Oboulez

Thanks for that Val. Much obliged, G & L

Our child is starting maternelle next week. We have just received the joining instructions, and in this letter it indicates that - as well as a school bag & folders etc, you need 'attestation d assurance de l enfant (responsibilite civile & individuelle accidents corporels). Does anybody know anything about this or how you might get it? Thanks.

Our son starts maternelle in September. I seem to recall reading or hearing something about parents getting some form of allowance to buy necessary items for the child starting school. Does anybody have any knowledge of this and or how one can claim this?

The last couple of times I have been in the UK I have visited Halfords. Still prominently displayed next to the check outs are alco-testers with all sorts of warning of the requirement to have them in France. Are they committing some sort of misrepresentation?

Is anybody else finding it impossible to watch live TV through Expatshield? Historic programmes are okay.

further to my last, I have just done the online form & its calculations suggest that I will have a tax bill of quite a few hundred euro's. The calculations will obviously have been made automatically not taking into account that I am not liable to french tax under the double taxation agreement which the phrase subject to my post a couple of minutes ago referred to. I assume that I enter this free text in the 'any oher information' box which will be then taken into consideration????

re government service pensions, what do I put down for 'nature du revenu', plus, last year following advice on this blog I wrote something down to say that it was taxed in the Uk and exempt from french tax - quoting some EU type agreement. Can anybody help with what I should write? Ta

Hi Ivor - It has been extremely wet here over the winter too, however on saturday for example my weather station read a temperature of 21.6 degrees. It has been lovely for a few days, and after an eternity it is so good to get out & get some things done. The forecast for the next week looks okay too. Bon courage.

Thanks very much to you all for your advice which was very helpful. I managed to get an NGK 6ES plug yesterday, but this morning I thought that I would try the suggestion somebody made of taking out the plug, giving it a crank, then charging the bore with some fuel before replacing the plug. I did this with the 'old' plug as a matter of interest, & it fired up first pull. Obliged to you all again. Regards Gary

Sid, you have hit a suspicion I have regarding the 'new' plug. The one that was in the mower was an NGK R BPR 4ES. I went to the local (relative in a very remote area) garden machinery repair / sales shop. They gave me a Champion 300 NBYC. After the mower not firing up, and after changing the fuel, checking the filters & all connections etc; I wondered about the compatibility. Having checked various cross reference guides on the interweb - to me - I don't think that they are comparable. I went back to the shop last week, and the bloke was adamant that what he sold me was the right one for a Honda mower. My only option I suppose is to try to find somewhere which will sell an NGK plug the same.

In the autumn I cleaned my Honda GCV-135 lawn mower & bedded it down for winter. I now cannot get it started. I have changed the spark plug & fuel, but it will not start. When you pull the cord you can smell the fuel after a few pulls, and also on taking the plug out there is a spark. Any ideas anybody????

Why don't you just fill in the form & get it sent to a relatives address - who can then post it on? It is extremely sad to say, but after a lifetime of working hard, keeping my head down, & doing things legal - I have learned that actually in contemporary Britain, being honest actiually is not worth the grief. Tell the truth and - for example you loose child benefit - despite still paying UK tax on a modest service pension. I have been 100% law abiding all my life, But, I'll tell you what - It does'nt pay!

I should imaging that many other european leaders will breath a heavy sigh of relief. They really have enough on their plates to not have to continually deal with Briatin's constant snipings from the sidelines, demands for exceptions, exemptions & opt outs. The problem is, that David Cameron has now so isolated and sidelined the UK that he will have few allies left to call upon to support Britain's position in very much. He really has boxed himself into a corner in his attempts to pacify the eurosceptics in his party, whilst trying to keep the LibDems on board. I agree that Britain may leave by accident as it were, as he will be forced into holding a referendum. The problem however - as any reader of the Daily Mail etc will attest - is that the people of the UK are fed such a daily dose of quite franky lies about the EU / Brussels etc. Whilst the majority of these stories can be debunked by 30 seconds Google research - the majority of the readerships really do believe that EU ''diktats' close childrens play parks or are banning footballs because they are a choking hazard etc. Regariding our position in France in the event of a UK withdrawal, then it need not be terminal. UK citizens live in places like Australia etc quite happily. I suppose that one will merely require a visa and residency permit as existed before. Myself - I intend taking out French nationality as soon as possible. Her indoors can stay a GB citizen if she wants. I have had my complete fill of the UK after serving it for over 30 from the age of 16, asking for and receiving nothing by way of benefits, and watching in sheer sadness & dispair at the way it has been destroyed socially, economically & culturally over the past 15 years or so.

