Mikew

Even a retired person resident in France must have some income to live on, - pension from UK, income from savings etc. All this income, wherever it arises must be declared to the Fisc yearly even tho' you may be below the tax level. Sale of permanant residence in France tax free, providing that you don't make a habit of it and buy and sell houses for profit!

Don't leave any labels on the shrubs, someone may be nicking them to resell, already neatly labelled! M

We have one - Cercis, the Judas Tree. Try http://www.the-tree.org.uk/BritishTrees/TreeGallery/judasc.htm Mike

Try www.castorama.fr..... M

If it is anything like our house - there were round boxes fitted into the 50mm terra cotta brique ceiling, but the wiring still hung out and was fitted with the cheapie push fit bulb holder. Wiring for the outside lights stuck out from the wall in it's gaine! Been like that since the house was built seven years ago.

Looked on the Marie notice board today, Termite inspections, arranged and paid for by the seller, are mandatory for the whole of the Charente departement. Also if you find termites at any time on your property there is a report to be made and regulations to comply with. Mike

Persuade your neighbour to go Wi-Fi and share his bandwidth.....

"Nonetheless, to avoid a licence (here & in the UK), the equipment must run from it's own INTERNAL batteries, not plugged into a fag lighter." this refers tv recievers. A dvd player, being unable to receive tv signals, can be mains powered. You can use your laptop plugged into the mains... Mike

You are not supposed to start work until a month has elapsed after submitting the form and all nescessary drawings/sketches/marked up photos. To enable them to say NO! I obtained the form to declare closing in an auvent to form a 'veranda', but the double glazing firm suddenly phoned and wanted to install a couple of months earlier than forcast. The Mairie were very helpful, phone call to the DDE, told me to go and see the man, who scrutinised the form, asked a couple of minor questions, and said 'pas probleme'. Took the forms back to the Mairie, that was back in Feb this year, have just had a tax form, 53€ to be paid in 2006, based on the size of the area closed in! Mike

Hasn't got a spare 'V' belt in it.............? Mike

What about taking the remains of the belt to a motor spares place, these drive belts seem to be similar, you just might get one the same size!..... Mike

15 pairs of legs and antennae. - Try 'Scutigera coleoptrata', the picture I have seems to match your description, we have theme here (16), nickname "TGV" from the speed they run, quite often end up in the sink, unable to get out! Mike http://arthropoda.free.fr/index.php?page=phoscu001 for pic.

I heard of this some time ago, I think the original article was in the Telegraph. "Car holidays overseas The Grand Touring Club has introduced 2CV holidays in the South of France. You take Eurostar from London to Lille and then the high-speed TGV to Angouleme. The whole journey takes around seven hours. Routebooks and maps are provided and the car has 24hr assistance. Accommodation is pre-booked in comfortable Chambres d'hote of character including dinner each night. Stopovers can also be arranged in Paris." Mike

Try this one: http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_cleaner.html It does work, I tried it and found a difficult trojan, and it removes things - FREE! Mike

I have also just bought an HP computer, in French, with the operating system backed up on the hard disk in partition "D". You can make a back-up of the system onto CD (or DVD if you have one built in) HP gave details in the handbook especially for this. It is not a staight copy of 'D', but arranged so that the disks can be used to start up the computer if you lose the whole hard disk. Be aware that companies like HP customise the software to suit their product. Special keyboard commands and drivers for their particular hardware come to mind. You cannot change the language of your installed system, normally you would have to 'bin' it, buy a full priced copy of English Windows at full price £160 or so, and install that. I wonder if it is possible to 'borrow an English Windows disk, and use your French licence to legitimise it? After all you will not be using the French version you paid for. Anyone tried it? You may just have to persevere with your French version, most commands are fairly straightforward once you get used to the keyboard! Things get more interesting once you start adding English software and get mixed language boxes come up on the screen! I have also spent some time browsing HP's websites looking for English handbooks, but HP seem to be a bit mean, I found nothing... Best of luck Mike

I use a Honda, 350cc with hydrostatic transmission, 90cm (3ft) cut, excellent for mowing and leaf clearing with cutter raised. Dont know about your 45 deg, max gradient for my Honda is about 10 deg, (can't find my book for exact at mo). Benefit of hydrostatic is that there are no gears, just go forward and go back accelerator pedals as well as brake. Mike

I used the EDF contact (protected by a 2 amp MCB)to operate a heavy duty contactor which switched the two uk sourced storage heaters. Leroy Merlin have a series of DIY electrics info sheets, one of which shows a day/night circuit for a water heater which should help you. Mike

At Ruffec(16) we were instructed to use 1.47 to calculate how many euros to enter onto the tax forms. Don't forget 4th is the last day for filing!!!

I bought my box, Thomson DTI 1001G, in France, from FNAC by internet, they are doing offers at mo. Mike

I did say "1000 series" box,of which there are numerous versions! I have a suspicion that transmission frequencies are different, anyone know more? Mike

Well worth buying if your mains are a bit ropey, I keep my adsl, router, wifi on ups, Stops these mini switching blips from rebooting the adsl modem! Note - look at the connection that links to the computer to close it down, many still have a 7 pin serial link that a modern computer may not have. Mike

Try http://www.lgvsudeuropeatlantique.org/index.php?page=RFFLayout&portlet=Cartetoursang&viewactu_id_actu=17 for the latest maps for the project. The route seems to have been firmed up within the 1KM trajet originally published. They seem to have made a good job threading the line between villages! No doubt the will be complaints that the line has not been built to serve Charente, only Bordeaux and the South. Apparently the motorway was pushed westwards for political purposes! Mike

Use your UK netgear router with any French ISP... take your choice. This worked fine for me (I was with Zen too). Mike

You need a licence if you have, in the house, any apparatus capable of receiving a television signal... A PC with a television card needs licencing, even if there is no tv in the house. If you watch dvds on a dedicated box or PC ..no licence! There was somthing in today's news, watching streamed TV on a broadband computer is a grey area, there has not been a test case yet to prove whether a licence is needed or not. Whatever you do they are out to get you! Mike

I have seen a number of resistance/ wartime histories and other books in the bookshop in Ruffec. Mike