Monika

What is the timespan we would be allowed to stay in France before we become tax residents. How long can we be absent from the UK before we are no longer entitled to the UK's Health Service. I tried to do a search but could not find anything. Thank you. Sorry I have another question: Is the Capital Gains - 5 years rule (reduction in Capital Gains after 5 years) from the time we bought the property or from the time we finished the renovation (signed off the work).  

Thank you so much to all of you I now just need to persuade my husband (armed with all the facts) before we go up in flames!

Thank you for your advice, you said that you lined the plasterboard with "fireproof", is this like a foil which you can buy for between cooker and kitchen unit? I would love to have tiles like you mention, but I think we do not have enough space?

A friend of mine observed a very sick looking cat coming into the garden of his parents. It would spend hours there and looked really starved. My friend telephoned several rescue centres to find a place for this poor cat. At last he found one and delivered the cat with a great sigh of relieve. Next morning posters appeared all over the district with pictures of the very same cat. He telephoned the owner, apologizing profusly and promised to get the cat straight away (it was a roundtrip of 2 hour). It turned out, that the cat was a very much loved pet with a medical condition! This little story just gives me a bit of "consolation" that not every "stray" is unloved. In the very cold weather I felt awful thinking about our "stray"cats in France, sleeping in a cold barn. But then my sister in Switzerland consoled me, her pedigree cat has taken a shine to sleeping out in the winter, and the colder the better (she hates the central heating!)

What sort of Tiles are you going to use? We need to tile behind woodburner as a matter of urgency, we just have ordinary plasterboard and although it is at least 10 cm away from it, it gets burning hot. Thank you?

Our tree was put up in great secrecy on Chrismas Eve and the "Christkind" would bring the presents, a bell would ring and this was the sign that we now could enter the secret room with the Christmas tree lit up by real candles.  After "unending" prayers and carols we were allowed to open the presents. After we would sit down to the Christmas Meal and at Midnight we would make our way through the high snow (in those days they still had snow in Switzerland)  to the village church for the Midnight Mass. Christmas day was a very quiet, relaxing day.

After a complete Renovation project (all by Project Manager and Artisans) and with hindsight I would now go for a property you could live in and you could get away with doing a few alterations/redecorations (you remember: something like Carol Smilie did up in a week!!!)  

If this is the law then I am  guilty of criminal negligence and thousands of other homeowners and everybody who uses the "cleaning logs"and the stores who sell them. My insurance provider (AXA) does not require a yearly certificate (I kept the e-mail just in case!) This really needs further investigation.

I don't know if it is the CTRL and +  button or the red wine but I think it has become a little clearer! But not that much so any more advice?

I have asked our insurance if they require a yearly certificate and they said "non"! However it is a good idea to clean your chimney at least once a year, especially if it is your main residence, but I can't quite see the urgency for a "maison secondaire  (or perhaps use the special "briquette" which I have even seen in Super U, there is a form inside to complete)

VMC systems are also useful to rescue kittens,  although I can't quite see how.  We had an emergency call from our French neighbour that one of our workmen had locked one of his kittens into our house (4 days). When he could not find the hidden key and he heard some noise in the roof, he climbed up and saw a little face in the small, covered terracota ventilation chimney. He freed her taking off the cover. However, how this cat  got into the VMC ventilation pipe we will not know until we get out there! 

My forum pages have gone very faint and very small print (for quite some time now).  What can I do?

Thanks Le Plombier. Perhaps we better leave it alone! A PM is a Project Manager ![:D]

Yes, ours is noisy, so can we remove the link (which one?) ourselves like you did Jonzjob, or perhaps you are an electrician? An on/off switch would suit us better too.

I agree 100 % with Nicos, with two properties (even if they are more modest) you keep your options open and you would indeed have the best of both worlds. You always have something to look forward to and will never get tired of your two chosen countries.

We have a Bathroom extractor fan which is on all the time when switched on at the fusebox. Our PM said that this is normal. I would appreciate any advice and I hope that I did not hijack this thread with my question.

Thank you to you all and I think the moral of  this story is: We should have never let it get that far, we should have "kidnapped" the original mother cat and had her done 3 years ago. The problem grew bigger and bigger and in the end we did not know where to turn until we found the Vet who offered to help. What I would do in future, have any straycat spayed immediately, because one sure fact is, they are going to stay, because they know we care and don't listen to any french neighbours they have the oldfashion attitude "let nature take care" (which to us softies just causes anguish and heart break).

I have been "carrying on" about our french neighbour's straycat "Twiglet" and her many offsprings and his terrible attitude to spaying on this Forum for at least two or three years now. In the meantime most of the cats/kittens (apart from two boys) have moved into the huge barn of our young  (english) neighbours and are well looked after there,  but that still left us with the problem of spaying them all  (thank you to those who offered to help - I have sent you an e-mail). Now to our success story. I found an English Vet living in France who offered to spay them for us. So Thursday a week ago, Alix came to our holiday-cottage and there on our kitchen table (with my husband ably assisting) spayed six of them. Can you imagine all these sleeping Pussy Cats? To our great surprise, one of the daughter's of Twiglet had kittens the same morning inspite of the Anti Baby Pill. And one of the 6 month old kittens had gone into the rafters of the barn and we could not catch him. As to the two boys of our French neighbour, we better keep that a secret!! Alix will come back later and spay the rest because some of them were too young. And she did it all for free all we had to pay was for her petrol.  All of them are recovering well to live a happy life, Twiglet and her daughters not  having to have kittens every few month and looking really scrawny and unwell (or even dying, like one of them did) and the boys without getting into fights and getting infections etc.Thank you again to all of you for lending a sympatetic ear over all these years! 

The flue of our woodburner was installed the wrong way round (with the female ends looking downwards). Lots of tar was running down on the outside. We called our installer back and he turned it round and we have no problem now. Our next door farmer told us that Elm is the wood which you can burn after 18 month as it has no Creasote (how do you spell that?) in it.

I have now resized them, but how do you load two pictures- before and after- (copy/paste) I know there is a trick! (at the moment it will only copy one picture).

I did it via photobucket but its not working, it was soo huge that I had to quickly edit it out.

I could do with some instruction as well! Sorry, I just noticed the instructions above. I will try!

Thanks a lot Joy for your advice. I thought I use this opportunity and just put in one more plea for foster parents to adopt one of these lovely kittens. With winter coming, in deepest Suisse Normande,  I fear for their lives.

What age can a kitten be spayed? We are going to be at our cottage for a few weeks and would like do do our lot then (see previous postings!!!), they will be just 6 months old, but because they have been fed infrequently they are quite small.  

Clair, I am hopeless at Math, so would I need permission for a shed 2.15 m x 1.88 m?