La vieille

I have cancer and have undergone chemo recently.   I was desperate to get to France!   In the end I got to know the pattern of my body and its reaction to the chemo and I was able to fit in a trip between sessions.     I know that I would not have wanted to change regimes in the middle and would not really have wanted to change the country in which I was having the treatment.   Pat  

Ship no longer beached at Les Sables!   Saw it last week though and it was fun!    

No!   Have I got away with it or must I still sit wait to hear?!   The latter I guess!

see http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/746327/ShowPost.aspx This is for a maison secondaire however.   If it was your main residence then I'm not sure this is applicable.   Others will know better than I! We sold our maison secondaire for more than 150,000€, the notaire worked out the appropriate tax and we weren't referred on to anyone else.   This was 11 months ago and we have had no comeback.   We received our money less the CGT payable 4 days after the sale.

I asked this same question under "French TV to England" and you'll find the answers dated 19.11.2006. We did bring ours back and it works brilliantly on a normal aerial. Pat  

We too had the most amazing neighbours.   One day in a storm the wind blew a tree down onto the house.   What do you do?   We dashed off to see the neighbours, they came round, called their son and he got up on the roof (in the storm) and cut the tree down, then proceeded to cut the tree into manageable bits, got back up onto the roof and put plastic sheeting where the tiles had broken and secured the house.   Next day we went to buy replacement tiles and he put them on the roof for us!   Oh a multitude of other things, but they seemed really pleased to have English neighbours. When we sold the house we eventually managed to get them to agree to come to England for a few days, these are elderly farm folk, never been outside France, no English, I booked the tickets on the net and they sent a cheque.   We had a wonderful few days with them in England, did London, Windsor and the Cotswolds.   I mentioned while they were with us that one of the things I missed were the Noirmoutier early potatoes so the next week a big parcel arrived with 10kg of new potatoes!   You can't win! Pat

We paid 2500€ in May last year, but the insert only took a day to put in.   It did include all the pipework and the toit and the making good of the old fireplace. Suggest you get another quote! Pat

Sale of house went through last week, Notaire has already put funds less small CGT into our bank account.   Sale was over 150,000€.   No suggestion of third party being involved, but will still keep fingers crossed... Pat

Our sale is scheduled for 11th January and our notaire invited us to see him last week to give us a rough idea of how much tax we would have to pay.   He is including any invoices for work carried out such as having the heating repaired and maintenance items which we did not think would be included. Absolutely no mention of having to appoint anyone else to do it for us. Pat

Many thanks, worth taking it home for a try anyway!! Pat

We are wondering whether our French TV bought 2 years ago (Hitachi) will work in England.   Could it be used through a satellite system to get British TV? Many thanks Pat

Arrived at our UK address today for 85, payable by 15.12.06.

I remember standing behind some French people earlier this year who were buying a barometer as a wedding present for someone and the shopkeeper told them that they had to set the pressure for wherever the couple were, it would not be the same as the pressure where the shop was.   They were told to go to the church and it would be marked somewhere there (I think).   Didn't pay that much attention as I wasn't buying one, but remember thinking it was interesting that different places had different settings.

My only ever parking ticket came from Nice, so can only tell you where NOT to park!

We just had ours done in february this year (200 litre tank) and we paid 538€ plus 5.5% VAT including disposing of the old one. Pat    

Not that particular issue, but on our last visit to the Vendée earlier this month, we were surprised to see the chickens out.   When I asked our neighbours who farm thousands of the birds, they said they were permitted to put them in the fields after 2pm!   You obviously cannot get bird flu after 2pm each day!

We have not bothered to do anything about our marital regime as we have only been married once and only have one (adult) child who we are quite happy for the house to go to. If one of us dies then the house automatically goes to our daughter, but does anyone know about the effect on inheritance tax in Britain?   If the house is worth £100,000 for example, does this go against the inheritance tax limit in the UK of the person who has died?   Or because it was joint owned in France does only £50,000 go aginst the IHT allowance with the other £50,000 going as a gift from the person who has not died?   Or do we have to pay some form of inheritance tax in France? Many thanks for any thoughts!

Capio in Coley Park - food is good there!   Yes, of course all the specialists are the same!   The one who did my knee last time has given up private practice as he thinks dealing with the NHS patients is more interesting work.   You can tell who's who at the hospital, it's the Aston Martins that give it away!   Will give up our private insurance after this op, will have had our moneysworth and can save up for when the knees need doing again!

It was a blip last week after all!   Have lost 2 lbs this week!   After being really evil as well. Am signing off for now as having the knee replaced on Tuesday but should be out again on Saturday so will weigh in then and see if the new knee makes me any lighter! Will endeavour to take the dieting much more seriously after the op...

Managed (eventually) to get through to a person at Sky who went through normal reset i.e switch off box at mains, switch on again and then leave in standby for 60 seconds before switching box on. After this period listings for "All Channels" was restored.  Advised NOT to try and bring up listings under individual groupings i.e Sport, Movies etc for the time being.  They confirmed it was a download problem which they hoped to fix in the next three/four days.

Yes, we too have a Panasonic box and are having the same problems.

Thanks for your words of encouragement.   The only way to get there is determination and you have to have the right mind set.   I don't think having a cold gives you the right mind set, so better luck next week!

NOT good news this week, I have put it all back on!   In one week!   Now I would have expected to have put on a little this week - I have the knee replacement booked for 7th February and I can't drive for 6 weeks afterwards, so have arranged to meet up with all my friends over the last week and wined and dined.   And very pleasant it has been too!   It's a bit like "the prisoner ate a hearty breakfast" I think. I have continued with the static bike, 5 miles a day 5 days a week, so can only imagine what the damage might have been without it! Have one more lunch booked for this week, but will endeavour to be good although I have to admit that the chocolate is calling... Well done all you others who are still reporting in, keep it up.   You begin to feel so much better once you lose half a stone!   If only I could!

When we first bought our house we used a suite of computers at the local library, it cost something like 1€80 for an hour.   If you only used 40 minutes then you were only charged for 40 minutes and given a credit for the next time you came.   It was brilliant and called Médiathèque.

Well done Gay for the op and all you others for doing so well. I lost another 1lb although I should not have done, out to lunch 3 times and dinner at a Chinese.   Too much wine as well.   Think I have used up all my credit from last week!   At least I have got back to where I was in November. Still doing the exercise but having no effect weightwise at all. Good luck everyone for next week, this is the hard bit now...