Eskenazi

I think Cj hit the nail on the head: many people would love to live in the English countryside but it is simply not affordable to most, unless it's Northumbria and having lived there for 4 years I can tell you it's pretty bleak, if beautiful. I hold in my head (or maybe that should be my heart) an image of what life is like for our English neighbours in France (we are just weekenders) - they have a truly fabulous house built in the style of the next door chateau, and it cost them far less than the redbrick grotblox they had in Kent: their kids WALK the 100 steps to the village school: everyone in the village is polite and friendly, even to us (village 'elders' on our family - 'Tres, tres gentil, et les enfants, tres, tres bien tenue')and as for health care - if my daughter falls ill out of hours we sit in drunk-riddled Casualty...when theirs was ill, the local doctor was on call. Yes, they pay, but so do we. Their kids spend evenings tooling about on bikes, walking their dogs etc etc... impossible idyll? They have managed it, of course at the expense of husband working 3 days a week in UK, but he seems to like it.

Certainly, but I'll keep it very short since we're really off topic (mostly my fault). I mean a type of education which is formal rather than casual,secular rather than religious, subject-based rather than 'child centred' ( a bogus term anyway) and which promotes values such as respect for family,self and home.

I think I've recommended this one before, but I can highly recommend a B&B near Hesdin, in the village of Willeman. It's a lovely converted Fermette & the room is most comfortable, excellent breakfast & dinner with wine, very reasonable too. Have sent you an e-mail.

Re Cyprus....er....am I out of date or is't it divided up into two parts ( Greek / Turkish) and not exactly amicably?

Quite right, and as one of the guilty parties, I apologize. We should have carried on that discussion elsewhere.

I find the phrase 'some poor schools' absolutely delightful in the face of all the overwhelming evidence that it is the majority of state schools which are failing pupils who want to achieve! I do not judge from one example but from some 50+ examples in 4 separate areas, schools all intimately known to me either by teaching in them / asssisting in them / visiting them on my own children's behalf. Well done for getting 80% through with 5 GCSEs, but in my considerable experience of how these things are assessed, most of these passes tend not to be in real subjects at all, but in bogus coursework-assessed modules of little or no use in the future. I'm sure that was not the case in your school but I guarantee that it is in most others. And that leaves entirely aside what the experience of state schools is like here for the minority who want to work!

You use E106 to get your Carte Vitale which is then renewable as and when.

Excuse me, but I am very interested in education in general and I would say that 'profound disgust' just about sums up how I feel about the UK system! You get what you pay for, basically - if you can afford £13,500 a year you will get a wonderful education - if you can't, then you are stuck with .......... where pupils spend their days insulting the staff,*****ing in the back row, beating up fellow pupils and learning nothing. Encouragement for bright kids? I wish, I wish - all we encourage in the state system here is playing it for the maximum benefits you can get, and all that happens to the bright ones is they are bullied for being 'boffins.' I would love for my bright 12 year old and my bright 6 year old to be encouraged, but they are not, most of the time in their schools being given over to those with so-called 'Special Needs.' I would far rather have what's on offer in France.

Eurotunnel have now confirmed that, despite what they said on the site, there will be NO REPLACEMENT scheme either for Property Owners or Points Plus. They said that 'all customers' would 'benefit from' 'new fares structure.' I don't think so... they seem not a jot perturbed at losing customers in droves. By the way that £98 fare depends upon departing UK AFTER 5 PM and returning BEFORE 11 am which is totally useless to us and many others. It is also non-changeable. A poor deal.

It's actually quite simple & you don't need to pay an accountant a small fortune to tell you: Work only in UK but live in France = tax payable in UK, fill in a French tax declaration but dual treaty stops you paying twice. Entitlement to Health cover = E106 provided you have sufficient payment record - this enables you to have a Carte Vitale. All works perfectly simply for the many people we know who are doing it. Excellent education - well I'm sorry it was not for you, but all those I know of (totalling some 11 children aged between 4 and 16) seem very happy with it, parents & children alike. It has to be better than what's on offer here, that is if your kid, like mine, is not one of the 108 who managed to get 324 marks in the 11+ (out of 1,785 who sat the exam...)and if what you were offered is, as with us, a Comp where the feral youth attend sporadically and achieve around 2 Grade E GCSE passes each at best! I was myself educated in France from age 2 - 11, and I have done pretty well - managed the 11+ here after 3 months of English, went on to University, M.A. etc.... I'd like my kids to have the same grounding in 'real' subjects as I had, together with good manners and respect,both of which our local UK schools have ditched in favour of 'knowing your rights' and 'self expression.' BTW I'm a teacher so I do know about these things...

If you work in the UK (i.e. all your income is UK generated) then you pay UK tax. We know quite a few people who commute: near neighbours of ours in France, for example - he works Monday-Wednesday in Kent, Thursday -Friday from home: he gets a great travel rate via his company - I think it's something like £52 return.It seems to work for them & others. I guess one might experience some form of resentment, as in the person who wrote something on another Forum about living in France & benefiting from the excellent Health & education services, but paying not one penny towards them (still getting UK Child Benefit,for example..) In fact we are thinking of upping sticks ourselves - our house in London is on the market & we may live in our little weekend house in France whilst we look for something bigger.Only real problem is UK accommodation for the 3 days of UK work - our neighbour has a family connection & address in Kent, we don't have anything similar in London (where husband works) so we have to deal with that. However, moving to France would mean being mortgage - free. I'd be most interested to keep in touch with anyone else who's in the same boat.

