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Manon

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Everything posted by Manon

  1.   Thank you Theiere - should we put the chlorine converter thingy back to its normal level of 110 in the meantime ? The pool people said that if we left the house for several days we shouls leave the cover on but reduce the chlorine setting to 30 so we assumed that this would be correct for the winter as well. The pool is staying relatively clean as it is in a very open area and the cover fits reasonably well.
  2. Very reluctantly we are going to have to consult a lawyer and possibly take our swimming pool company to court. Has anyone had experience of this or been in a similar situation ?
  3. Hoping one of the experts can help ? To cut a long story short we are still waiting for our hugely expensive pool cover to be fitted and about to consult a lawyer to compell the pool installer to sort out the problems. This morning it snowed and I'm not sure what we should be doing vis a vis the pool. It has a summer cover on the water surface, the pump/filtration system runs at night for 6-7 hours and it has a Sterilor salt chlorination system which is set for 30 ( normally 110 in the summer ). The pool is 12m x 4m x 1.5mD. Any advice would be very gratefully received ! P.S. If anyone wants to know which pool company NOT to use in the Auvergne please PM me as I would hate anyone else to be taken in by them.
  4. We bought the carcasses from B & Q but got the doors from the Replacement Kitchen Door Company based in Kent. They have a huge selection of styles, colours and accessories and will deliver anywhere in the UK. They were remarkably cheap - think around £50 - £60 per door and were exactly what we wanted and couldn't find anywhere else. They also predrill holes amd supply hinges if needed. Check them out on the internet.
  5. We bought exactly what we wanted from Brico Depot very cheaply. One thing to bear in mind - if you need a large quantity ( we needed 120sq mtrs ) make sure they all come from the same pallet or if not , check tiles from the two pallets very carefully against each other as ours varied considerably and we had to take about 35 boxes back and get the guys to match them from the remaining pallets in stock.
  6. Thank you everyone - I just find it quite astonishing that we will not be paying tax on the rental either in the UK or in France . I had no idea that one benefitted from a UK tax free allowance.
  7. But then it appears that I get a tax free allowance in the uK and presumably one in France as well - is this correct ?
  8. Sorry Benjamin - in answer to your question - the first person I spoke to was consulting an expert and the second person passed me on to an expert.
  9. Thank you all for the replies - I see from my ' Avis d'Impot '2012 that the rent is included for calculation purposes but how do I tell that I have not paid tax on it ? The amount received was below the UK personal allowance threshold. Also - are social contributions payable on it and again, how do I tell if they are / have been when I receive the demand ? Thank you so much for your patience and help - my French isn't bad but I do struggle with the tax forms ( I did in the UK too admittedly !).
  10. Does anyone know the answer please ? Having decided to tackle my UK tax return today I have just been given conflicting advice by 2 HMRC technical experts .We have a property in the UK which is rented out and we receive the income gross and declare it on our French tax return. Expert No 1 said that I only needed to declare UK bank interest and dividends where tax had been deducted at source in order to reclaim that tax  but when I went back and said that I could just declare this in France and have the UK tax taken into account, Expert No 2 said that I also had to declare the rental income and that I would pay tax on anything over my personal allowance.
  11. I have to agree with the last poster - the frozen ones you bake yourself from Intermarche are excellent and the smell in the kitchen is heavenly !
  12. You have my sympathies - I too love to bake but am usually the one who ends up eating the lot ! I sometimes try freezing half just to avoid this .
  13. The wife paid for the house which is in her name but the husband did all the renovation himself. Does anyone know what he might be entitled to if the house is sold either before or after the divorce ? Any advice would be much appreciated.
  14. We are planning to install a pool early next year and the pool company has said that if we leave a week between filling the pool and erecting the abri we don't need to get planning permission. Is this correct and would we not fall foul of the security regs in this case - even if it is only for a week ? Can anyone tell me what the PP costs for a pool and abri please ? Thank you !
  15. I sort of understood that if we paid him - either in hay or cash or a mixture- then it became a matter of us simply buying a service from him rather than him receiving a benefit from our land i.e.grazing or similar , in which latter case if he paid us then he got rights ? It is so complicated but we do need our field cut - he got 12 round bales of varying quality hay. Thanks for all the replies so far.
  16. We needed to have our meadow cut and a local farmer has cut it for us and will take the hay for his animals. We are intending to pay him 100euros for doing it. Are we creating any problems for ourselves by doing this and if we get him to do it every year on the same basis do we give him any rights ? Any advice gratefully received.
  17. We are thinking of buying a tondeuse / debrousailleuse as above. Does anyone have any experience of them and any useful advise please ?
  18. I use dry grains of rice in water and swirl them around. You can also try some Viakal ( ? ) or similar - the stuff you use to remove limescale from taps etc.
  19. Manon

