With Christmas just around the corner and the momentum gathering speed, the last thing on my mind would be booking next years summer holidays.

Traditionally in the UK, holiday advertising starts in earnest on Boxing Day. While Dad’s at the football match, Mum sits down, feet up, Snowball and twiglets at the ready, in front of the box, watching the LunPoly adverts. It’s a far cry from Brussel sprouts and the soaking ovenware littering the kitchen.

However, it would appear that there are a few well prepared and forward planning individuals out there, if the amount of emails I have recieved over the last week are anything to go by. I wouldn’t call it a deluge but it has taken me by surprise a bit.

Unfortunately, they all want the same 2 weeks in August, which have long since gone to a family that have been holidaying with us for the past 10 years. But, being positive, I feel that it is an encouraging start!

It would be so useful to us holiday-providers, if a new calender was devised. One that ensured  there were at least three August’s in every year. If Julius Caesar can do it 2 millennia ago, I’m sure Tony Blair could! What a brilliant legacy!

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Tonight, I have been messing about on MyBlogLog. At this stage, I’m still not sure what it’s all about, but they are a friendly bunch and have made me feel quite welcome.

It is a good way to find new blogs to read. It offers blog stat information and natty little widgets, that show you who has been reading your blog. (Not that I can put it into my sidebar! Only for WP.org people at the moment). Much mention is made of ‘communities’, something I am still attempting to fathom.

I feel a bit of a fraud really. It would appear that most of the other blogs are much more sophisticated than mine. There are a lot of techy, blog help and tip blogs, how to make a fortune with adsense type blogs and altogether more ‘intelligent’ blogs than my poor, ‘then I did this, then we did that’ blog. Oh well, some of us are looking at the stars!

I shall let you know how I get on….unless of course you can give me a few pointers….

Edit: Having thought a bit more about this, I think the word I was struggling to find was ‘domestic’…my blog is very domestic! Maybe pedestrian even, parochial perhaps?!

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As you know, I have been unhappy with the photographs on the website, so today, I had a look at it again in an attempt to improve things.

I thought that the thumbnails were too small to show any detail or real information and when I tried to enlarge them as thumbnails, they became even more grainy.

So, what to do? I went back into each page and reloaded the photos but this time as ‘original’ size and re-sized them from there. The results are much better, I think and I am much happier with them now.

What do you think?

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Yesterday, I thought I ought to start thinking about some of the technical/bureaucratic issues involved in my pending move to France. So I telephoned the people in Newcastle…I was sent to that many departments, I’m not even sure who they were in the end! Anyway, it’s the Health and Pensions side of things.

They were very pleasant, all of them and I got the information I needed in the end. Well, that’s not strictly true but I have a bit more information now, than before I started.

Apparantly, I do not qualify for the form E106, due to my unemployed status for the past 3 years.It would appear that I am at the mercy of the French authorities on this one, so will have to contact them on my arrival. We’ll see about that! I will do some more delving.

Then onto pensions and NI stuff. I am to be sent a Pensions Forecast application form which I send back completed. From there my pension forecast is calculated and decisions will need to be made as to whether I pay additional NI contributions while I am living in France. Seeing as I am 42 at the moment, I would guess I will be paying the extra, although the amount quoted seems quite reasonable.

It would also appear that if I am working in France, I will be paying into their system and so will qualify for a French pension too….lucky me! Another one to take further I think.

Reading back through this post, I am aware that there are many areas in which I am completely ignorant…but we all have to start somewhere.

Having been reading through the forums for a long time now and becoming familiar with the do’s and dont’s of moving, it is now my turn to put it into practice. My guess is that it is more tricky than I thought…but well, I’m not entirely surprised!

I shall update as and when anything happens.

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A few weeks back, I sent out a feedback form to the guests we had staying in the summer. I hadn’t had a reply for a while and thought I wouldn’t…people get back home and life moves on, routines are re-established.

But happily I received one today.

It was a really sweet letter. They emphasised that they had passed a wonderful time with us at Beauregard and that the area was lovely.

They had  listed a few issues but thankfully, there were no surprises. Each item was something that we had considered as ‘missing’ or ‘in need of improving’, so I was quite pleased really. It’s good to think that we are on track with peoples expectations.

Now, I am itching to get down there and start the improvements!

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Todays exercise is to insert a Flikr badge into the sidebar of my blog. They do a really natty little badge that has photos in a box and one by one the pictures enlarge and then reduce to be replaced by another one.

I think it is a great way to animate the site a bit, with colour and movement, without too much bling! I’m not a great fan of the flashing words and glittering titles that you so often see.

I managed to sort out the badge itself and to get the code ready for copying and pasting into the text widget. However, all I am left with is a pile of syntax and code down the RHS of my blog….not my intention at all!

