work.

Increasingly over the last 20 years I have “complained” frequently about the atrocious design and poor quality of most manufactured items, from computers and electronic equipment to washing machines and furniture (even at times Ikea). Carole must have heard me say “what idiot designed that” a thousand times.

Starting work on the Clio was no exception, flimsy plastic covers, spaces too tight to get a spanner into, it seems the engine and its myriad of sensors and pipes was poured into a mould and to remove one item meant dismantling half the car, wheels, engine mountings, covers ad-infinitum. A fully equipped and experienced garage would take four to five hours for the job – I reckoned it would take me about double that, with luck.

Four hours in – my complaints about the stupidity of the designers who thought of the engine, bodywork and decision to make the car totally reliant on a rubber band not breaking could be heard, mutterings from the end of the garden, where I was working, were heard in the house. I quit in the evening, exhausted and frustrated at the inability to remove a blanking-plug so I could insert a locking pin.

Day two and I was deeper into my loathing of all all designers and modern technology in general – I eventually got the plug out by welding a nut on top of it and then undoing it with a spanner – four hours to do a three minute job – this was just the first of several “impossible” tasks to get access to and then remove the old belt and water pump – end of day two and all was dismantled (not much was broken except my spirit) – ten hours gone and had not started assembly.

However, that evening, over a glass of wine (actually rather more than a glass) – before boring everybody again with the crass idiocy of modern equipment, I thought a little about the problem.

In fact the car is is very good condition, yet had done over 210,000 km since we got it – with no major repairs, no problems and minimum maintenance – what I was doing now was setting it up for another 100,000 km – it was also fantastically cheap – representing about five months work for a person on average wages. It also (being diesel) does 100km on 4.5 liters of diesel (70mpg).

All other cars I have done work on (30 odd years ago) were thirsty, needed lots of maintenance and packed up completely after about 150,000 km – for the last quarter of a century I have been busy and tended to send cars to garages for servicing and maintenance. So how come this engineering aberration, the cause of my mutterings of imbecilic design, is in fact very good at being a car. Then the light-bulb of cognition clicked on in my head.

It is because it was not designed by engineers who would have to work on it but was the product of many bright people with computer systems to help them optimise the manufacturing process to create a car that, looked good, was at an optimum cheapness to manufacture, performed as well as any of the competing products on the market and could develop a brand loyalty from the buyer. To achieve this it had to be reliable (keeping warranty costs down as well) cheap to run and efficient to make.

On the third day, looking at the Clio in this light it appeared as a masterpiece of modern engineering – still bloody awkward to get a spanner in to some places, but I reassembled all the bits, checked the timing and turned the key in the ignition feeling absolutely confident as to the outcome……

The four hour job for a garage took me 15 hours, but the lesson for me is very valuable – I recognise now that even Microsoft gives us cheap efficient and amazingly well produced items perfectly suited for the purpose they are intended (I can safely say that as we are totally Apple 🙂 ). I will not grumble about incompetent design or rubbish engineering – we get what we want and need. Ok no grease nipples, or repairable components, but cheap, efficient and brilliantly designed for their purpose.

The car, yes it fired immediately and is running fine. SO if anyone wants their timing belt changed by an expert – – go to your local garage, I will next time.