This is the one ericd. Thanks. Just the phrase we want.

You are right about the taxe. Thanks for the useful info. All gratefuly received. We were after something which might concentrate the mind for anybody genuinely interested.

We are trying to rent long term our cottage in south Brittany for the first time. A couple of possible renters, having given an indication of intent, have pulled out. We are advertising with two agencies. Having received such a suggestion of intent, thankfully we have not told the other agency to stop advertising. At what point is the renter actually committed - presumably after they actually sign a contract?? Does anybody have a turn of phrase that we can give to our agents to pass on in the event that they have supposedly found a renter which basically says "okay, you have said that you want to rent the house, however if anybody comes up with the readies before you formally & legally commit it is theirs". Thanks

We have just moved into a new house with 3000m of land. The 'garden' whilst level, it is ex meadow & is full of weeds and dandilions. Where do we start with regard to trying to get some form of grass planted. We appreciate that we will never have a full blown UK type lawn - not least because it is hot & dry in summer, but how can we at least get something looking half presentable given the size??

Thanks for the responses. The freesat link is very useful - again - any recomendations? A quick check on the prices quoted on the site suggests that they are competitive compaired to Amazon or Argos. I take it from Jacko's response that there might be a problem next year with ALL satellite dishes - or is it just ones which are tuned to particular satellites which transmit particular channels?

We have moved area & it seems that our internet bandwidth here is insufficient to get our TV via it. Orange say that we need a satellite dish, & will give us a €100 voucher to assist with the installation costs - the catch being that it needs to be with one of their approved installers (cue inflated bill me thinks). We are thinking of taking this opportunity to buy a UK freeview box. The question is - firstly - can you get 'double headed' satellite receivers, one that tunes into Orange, the other to UK freeview. Secondly, not knowing anything about freeview - is this possible, and also, does anybody have any recommendations re what freeview option to buy. We have visitors coming over in a couple of weeks, so if feasible I would want them to bring over one of the special olympic offers on the go at the moment.

Thanks to all for the various contributions. I was merely interested to hear if anybody had experience of what a realistic or excessive price quote might be. It is hardly unfair to the chap who gave the quote - indeed how can it be unfair to research something which you have no knowledge - having read & contributed to this useful forum for a couple of years, examples of posters being ripped off are legion - and of ex-pat tradesman who prey on the unsuspecting Brit who may or may not be otherwise confident in dealing with local artisans. Neither did I consider that the tooth fairy gave him the digger & covered it's running costs - that said, neither did the tooth fairy kit out the swanky VW dealership where I had my car serviced a couple of weeks ago yet charged a fraction of the €150 per hour labour charge that is being quoted!

Spot on Dave re the logistics & practicalities of hiring - plus I am in the middle of the sticks, that said, the groundsman who gave the quote lives 5 mins away and is doing a job across the Chemin. I really do not think that it would be more than an hours work, and I fear that he (he is British) either thinks that we are rich - or that we have just came off the banana boat. He has suggested that french labour costs are high, however we have just moved from another area in France where there is no way that we could afford a house like we have here, and having paid for plumbers etc, found it much cheaper than the UK - at least in the south. Re the suggestion of tapping up the Mairie, spookily enough a local here has suggested that the commune tractor driver might do it. If feasible, I would rather give a donation to the commune than be ripped off. Even in the event that the job took 2 hours, that equates to €150 an hour which is rather expensive!!

Does anybody have any ideas as to what the hourly rate might be for somebody to level off some excess soil mounds from a recently completed house (soil from digging the foss / foundations etc). It is merely a case of shifting a couple of small mounds of topsoil with a mechanical bucket & spreading it around the rest of the garden - no removal of spoil or rubble. I have had a quote but think it might be a bit on the high side (300).

Cheers Sid. On closer inspection there are just the 3 wires - however the connecting block has the live wires going into a port marked 'loop'. Given the new light unit is not earthed, do I just insulate off the earth wire end?

I have just bought an LED pendant for the sitting room, but on opening the box I see that there are only live and neutral connectors. The existing fitting has several loops. I used to have a UK guide as to how you linked the earths etc which I have misplaced - it may well be different here anyway! Does anybody have a guide as to how to wire this in without either ending up a smoking pair of boots or burning my new house down? Ta.

You are right Sid. In the 2 years that we have been here we have had a baby, bought a car & a house, and rented out another - all new experiences not normally covered in Lingaphone!. In the end, we have always muddled through with our pigin French and somebody elses rubbish English - usually worse than out French!, and in truth we have never been stuck. I just wondered re the helpline as I prefer to get a job done properly with the minimum of grief.