I travelled via Belgium last week and decided to stay overnight at Dinant, where I have stayed previously and found to be marginally less bad than most towns in Belgium.To anyone contemplating a similar stop - don't.The whole of the town is being
At La Dolce Vita exhibition at Olympia this year I bought a jar of garlic cloves preserved in a pizzaiola type oil and vinegar mixture.It is just amazing for snacking, the whole cloves are really crunchy with a fairly mild flavour of the garlic an
I need to buy a tyre for my car. I googled all the usual words but came up with nothing. Back in UK I would simply go to Kwikfit, or ATS etc and it would be done on the spot.
Does anybody have a contact for a sun blind maker?Think of a conventional, rather old-fashioned roller blind with the roller fixed at the top of the window and the blind hanging vertically down.
They cost peanuts so you may as well have them. Avoiding having them seems to me a bit like the naughty schoolboy who'll do anything to avoid obeying the rules. However ..... I tried 3 separate motorway services in France and none of them sell them. Seems you've got to leave the autoroute and make a special trip to a pharmacy in town. What's that about? TK
I sorted mine by keeping a car on UK plates, insured with Saga, who allow all-year European cover. The car has now done over 3 years so I have to get it back to UK for MoT but that's no real problem. If I get fed up with that I'll sell it and get a new one every 3 years.
Under English law - if you donate your house to the kids there are two major pitfalls and probably dozens of minor ones. Firstly, freedom from IHT only works as long as the kids are living in the house as well. HMRC doesn't mind that the children own the house, but if the parents are the sole occupants at the time of death, the whole of the property value is part of the estate as they are getting the full benefit of the property. If they are sharing with one child, then half of the value etc. It's just the same with the valuable painting that is "given" to the children but still hangs in the parents' house - "just for safe keeping you understand". HMRC are wise to naive little tricks like that. Secondly, when the children marry, their spouses automatically own 50% of all of their possessions (proceeds of marriage). So when they divorce, the ex-spouse owns part of the family home. Statistically, at least one out of 3 children will divorce, so problems are being built in to such an extent that it may be better to pay the tax. Trusts used to be a fair solution, but in recent years HMRC has targetted trusts quite aggressively. I don't know if it's similar here?
When I looked at buying a car on Italian plates, I was quoted about 3 times the UK insurance cost too. But what got me was that if I swerved to avoid the lunatic hurtling towards me and hit the wall instead of hitting him head-on, the insurance wouldn't cover it. The agent told me that if I was going to have an accident, I must always be sure to hit the other car, otherwise they wouldn't pay out. That was Allianz, not just some back-street outfit. Don't you just love it! TK
Oh dear, I forgot that I drink a cup of Twinings Ceylon tea as my early morning start, and the only cup of tea I have in the day. It does have to be brought in but a couple of 50 bag packs last a long while.
In the early days we occasionally brought Heinz beans and packs of bacon as a "just in case". The bacon was eaten fairly unenthusiastically; the beans are still in the cupboard. In fact the only English provender we use regularly is Coleman's mustard. Whenever back in UK we eat all of those products with great gusto, so for us it's a context thing. The joy of what is available in Italy is a constant delight to us - we eat much better and far more healthily here. Buon appetito Terry
"I have a 500 and its nothing, nothing like a Panda. It accelerates". Underneath that fancy body, it's a Panda. Chassis, suspension, engines, gearbox, all sorts of bits. As it happens, the 100 hp Panda will see off many a 500, but who tf buys either of them for acceleration? Great for shopping (Panda) or posing (500) but for performance you'll need to get your real car out and leave the runabout at home.
It's really a Panda with a stylish bodyshell. Our car in Italy is a diesel Panda and it's a great car, as it's a very practical load carrier, whereas the 500 is compromised by its shape; it's a bit narrow at shoulder/head height and doesn't have the hatch. Style over substance - so the 500 will obviously be the bigger seller by far! TK
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They cost peanuts so you may as well have them. Avoiding having them seems to me a bit like the naughty schoolboy who'll do anything to avoid obeying the rules. However ..... I tried 3 separate motorway services in France and none of them sell them. Seems you've got to leave the autoroute and make a special trip to a pharmacy in town. What's that about? TK
I sorted mine by keeping a car on UK plates, insured with Saga, who allow all-year European cover. The car has now done over 3 years so I have to get it back to UK for MoT but that's no real problem. If I get fed up with that I'll sell it and get a new one every 3 years.
Under English law - if you donate your house to the kids there are two major pitfalls and probably dozens of minor ones. Firstly, freedom from IHT only works as long as the kids are living in the house as well. HMRC doesn't mind that the children own the house, but if the parents are the sole occupants at the time of death, the whole of the property value is part of the estate as they are getting the full benefit of the property. If they are sharing with one child, then half of the value etc. It's just the same with the valuable painting that is "given" to the children but still hangs in the parents' house - "just for safe keeping you understand". HMRC are wise to naive little tricks like that. Secondly, when the children marry, their spouses automatically own 50% of all of their possessions (proceeds of marriage). So when they divorce, the ex-spouse owns part of the family home. Statistically, at least one out of 3 children will divorce, so problems are being built in to such an extent that it may be better to pay the tax. Trusts used to be a fair solution, but in recent years HMRC has targetted trusts quite aggressively. I don't know if it's similar here?
When I looked at buying a car on Italian plates, I was quoted about 3 times the UK insurance cost too. But what got me was that if I swerved to avoid the lunatic hurtling towards me and hit the wall instead of hitting him head-on, the insurance wouldn't cover it. The agent told me that if I was going to have an accident, I must always be sure to hit the other car, otherwise they wouldn't pay out. That was Allianz, not just some back-street outfit. Don't you just love it! TK
....sounds very interesting. I'll be in touch. Terry
Oh dear, I forgot that I drink a cup of Twinings Ceylon tea as my early morning start, and the only cup of tea I have in the day. It does have to be brought in but a couple of 50 bag packs last a long while.
In the early days we occasionally brought Heinz beans and packs of bacon as a "just in case". The bacon was eaten fairly unenthusiastically; the beans are still in the cupboard. In fact the only English provender we use regularly is Coleman's mustard. Whenever back in UK we eat all of those products with great gusto, so for us it's a context thing. The joy of what is available in Italy is a constant delight to us - we eat much better and far more healthily here. Buon appetito Terry
And our cricket team used to do well before they started letting non-Yorkshire people in. Oh, alright, they weren't doing all that well
"I have a 500 and its nothing, nothing like a Panda. It accelerates". Underneath that fancy body, it's a Panda. Chassis, suspension, engines, gearbox, all sorts of bits. As it happens, the 100 hp Panda will see off many a 500, but who tf buys either of them for acceleration? Great for shopping (Panda) or posing (500) but for performance you'll need to get your real car out and leave the runabout at home.
It's really a Panda with a stylish bodyshell. Our car in Italy is a diesel Panda and it's a great car, as it's a very practical load carrier, whereas the 500 is compromised by its shape; it's a bit narrow at shoulder/head height and doesn't have the hatch. Style over substance - so the 500 will obviously be the bigger seller by far! TK