Frederick

Whats with the cant take knives on at Portsmouth.?....I had a selection in my caravan when I went out through Portsmouth that you could butcher an ox with ..    there must be thousands in motorhomes and caravans ...dont tell me that they take them off you now !

J.R ....he knows the fence is mine ......the builders put it up in 1989 when they built the house .The coffifers were planted by the previous owner on his side of the fence ....the conifers  that were also on the far side of his garden in front of his own  fence he removed ....and sprayed the fence green ... Fine his fence  can do what he wants with it ... After the 10 foot connifers went on my side of his garden he had exposed my fence ....it was not green so he wanted to match them  up obviously...... and he went ahead and did it  just after I had put brand new 6 foot panels up ....simple as that ...

Thanks SD  you seem to confirm that this guy from Slovakia is correct..........He gets a job outside of Slovakia  where he needs his car to get about.....wants to pay his taxes ...but is not permitted to because he is not allowed to re register his car as it is still  under finance ....So he cant comply with the law of the country he is working in....... in this case the UK..... so has to drive about on the UK roads tax free  after six months or go home and then come back every six months ....and this is the system in place ? ...........its a joke .....The guy wont go home ...he will continue driving tax free like thousands of others on UK  and possibly  other countries roads for years .....There should be some system where he can pay his tax to the country he is working in while still on his Slovakia  plates when over six months away from home ..... If road tax payment is the requirement . and the plate cannot be changed due to finance outstanding  ...He should still be.. .as in this UK  case able make his payment and  be issued with a  windscreen sticker to say tax has  been collected by the country he is a tenporary worker in ....The guy is offering to pay his tax due ....... and the UK cant take his money ...The  police say this is a DVLA matter and are not interested in the non payment of  UK  road tax on the Slovakia registered vehicle ....Read that as any non UK registered vehicle ... .and.... also unable to have an MOT done   no doubt . They save a few quid  compared with the rest of us dont they !

I have just read that a guy working in the UK after 10 months  tried to ....and was unable... to pay the road fund tax he  wanted to pay to the DVLA because his car was registered in Slovakia. DVLA is not geared up to accept his  money unless the car is re registered....The car is still under the control of a finance company in Slovakia..... so they will not permit the re registering of the car while finance is still outstanding. DVLA told him his only option was to leave the country...then come back in I suppose for another six months ?. He wants to pay his tax..his car is insured. he wants to drive within the law....... but he is not allowed to ....Is this general throughout the EU ?...  you cant  export a car even  for a short time and pay your road fund taxes for it  unless you totally own it . and you cant unless its  free of any finance  ? If this is correct no wonder there are thousands of un taxed cars with out of country plates on the roads  Seems  an EU wide system is badly needed .

There are volunteers who take the elderly shopping ....so if you drive that could be one way of giving a helping hand.....The old chap opposite me gets picked up in a BMW sports driven  by another old chap who takes him to and from the Super U  once a week .....he used to have a woman with a tatty little Citroen do it  .......not any more !

  Pads ....Suggestion 1....sounds like a suicide attempt.....Suggestion 2 means paperwork and hassle .....I am going back to 85 in a couple of weeks for a long stay......perhaps the rain I am sure the UK will get !!! will wash the streaks off ...I can live in hope .......

Panels are Six foot tall Pads.... and I do not have arms like a gorilla ! ......I shall just have to brush paint my side green now .... one more job I had not  planned to do .  I could make him come round and do it I suppose .... but my wife thinks he would probably spray the shrubs at the same time ....then there would be another job..... cutting back the painted bits off the shrubs !

One of my French neighbours has a summer kitchen building that backs onto my garden ....when she wanted some work done on it that required access from my side ...a very formal approach was made  to me to request  the access .... and pointing out that it would be at a time I would be happy with so as not be inconvenienced by her workers ....This even when she must know when I leave and that  I would be none the wiser if they came round and the work was done . . It was only new guttering .... My UK neighbour has just removed a connifer hedge on his side of our boundry leaving my rather old fence panels exposed to him .....I took the opportunity to replace the fencing with a rather smart row of larch lap panels all a nice light brown in colour .....I now have green streaks down my side as he has sprayed his side of my fence ....Have I been approached .....what do you think !.... such a difference  between neighbours .....

Nice idea Catalpa..........but ..........how do you get round the Insurers requirement that when your holiday home is unoccupied they require you to turn off the electricity at the consumer box..... and ..turn of the water and drain down the system .... and lock secured all shutters on the doors and windows ....I cant see them agreeing to you leaving the power on ....a short cuircuit causing a fire and they would not cover you !

Yes.........Three members of the  Consabulary to ask if my holiday home was connected to an  agent re letting and who posessed keys apart from me ! ........last month .....not long after Sarky got the keys to his new place ......I dont rent out the house .....wonder what they would have done if I did ?