The rule regarding domicile is that it stems from your 'centre of interest' i.e. where your family is permanently in residence. The 'domicile of birth' criterion only kicks in if all the rest are dubious and that is the only one with certainty.

If the UK address is the principal residence then that's fine, but the problem arises if you are actually classed as French residents -and if wife + family are living in France, then that is the case,according to the laws of Domicile. You cannot be domiciled in two places at once - if your Domicile (i.e. where your centre of family interest lies) is in France, then you certainly should not be receiving UK Child Benefit, whereever husband works.

We have been told ( by Newcastle + various Tax / N.I. advisors) that there is NO WAY we will be entitled to UK Child Benefit for our 2 children unless we have a permanent UK address. Husband will be working only in UK + paying UK tax & NI but we are informed that despite this we have no entitlement to Child Benefit if we live in France. Since CB has always seemed to me merely a way of getting back a tiny portion of our own money out of the vast amount we pay in tax, I queried it & gave the examples of which I'd heard, to which the response was 'Anyone getting CB whilst living in France is doing it illegally.' Depressing. If anyone can shed any further light on this we'd be most interested.

The whole key to the preparation of these programmes is lack of knowledge on the part of the participants! We thought we might be of interest - French speaking owners of a weekend house, so already tested the waters etc, now considering moving over full time - but no, the (charming) researcher said that although we 'sounded lovely' (!) we were not what they wanted because ' the whole idea is that we show you places you don't know and then it's all about coping with what happens....'

The problem with those £98 fares is that they are not fully flexible - you have to pay to change, & for us the great bonus with the property owners' one was its total flexibility, so that we could, say, arrive 3 hours early or 1 hour late or even change a booking weeks ahead.

Eurotunnel is about to withdraw not only its 'Property Owners Club' but also its 'Points Plus' scheme + all the other little perks such as using Club check - in / free coffee at Pret a manger / dedicated parking / unlimited flexibility of travel. These were excellent perks & we made at least a dozen journeys last / this year because of them. I would like to get together with any others who feel we should put pressure on Eurotunnel re. this matter. I don't believe a word of their stuff about the 'new improved' style. They are already losing money - and now stand to lose many previously loyal customers.

I can thoroughly recommend a lovely B&B in Willeman, near Hesdin, right in the heart of the 7 Valleys: it's run by a very helpful and charming British couple - he is a semi-retired solicitor & offers a full re-location service if you're thinking of upping sticks! She does the B&B + evening meal if required & is an excellent cook. Their house is utterly idyllic, overlooking the village church & spectacular woodlands, and it's very comfortable & totally spotless. Their website is www.bandbnorthernfrance.com and you can also find them on 'French Connections' at www.frenchconnections.co.uk. I think they charge around E55 a night for B&B. By the way I have also used Sawday's books, twice, both very poor experiences, the worse being a hotel in Paris which took our booking & turned out to be shut for renovation when we arrived with 2 young kids in tow.

Buster - message in your mailbox.

Angela - have sent a message to your inbox

Angela - have sent a message to your private inbox.

Last week we got our first EDF bill, for 42.48 euros (sent May 10, arrived here May 20, to be paid by May 25...) today, we got a new one, for 195.16 euros, with apologies for the last one being wrong! However, they still want this payment by May 27! This one is described as 'regularisation de votre consommation suite a votre mise en service tardive.' I understand what this means in a literal sense, but... We can't work this one out, as in the period in question we spent only 18 days in the house...we took possession on Feb 23rd & the billing period is 2 months, to April 27th. There is no mention of future charges, standing charges or anything like that. The bill breakdown lists 'electricite' as 120.79 plus taxes etc = 152.68, and that is then added to the previous bill to make up the 195.16. We'd be most grateful if anyone can throw any light on this one!

I'd be most grateful if anyone could advise me on this! We live in Surrey UK & have a holiday home near Hesdin in Pas de Calais: we are there for all long holidays (6 weeks a year) + long weekends etc. We've been wanting a dog, preferably labrador & now feel the family is ready. Just down the road from our French house, a lovely litter of 8 week old yellow labs is available - including a wonderful little girl who seems just right for us. My question is - how feasible would it be to buy her, given that - we could not bring her to UK for 7 months (rabies cert etc) & she would need to stay with her mum's owner - we'd have her when we're over, of course, but would not see her for a couple of periods of 2 months each... we'd have her permanently in December. Is this a daft thing to do? Our son just fell in love with this one - she's perfect & the home is ideal, mum is adorable, dad ditto... cost is E240 as against 500 + for similar here....any advice?

We're planning to let our house near Hesdin, mainly in Spring / Summer & wondered if anyone has had any experience of the local caretaking etc services - or if anyone knows of others in the area who might be willing to take it on? We're looking for someone to be a keyholder & to welcome guests / supervise departures etc + some cleaning / laundry. We don't expect to let for much more than 8 - 10 weeks & we would do some of it ourselves at either end of weeks. So far we've looked at 'A Friend in France' and 'Meaker Sarl' & would welcome any comments on either company, or indeed any information on other sources of these kind of services. Many thanks! Melanie