betty

I'm with Cooperlola and Clair. As much as I like (or should I say love) chocolate, creme eggs I have not liked since childhood. They are soooooooooo sickly!!

I have watched a couple of programmes recently that I have missed but of course I am still in the UK. Someone did post about missing the end of MasterChef last night and I thought they might have been able to watch it on iPlayer until I read the help section http://iplayersupport.external.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/bbciplayer.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=28&cat_lvl1=4 It does say that they are planning to have an international version some time in the future.

I'm useless! I only got to level 4! Will have to have another go.

This has got to be my last one too. Used to live next door to Kenneth Baker, home secretary at the time but now Lord Baker. We lived in the top flat and our cat at the time (dear old Barney, now no longer with us) once climbed over the roof top and sneaked in one of the windows of Mr Baker's house. His wife then had to ring our doorbell and I had to go crawling under a bed in one of their bedrooms to retreive said cat! One benefit of having Mr Baker next door is that we had a premenant police guard outside next door, so no chance of being burgled! At the same time we also had Robin Cook live round the corner in one direction and Cecil Parkinson lived round the corner in another. Unfortunately we lived in a flat owned by a housing assocation whereas lots of our neighbours were rolling in it! Plenty of paparazzi around at that time too.  

Just thought of another one too. My OH was with a mate and was driving by when the attempt was being made to abduct Princes Anne in 1974. They thought it was a traffic accident and kept on going!! Didn't realise until they saw it on the news the next day. Betty

My OH in his much younger days lived in a squat in Zennor, Cornwall at the same time as singer Donovan. When living in central London, Pamela Anderson (Baywatch) was sitting at the next table to us with all her minders. Don't know why all the guys were drooling into their beer mugs for!! A couple of weeks later in the same pub, Matt Dillon (films include Crash and There's something about Mary) was sitting a couple of tables away from us but unfortunately he was smoking a big fat cigar which put me off him a bit (sorry but just don't like the smell of cigar smoke!)   Betty  

Hi, I am new to the forum but have been viewing it for over a year now (should really be spending my time viewing threads on legal issues, healthcare, registering cars, and all the other important things relevant to moving to France, but what the heck!!) Haven't had the pleasure of sitting on the lap of anyone famous (more's the pity!) but my boring claim to fame is that my mother's cousin is Gordon Burns of 'The Krypton Factor' TV programme and my FIL's cousin is ex-footballer/ex-manager Graeme Souness. Also don't know if this counts but I have also competed in cross country for Scotland twice (obviously in my younger days!) and was also a member of a team that held an age group world record in a relay team (in fact I believe this record still stands).   regards   Betty  

Hi Colin I would also advise not buying in France before the sale of your UK house or getting a bridging loan. With it being only a month before Christmas no-one really will be looking to buy property anyway and I really feel things will not pick up quickly in the New Year. You say you have 5 months to sell your UK house, but believe me when I say that time will pass very quickly. My OH and I stopped house hunting in France solely down to not wanting to find the house that we really wanted and not having the actual funds in the bank to buy. So we decided that we would sell first in the UK and then house hunt in France whilst renting. Our property went on the market mid-August. We had several viewings straight away and a buyer within 5 days. They were the ideal buyer with nothing to sell and ready to move quickly but they pulled out after 48 hours giving the reason that they had been informed of redundancies at work (perhaps they just changed their minds, but that it what the estate agent told us). House was put back on the market, more viewings and another buyer within 2 days. Again ideal buyer, buying to let and a cash buyer who was keen to move quickly as our house needs no work doing to it (buyer’s words, not mine) and they said they could move tenants in straight away. Survey done and after 5 weeks we thought all was going well and we could possibly be in France by late October if we were really lucky. Then the North Rock news hit the headlines and as Dexter says the media went into a frenzy and the news has not been good ever since. Two days later our buyer pulled out stating that they were not happy with certain things in the survey report but would not give the estate agent any clues as to what was wrong or allow us to rectify them or even re-negotiate on the price. The estate agent wanted us to put the house straight back on the market but we wanted to know what was in the survey report. I eventually rang the surveyor myself and he told me there was nothing wrong with our house (in fact he said it was in great condition for its age) and the buyer was just trying to nitpick on a couple of things that he had written in his report. He said he had told them there was no reason not to proceed with the sale and felt that they were just trying to use the survey as a reason to withdraw. I asked him if he felt we should get our own survey done and he said no. Back on the market again, more viewings and another buyer within 4 days. Again, buyer had nothing to sell and keen to move quickly. That was 8 weeks ago. Initially there was a problem with the mortgage paperwork being lost in the post during the postal strike but now we hear that the buyers offer of mortgage has been withdrawn, although it had been agreed in principal beforehand. Their financial advisor has now submitted their mortgage application to another lender. We now don't know whether to wait to see if this one is successful or try our luck with the house back on the market. Our estate agent now says they are not sure if they would be able to market our house at the price that it was valued at back in August. Taking a reduction in the price and the euro/pound situation now not so good, we would be losing quite a bit of money. We have also noticed in the surrounding streets where we live that similar houses which were being sold within days of being on the market since we first started selling ours, the 'for sale' signs are still up after several weeks so things do not look so good. Lenders have had their knuckles rapped for giving out money too easily in the past and are being made to pull the reigns in. Sorry to bore you with my long winded saga but just wanted to show you how, after nearly 4 months on, we are still waiting for what should have been a fairly straight forward house sale. 3 buyers with no house chains involved, now just problems with money being borrowed. Whatever you decide to do, I really hope it all goes well for you. Regards Betty