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Concerns taxes and interest from savings and the déclaration for 2023. After years of getting zilch, I have had a bit of a shock on gathering the figures in anticipation of the tax declaration next month, to find strange looking largish sums added to our savings accounts! Amounts for interest.....but don't know if I should be jumping around for joy too soon. What with the state pensions increase and now interest increase, I am wondering about (you guess it!) this year's tax bill! Completely forgotten by now what it felt like when the exchange rate was 1.47 and interest rates on savings were 7 - 10% And now this unexpected good fortune has completely floored me! Has anyone else been surprised, delighted, thrown into confusion....and what other emotion?

Just move house, ALBF! Goodness knows you have threatened often to do so. Sorry, couldn't resist teasing you. I do sympathise. Everyone, just keep away from him, what with all that coughing and sneezing.....ugh.....give him a wide berth! ALBF, have you had a word with your pharmacien? Does anyone know of one of those Bach remedies that might work?

As I walk often with friends, eveyone has remarked that there is a high level of pollen. Certainly, every pair of walking shoes I have seem to be yellow with pollen. Don't know if my allergies are worse; indeed don't know what I might be allergic to. But I accept that during spring and autumn, my cough gets a lot worse. I take a prescription antihistamine year round and if my cough is caused by phlegm, I take a sachet of "Exomuc" and that soon calms things. If I can't sleep at all due to coughing, I take a teaspoonful of a sirop for dry coughs or simply a Dafalgan. Take my inhalers as directed but have taken the same ones for over 30 years and the pneumo says don't change anything so I don't. The rest of the time, I ignore the cough and do all the things I'd normally do, including being outdoors as much as possible. Fortunately I don't get runny eyes or nose.

It's OK, ALBF, the match finished early round about half 10, our time. Ronnie not played his best, not allowed to. and Mark Williams potting everything smoothly and with his characteristic insouciance. Result was 10-5. ITV4+1 is just the ITV4 channel programme, one hour later, so NOT live. Have a look at the guide for the list of programmes and if ITV4 is not on it, you could perhaps retune.

I join Lori in sending best wishes and thank you for posting, Gardian, as it's likely to be useful for someone.

With me, it's not the clocks, it's my mind and my body. For example, feeling hungry or sleepy at a different time and it takes me a few days to adjust. If I went to a different time zone, especially one that is more than 5 hours different, it could take me the whole length of a holiday of a fortnight to adjust and then another several days to get it all back after I have come home.

Some ATMs do charge a fee for using them. Did the screen have a message to say you will be charged a fee?

Lori, yes, exactly like you have described. Our walking club has cancelled as many walks as have taken place. I have been rushing out for a walk every time it's stopped raining for a bit but, however sunny on starting, I have come home soaked to the skin. Have you seen the pictures of the Vienne and the Creuse overflowing their banks? Even Limoges has been flooded. Our local rivers have all, at sometime in the last 3 months, broken their banks. Of course, although not in the severely flooded areas, us and all the surrounding départements have been on orange alert for weeks: la Gironde, la Charente, la Charente Maritime and la Dordogne. No sign of change on the météo for at least the rest of this week and into the next.

Is it coincidence or something else, but it seems to me that it's nearly always walkers who find remains or a body and that is the case on both sides of the channel. I think us walkers tend to avoid roads and walk on little used paths often not even proper paths but through bushes, trees etc. Maybe these bodies are found because les responsables hide them away in "secret" places and hope they are never found? But what does it say about the people tasked with finding them? Are they blind, or simply too lazy to be thorough?

....does not suit me, not my mind or my body. It confuses me no end and upsets my daily routine. I think about all the living creatures that this shifting about between winter and summer time who are affected adversely. The premature babies in their incubators who wonder when the nurse is going to give them their syringeful of food, the baby birds thinking about the next chewed up worm to be put in their mouths, the poor early morning workers going to work lacking sleep and motivation and so the list goes on. Would YOU welcome an end to this madness?

Don't know, Wools, she didn't reply to my last email sent several months ago.

AnOther, I wish TeamedUp (or idun) could be here to look at your photos. I reckon you two could be the first forum members to star in Forum MasterChef. Or maybe Forum BakeOff?

Lucky you! I'd have given anything to have met Claire IRL but I did meet Coops and I spoke on the phone with a couple of others.

betise, how you have brought back memories! Yes, 5 element and Catalpa and the others you have mentioned. And how could we not have mentioned Claire? Then there were the other French folk: Frenchie and ericd some while later. Are there any French people left on the forum? They were so patient with my efforts to learn French and always so ready to correct errors without making you feel a dunce! betise, besides you, wasn't there someone else called maybe Emily who helped Coops with all that health stuff? Then powerdesel with that wonderful swagger of his....ha! ha! You always knew who to ask about specific things, eg Sunday Driver about anything to do with driving in France. Those were truly the days......

Not that name but I remember someone who sounds like your man! What was his forum name? I do remember another Chris, Chris Head but he sadly had a lot of mental health problems, BEFORE it became fashionable to have these!

AnOther, your move to Spain has obviously been a happy one and one that suits you....so félicitations on that. Must admit the restos sound incredible though I am sure Mrs A's cooking (from memory of the scrumptious treats you posted photos of) easily surpasses any of those restos' But, don't mention fuel bills, ours are literally through the roof! I am very envious..... So happy to have heard from you, I see you will stay forever YOUNG (ah...couldnt resist that one!)

Same goes for the Acte de Vente....no need for anyone to "displace" themselves. BTW do you still need to appoint someone to have power of attourney the way you did in the "old days"? We were told this signatory could be a clerk or some such from the notaire's office. What is the current procedure, DL?

Damn thing got posted before I'd finished. I meant to ask how is life treating you and Mrs A in Spain?

Oh, how lovely to see you back, AnOther, even if briefly. Must remind you yet again, I STILL have my VALID French paper driving licence thanks to your timely advice😀 Not to forget all the other times you gave me excellent and much needed advice. How is life

DL can I make an embarrassing confession? I had to google the Four Tops!!! Sometimes I think I stopped noticing things round about 1955.....

I hope that this thread will remind the oldtimers (me? 2006) about how important a part this forum has played in their lives. And I hope the newbies will realise how the forum used to be lively and, yes, fun! Can we all make a huge effort to keep it going? After all, you don't need to be an expert in anything, you could have an opinion, a joke to share, a discovery to reveal to others. It's really not that difficult, is it?

Agree with you totally about Cooperlola....I missed her posting here for years afterwards.

YES, I noticed it only this morning.....drives me mad too;

Wooly, you just leave us walkers out of it, OK?

How could I have left off "reach out"? I've only just remembered this ghastly expression in the last couple of days when the Princess of Wales gave her speech about her cancer diagnosis. In no time at all, all sorts of bods "reached out" to her....including, naturally her brother- and sister- in-law. As though the poor woman doesn't have enough to contend with without all and sundry reaching out like that....uuuggghhhh! If I were her, I'd make sure I am well and truly out of reach! Can't people just approach or even contact someone instead?