    Carrot Cake

    Sorry Rose, only just seen your question. I just grate the carrots in my magimix so not too fine. Do try the recipe - it is so good especially after a couple of days as it just gets wonderfully moist and the flavours really come together.
  20. Manon

    Carrot Cake

    This one comes out perfectly every time and is THE best carrot cake ever. It is best eaten two days after making it. 4oz walnuts finely chopped 8oz carrots grated 6oz plain flour 8oz caster sugar 1.5 tspn each of bicarb,cinnamon and baking powder 0.5 tspn salt 8 fluid oz sunflower oil 3 eggs 1 tspn vanilla essence Mix all dry incrdients together in a bowl, then add eggs and vanilla essence, then oil and carrots. Bake at 175 degrees for approx one hour until skewer comes out clean. Ice with mixture of 6oz cream cheese, 3 oz butter, icing sugar to taste and zest of one orange. Hope you enjoy it !
  21. Just in case anyone else is in the same boat....... We went to the DREAL yesterday, armed with our partial C of C and an invoice from the local VW garage for fitting the plaque , hoping that they might accept that but no, we have to wait up to 3 weeks for our file to be looked at, then we will be given an appointment when we have to take the car in to be inspected. It takes 90minutes to drive there each time. Moral of the story, make sure you have the correct plaque fitted before you leave the UK. We had no idea from anything we'd read that it was a legal requirement in France.
  22. Bats and a fouine which we caught when it was stunned after falling down though the loft trap door ! Have also found a wasp's nest, a bees' nest and a hornet's nest between the shutters and the bedroom window - thankfully not all at the same time !
  23. Very interested to read this post as we are in the same position with a partial Cert de Conformite from VW France but our only problem is a missing Plaque de Constructeur ! We too have to go to the DREAL and I'm hoping that as we have now had the plaque made up and fixed to the car that it will be a paper exercise. Surely we don't have to do the weighbridge execise ? The car is only 8 years old . I'm feeling very anti VW at the moment as I told them we didn't have the plaque ( something the Controle Technique noticed ) before we asked them for the C de C. Surely at that point they could have said ' you need to get one and this is the info to put on it ' and then we can give you the Cert but no, they took our 119 euros and after a 3 week wait we get a useless partial Cert saying it does not conform because it has no plaque !!! The local VW dealer said that VW didn't put plaques on vehicles destined for certain EU countries so we don't know if our car ever had one. When I rang VW France they said you can try and get one from VW UK. It really bugs me because they all use the same database and can check the car immediately from the chassis number . If VW Uk can issue one then why can't VW France ? Equally , what is the value of it if it something we can have made up ourselves ?
  24. We fell in love with both our French houses - one of which has been a holiday home for 16 years and the other ' money pit ' which will be our next permanent home . When we saw the mill ( the holiday home ) it was love at first sight and we said ' either we buy this or we stop talking about a French house because it's perfect '. We bought it on a wing and a prayer and have never regretted it - it may fall into the river one day but we still won't regret buying it as we have so many wonderful memories of time spent there. Having then fallen in love with the area and the people we spent 10 years looking for a property to renovate. Someone once told me ' you can change anything but the site / location ' and we looked at what seemed like hundreds of properties without success. We were about to buy a building plot when I spotted an interesting photo in a local estate agent's window. This was on a Monday. On Tuesday we couldn't get hold of the agent but we went to see the house on the Wednesday and it was the 'coup de coeur ! 'We made an offer the next day, it was accepted and we signed the Compromis de Vente on the Friday, at which point the agent said ' and the 10% deposit ? ' and we said 'ah' having totally forgotten about that ! We started a full renovation 8 years later and and hope to move in this summer after 3 years of chasing builders. Every so often we look at the scale of what we are doing, not to mention the bills, and ask ourselves if we are completely mad, but then we look at the house and the view, and we walk around our land and we are just bowled over by the beauty of the place. I very rarely regret things I have done but I regret far more the things I didn't do - and this is something we have always dreamed of doing. We are so looking forward to sharing it with family and friends, all of whom have followed our progress either in person or via email and photos. Like one othe poster, I couldn't live somewhere I didn't love.
  25. Anyone had a pool installed here ? If so would you mind sharing your experience with me - who did you use and were they good ? Thank you
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