Panda

Well done you, he looks beautiful.  We had the odd jealousy issue at first but now our two get on well, a little too well at times, my old cocker spaniel has suddenly, at 12 years old ,realised that girl dogs can be quite fun!  I try to tell him to stop as this is his step sister but he seems not to care and neither does she, hussy,  luckily for all concerned he has had the snip and she is about to! Panda  

[quote user="Tresco"]I do sympathise, WB/B/2 I'm sure we all do. Of course there'll always be the odd flaky person who'll say they quite liked WB. [/quote] Call me flaky but despite a (very) shaky start I had grown to like WB.[:'(]

Wow, I'm astonished at the change in Kiki, as Christine says it's amazing what a hair cut can do, what a lovely little dog!  I wonder if my new baby will turn more poodle with a good clipping, she is really very untidy right now so we will soon find out.  I'll let you know. 

Hello The new rules have not yet come in AFAIK but yes in the future you will only pay a percentage of actual earnings on startup. URSSAF is the highest (by far) bill you will receive.  Yours does seem high for your first year though, someone put a link to a site where you can simulate charges this would allow you to check out what you should be paying, anyone know what it is? Also is the one marked 'simulation' an actual bill?  The other one you mentioned is the one I have just received which tells me how much I'm paying for the year.  We've discussed the charges a great deal on this forum but it generally works out that you pay somewhere in the order of 23% of your gross income in charges and tax, the problem you have is that for year one it is a set figure and so it is not reflecting the actual situation, this is adjusted later but is no help when you ahve to pay a big chunk of what you earn in year one out. Panda

Hi Sadly I think you are in difficult position, the main issue as far as I understand it is that you have a written agreement.  A friend of mine was advised not to enter into anything written as this can be very difficult to get out of,.  Your only hope I believe is in having the agreement cancelled because they are in breach having not supplied you with the agreed recompense.  All that having been said I think it will be a long and difficult path.  You also haven't said what the agreement says, does it not have any means of giving notice and cancellation (even if it's years) and who drew it up? Panda

Christine, I do hope that you get through to owner of Loopins, he is beautiful and deserves a nice life with the obviously very caring family that have offered assistance. [quote user="Magnolia"] That's such a sad story but a lovely ending. She looks so lovely. Hugo (our pooch) is poodle x griffon and he really has a mixture of the breeds personality's as well. Good luck [/quote] Magnolia, my recent rescue I believe is also perhaps poodle cross griffon, from your small pic of Hugo I would say mine has more leanings toward griffon but she has straight longish hair at the front of her body and tight curly poodlesque fur at the back, she doesn't lose any coat at all and has the cutest personality, have a look at this pic, what do you think is there any poodle in there? [IMG]http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc149/ahoward99/IMGP0424.jpg[/IMG]

Hi Jehe The 3500 quoted is a general minimum start point so if you earn up to the max you can earn for example it will be more than this.  What agencies are this bills from (e.g. URSSAF,RAM,CIPAV )as I don't recognise either heading as something I receive and I am prof lib.  Panda

I'm definitely up for a  meet up, what fun that would be, we could come incognito and have a game of trying to match login ID to real person! I'm in the Charente but would happily travel. Panda

Hello Yes there is because I kept my landline, I think it's a safety net I would rather keep hold of in case the VoIP goes down. Panda

I use Orange for everything, including the bundled international calls package which gives unlimted free international calls and as I work from home this is great for me as you get a second telephone number which I give out as my business line.  It costs 24.95 for the internet package per month and 7 euros extra for the unlimited calls package.  The VoIP line quality is good there is no noticable difference between the landline and the VoIP calls. Panda

Despite the odd rich one in WJT's neck of the woods, I still think there seems to be a large difference between the houses and prices people are trying to sell at and the price range that new arrivees are trying to buy at.  Houses do seem to be hanging around for longer and longer, there is one such house on AI which has been dropped by 130k yet has been for sale for 2 years. I think that there are still lots of people coming over but fewer and fewer are taking on properties that claim to have an income on which they will need to seek a mortgage, perhaps they have learnt that you can't live on income from gites or B& B alone as well as support a family and pay a mortgage and there can't be that many people coming over with 500k+ cash.

[quote user="J.R."] Why does everybody refer to enduit à projeter as crepi? Is that what the contractors call it or list it on the devis as? [/quote] Is is called crepi on the Devis so yes, that's what the contractor calls it.  

I've noticed that there seems to be a huge gap in between the properties that are being advertised on the UK centric sites and those that are being searched for on the same forums.  Example from this morning: Properties for Sales lists about 20 proprieties on for over 450k, The only adverts under wanted are again around 20 stating a budget of between 150k and 250k. I think there has been a shift in what people are searching for but not old to new, more big and expensive to average and affordable.   

I think it is supposed to indicate if you are online, interestingly though if you hover over it on your own name it tells you you are not online, bit flaky then!!

Thanks Kathy That sounds close, actually now you mention it I have seen that colour in the brico's  on the large tubs of crepie, anyone else who perhaps has had a contractor to crepie the whole house know if this is a choice offered?