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Thank you everyone for your patience, hints and help. Luckily, of guests arrived who spoke French and after much pondering confirmed the word as "compense", ie, the "ni" was in fact an "m" and the "feu" a "pen"...! Too many swirls and curls in the handwriting style. They couldn't work out the "sout" though but we finally settled on the whole phrase being:
Par sou sourire, Michelle, a compense la pluie les pasages magifiques. Merci.
Along the lines of: Your smile, Michelle, compensated for the rain and the landscape was magnificent.
Thank you teveryone again. x