I suppose we all when returning to our property after leaving it for weeks wonder if all is  " going to be well this time ".....I have been concerned of late by callers who want to sell me stuff....the last one showing  pictures of new roofs  that he had put on when it was plain to see my house has a new roof ... So was he just trying to see if the place was empty ? I am advised these people are not local  but "Passing through " and I have seen where they have piched up in the pic- nic  areas outside other villages in the area ...I  also turn the water off at the stopcock as my outside tap on the wall can be seen from the road . and lock the gates ...just in case a few big containors end up being filled while I am away ...I dont want to provide a supply source  for those who need to fill them !!  The shutters are locked  and i believe the insurers require it ....Most of my neighbours  shutter themselves indoors of an evening .....we know they are home .....but a passser by would not tell .... Do we advertise we have somthing worth pinching  by fitting an alarm ?.......... I am yet to see an alarm on a house in the village ..so to fit one may become a talking point.......... and I hate to think what might be said if it went off in the middle of the night ! .........Our  UK home has one ...and so does everybody in the road ... its not an event to hear one sounding ...The solar powered alarm systems that keep a battery charged inside the box up on the wall....and that are  linked to movement detectors with  batteries  and are radio signal linked to the siren are not expensive today ..... and would provide a  working system  while everything is shut down    but .....I havent heard of any break- ins where my place is ...yet       I suppose when it happens alarms will then start appearing ....

Makes you think this .......wonder what the position would be if you get clobbered by one of the many cars with Polish plates we have on the UK roads at the moment ......wonder how long they are covered for out of Poland ?  30.60 90 days .....forever ?

Yes I was meaning UK supermarkets........... ASDA it appears have had grown  for them the galia melons  under the control of the  Stockbridge Technology Centre  They  used 3 different methods of production in a trial ...rockwool..upright soil production and traditiional style Spanish  flat grown ....This is a first for the UK ...Production this year 4.500 fruits at £1 each sold by ASDA .  The Galia strain was  Alpes  supplied by a Dutch seed specialist ..... the talk nowadays is of  "Food Miles " ....  so we can expect to see more and more of such crops  which  we normally get shipped up to us from  sunny places grown in the UK......tough on the farmers who now send  their crops to the UK  you may say ...but .....Personally I dont want to see the change ....I will  prefer my fruit to have done a few miles ..and the French or Spannish farmer continue to  make a living .   

" The customer is the ultimate market place " ...I dont think he or she will care when going round the Supermarket where the food is produced or even  if the supermarket will  bother to try and tell customers where their products come from ..they can sell them anything  !     ..You could put up a sign saying all food in the store was grown in dodo droppings on the south slopes of the Netherlands mountains and it would not stop one item being dropped in a basket .....still dont thinks food from warmer places should be grown under glass in the UK ...but  it will get sold !

All this trade is fine my me ......but ...when a big supermarket chain decides to use its power ....and science..... to support the growing of crops that are not native to the country it is selling them in like "Yorkshire Galia Melons " and states it is in the interest of "global warming prevention "  to produce food locally and cut down on shipping it accross Europe ...whats next in the way of a crop not produced in the UK ....bananas !    

Galia melons and now being grown in large numbers in Yorkshire....under glass in bio controlled conditions 6 or 7 to a plant vertically .....They taste the same and are the same size as those grown in a field in the sun of the South of France or Spain ....Asda are selling them  and the talk is of carbon footprints and global warming and now the way to go is to produce what is needed close to the Supermarkets ......I cant help thinking of the guy in France or Spain  with a field full of melons who is going to find himself trying to sell them at the road side in future ....or the truck drivers who will find themselves off the road .......It might save fuel not having to truck them hundreds of miles and be better for the UK Supermarkets to have stuff grown on the doorstep but at what cost to those who depend on an  EU wide market place for a living ....not happy about fields covered in glass houses either !

Bob ...A hell of a lot of people seem to think its a nice enough place to keep going there ......Oh to find somewhere to park !!!

L'Hermenault cow roast weekend it is for me then ! .....I am yet to find a decent steak.... grilled ....that you have not to go into jaw strenthening training to eat yet  !  No wonder the French use so many pressure cookers.....I have tried all sorts of places for decent grilling beef ....they just dont seem to hang it long enough ....

Unused paint brush  ?

Tough on Gordon  Brown having to leave Dorset at the start of his hols to attend a meeting today ......havent they heard of video conferencing in No 10 yet ?.... he is not having much luck since he got the job is he ? .......The farm that has the problem is one that fattens up cattle so there may have been little lorry movement in and out so lets hope it has not  spread .  They havent found out which strain it is yet so cant vaccinate  until they do...there are  many strains  of foot and mouth it appears and not a vaccine for them all on the shelf ....so if they act and cull fast it could be stopped in Surrey

I didnt do it myself but I believe its a case of taking scissors and rounding the ends back on one wing then when they flap they topple over ...dont go up like a helicopter  onto a wall then make a getaway  !

In order to give the creatures  a new lease of life my sons chickens were obtained from "battery " stock .....These come without a full set of feathers having been caged and pecked ....When turned out to "Free range " the feathers  grow back .....result ....phone rings ..."Have you lost any of your chickens .....they are in the middle of the village outside the pub ! "......wing now clipped ....now teetotal ! 

They have given you the extra time so that you can you can have a restful nap.....then wake up hungry and spend in their restaurants ......

Great....  have fun  .....and I hope we have you and I made sombody who just thinks these things are buy and plug in consider safety.

A member of my family has a stream running alongside their lake .....there is a bank sepperates lake from stream .....if these creatures were permitted to undermine the bank and it collapsed ...7 properties down stream will have a lake arrive at their front doors .....Now if you are against killing these lovely furry animals and you lived down stream .... you will say "never mind its what the pretty little things  do "  wont you  ?   or will  you scream for compensation from the land owner for not maintaining the bank ....?  you cant have it all ways ...these animals as Michael posted were introduced for their fur  and are a result of escape  like the mink.....they HAVE  to be dealt with or they will cause lots of damage ...