karenr's activity

I haven't finalised an order with JL yet but I have certainly had some very large orders from M & S and they have the same deal with regard to delivery.  For this reason I wait until I need quite a lot of linen/clothes/pillows etc and it all turns up for just £7.50 (and one or twice for just £5).

Thanks Andiamo.  I checked out their site when we first came to Italy in 2006 and for overseas you had to call (I think) their Oxford Street store.  Never got round to trying that but shall certainly be checking site again now. 

Thanks Andiamo.  I checked out there site when we first came to Italy in 2006 and for overseas you had to call (I think) their Oxford Street store.  Never got round to trying that but shall certainly be checking their site again now. 

We had a water bill last year for €636 when normally around the €80.  The farmer had ploughed the field behind us and ruptured the pipe bringing water to us and as it took a day or two to get the equipment out to dig up, repair/replace we had several days of earth etc getting into pipes.  Consequently the water coming into our storage tank (can't remember how many hundreds of litres it holds, but BIG) was filthy.  We had to run vast amounts of water through the system to clear out the tank before getting any water usable - all at our expense!! Re the white road tax - great idea.  Wish they would do it here and then some of the white roads around here would be maintained and we wouldn't spend so much on tyres!

Fabrizio I have PM'd you though I seem to have trouble with this so letting you know in case you do not receive message. Karen

Just another thought.  How do you get your internet?  If you have Alice with Telecom Italia you are obviously going to need to replace that with some other internet provider.  Before you disconnect your telephone (and internet) check your internet options/costs.  I use a Vodafone dongle on contract and it costs me €60 every 2 months.  I have no choice in this as Vodafone offers best reception/signal and I spent more than a year trying to get TI to even give us a quote for a landline.  Before we moved into countryside we lived in Town and had TI/Alice for broadband and still used skype for overseas calls. 

1.  I just talk via my laptop - no phone - use laptop speakers/microphone.  I also have a plug in headset but gets to hot for this in the summer.  I don't know what type of phone you have but I would expect that you would need a new one - depends if the one you have is skype enabled.  Someone more technical will no doubt help you on this. 2.  You don't have to have a number at all.   If you skype to skype you have a skype name which you create.  You only have a number if you buy one and want people to call you.  You can call out to other landlines or mobiles using skype credit and still just need your skype name to sign in.  The number is optional but if you are planning to replace a landline and want to receive calls from people without internet/skype then you need to buy a number. 3.  I think is covered by previous post. 4.  I am not technical so quoting volume is not possible.  I find that most of the time there is no delay and quality of call is excellent.  However this does depend on your internet link and occasionally skype goes a bit mad (recent issues meant unable to access for a day or so until a fix was made).  5. Again this is covered by previous post.  Depends on your subscription but my unlimited Europe package is just that - unlimited I can call as often as I like for as long as I like to any landline in Europe for my one off annual charge.  You can if you prefer just have monthly or (from memory) quarterly subscription but I chose annual as I have no landline, live here permanently and the 12 month deal offers the best discount/value.

If you pay annually rather than monthly you get a further discount.  Just renewed mine in April.  Furthermore you get the option to buy a number at half price.  I couldn't buy an Italian number as you had to confirm you lived in the city to which the number belonged and very few places in Italy were available (certainly not Ripatransone).  With a UK number you don't have to confirm you live there so I just selected a Cambridge number as used to live near there.   Our friends/family in UK can ring the Cambridge number and just be charged a local call or if not local to that area we call them back on their landline.  You do pay for mobiles and the other downside is if you have a UK number it is no good for Italian friends to call you on - they have to call us on our mobiles, or we have to call them. 

We saw ruin in February 2007, completed purchase end March.  Agreed contract with builder who started work July 2007 and we moved in April 17th 2008.  We were delayed approx. 1 month due to the location/access road in the winter weather but this was a complete knock down and rebuild using original materials.  We also had to have 12 piles into the ground the deepest 18m.   Our builder and his team turned up religiusly every morning (road permitting) and managed a superb project with electrician, plumber, tilers, door/window supplier etc. We would have been in sooner but front-door manufacturer delayed us another month.   It can be done!!!!!!!

I too have the 3G version so there is not the need for setting up wi-fi access.  It also came already linked to the Amazon.com account from which it was purchased.  So simple, just take it out of the box and charge the battery.  Books do seem a bit pricey on amazon.com and the price is dollars so obviously exchange rate is going to affect the "price".  There is definitely reference to accessing the web and MP3 etc.  Lots more available than I first imagined, though early days for me still picking my way through the instructions.  I will certainly look into changing it to amazon.co.uk if it is possible from here.  I use a UK credit card as I still work for a UK company and get paid sterling.