I have gleaned both the WP and Flikr forums and help pages but to no avail. I don’t seem to be getting anywhere fast. I am going to drop it for a while and come back to it later. I’ve got to the stage where I keep trying it over and over but as the saying goes…’If you keep doing the same thing over and over again, you will end up with the same result’. I was kind of hoping that I could sneak it in quietly!

I seem to remember having this problem with the Weather Fairy…now how did I sort that one out?

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You may have noticed that I have had a spring clean of the site.

I have removed the ‘pages’ that related to the letting of Beauregard and have included a link to the un-official/official/temporary website. It’s still an ongoing project and I’m working hard at the photos but I thought I would include it anyway…warts ‘n all philosophy!

I may even have a look at the ‘categories next’…seems to me that they would benefit from a general pruning.

It’s all good fun! Just as well there’s nothing on the tv!

Oh, how could I forget?…I have renamed the blog ‘Beauregard..The Blog’…. so no more Phoenix. I thought it made sense as I will eventually link this to the website and it helps people with their bearings…that’s the thoery anyway!

And I will revisit Flickr and remove some of the Logicam photos of myself and The Boy….there are too many and I don’t want to frighten people…..the photos are a bit grim!

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Oh dear! I’m in the process of compiling the temporary website for Beauregard. It’s going well but I’ve hit a snag with the photos.

I just don’t have any decent pictures to use and those I am able to use look terrible…grainy, poorly lit, bad colours, not composed properly. And that’s just the interior shots!  The garden shots are just as bad. They were taken last year during August and everything looks parched and, well, brown! 

If only I could whizz over for a weekend to take some decent shots. It would appear that the weather is lovely and warm, I bet I could get some good shots too.

Oh well, for now I shall have to use what I have and update when I can….hope it doesn’t put too many people off!

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I seem to have hit a blog black hole. I have been busy reading and ‘researching’ all about blogs; blog writing, what elements make up a good blog entry, how to increase traffic to your blog, how to get an income from blogging etc, etc. But the upshot is, I’ve kind of run out of things to say!

I think I’m a bit overwhelmed with all that’s out there and the great blogs around. Ok, I realise that this site is an experiment at setting up a blog and as such it feeds on what I am doing and learning. At the moment I am raring to go at the real thing, but due to a few set-backs, such as getting the domain name transferred to me from my BIL (who is too busy at the moment), I am having to hold off. I’m beginning to wonder if it would be worth setting up a temporary Beauregard site, here on WP.com, for the time being. I am aware that we urgently need to set something up to link to our adverts.It may be that a temporary site will fill the gap until we have sorted out the domain name and hosting.

Anyway, I digress. What concerns me is, how do you deal with blog-block in the real world? It would appear that regular entries are what keep the punters coming back and I would hate to dry out! I’m hoping that once in France, I will have enough going on to keep me blogging happily for years. I guess time will tell and I’ll just sit this out for the time being and wait for the muse to return!

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In anticipation of setting up my ‘official’ Beauregard web-site and blog, I have been mulling over the implications of safety….for myself and my family.

I posted a question about personal safety on one of the forums that I read, but unfortunately and somewhat surprisingly, the response I got was a bit disappointing. I think people got the impression that I was about to launch a blog detailing my childrens achievements in minute detail. I think they missed the point somewhat! I would think that personal safety for our loved ones is as important now, if not more so than before, especially with a lot of people considering setting up a more personal blog as an addition to their web-site.

So for that reason, I decided to do a little on-line research and deeper thinking about the issue.

There are many reasons why I chose to write a blog for my new, pending life in France. I will no doubt write about that at a future date but one of the reasons was to be able to share our experiences. Not everyones cup of tea I admit….but I like the idea of the ‘community’.

Of course, this implies that I will be writing about my children too, after all they are a huge part of my life and integral to the story.

However, I am now beginning to doubt whether I should even mention my children at all. The world can be a cruel place, filled with weird people and the thought of attracting the wrong people sends shivers down my spine.

But  I can’t help thinking, by not including my children in the picture, the story will be only half a story. So based on the results so far, I have come up with the following:

• never to use my childrens’ real names, nick names will suffice
• never to publish any photos of my children, unless they are unable to be identified in them
• not to publish the full address of the property online
• not to give out detailed directions until I have a firm booking or final payment cleared
• not to publish anything that establishs a routine, e.g. on Wednesdays we always go shopping as a family ( in other words…the property is empty on  Wednesdays, come along and help yourself!)

If there are any considerations I have missed, please let me know….

Unfortunately, there are some ‘rules’ that we cannot adhere to due to the nature of gite letting…we are after all, inviting people to stay at our properties. So I will have to publish my name and phone number, I will need to check that links etc do not contain anything that I am trying to keep private, I want to provide an availability calender.

But I am hoping that with a bit of foresight and common sense, I can maintain the safety of my family, without compromising the integrity of the blog. It is sad that these things need to be considered at all but I would rather be safe than sorry.

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