Oh the gentle summer rain
 

How beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,
How beautiful is the rain!
How it clatters along the roofs,
Like the tramp of hoofs
How it gushes and struggles out
From the throat of the overflowing spout!
Across the window-pane
It pours and pours;
And swift and wide,
With a muddy tide,
Like a river down the gutter roars
The rain, the welcome rain!
H.W. Longfellow

We just had some 'gentle' summer rain..............34mm in less than half an hour with some walnut sized hail thrown in for good measure. --And all over my hay to boot!!

Re: Oh the gentle summer rain
 

Peter, sorry to hear about the hail!

Here near Hévíz it rained almost all night, woke up almost every hour from the noise on our windows in the roof - but we were lucky, no hail ...

It must have been more than 50 mm!

PS:
We had our fingers crossed, because some years ago we had a hailstorm in our house in Germany when two window panes broke (luckily only the outer panes, the inner held) and other people had all their windows destroyed ...

Re: Oh the gentle summer rain
 

Hi, my wife and I also teach English and have been doing so for 8 years in Eger. We too had ideas of starting businesses from the outset and tried to do so last year. I will never, repeat NEVER start a business in Hungary. The costs and taxes are too prohibitive (if you want to do everything legally like we wanted to) and now, closing the business is also massively expensive. NEVER AGAIN!!

Re: Oh the gentle summer rain
 

Hi, Yes I know what you mean. Its very restrictive here. my wife has a flower shop and she has to duck 'n' dive to make it worth while. I have had a few ideas but havn't taken the plunge for exactly that reason. Its a shame really as its has a negative effect on the growth of the country. I cant say I have been a great fan of consecutive Hungarian governments which tend to be corrupt instead of having Hungary's interests at heart.

Re: Oh the gentle summer rain
 

Yes, at first I got the impression that Hungarians were not very enterprising and tended to miss opportunities but I think in a lot of cases they are just jaded by the system and all the red tape. I was self employed in UK as a sole trader and they could not make it any simpler to set up a business but I gather UK is quite unique in having such traders.

Re: Oh the gentle summer rain
 

In the UK I was also a sole trader and the MD of a limited company and it was soooooo much easier to run a business there than here.
One thing's for sure, it has reminded us of why we came here and made us appreciate what we have.....time, freedom, peace and tranquility. Sadly no money though.

Re: Oh the gentle summer rain
 

I started my business many moons ago when I received 40 pounds per month from the Enterprise allowance scheme introduced by Mrs T to help small business get started. There were other areas too where I received professioinal advice for free. I registered with the tax office and away I went. That lasted 26 years.
Hungary should encourage the growth of small business not stiffel it. It just leads to the black market. I can't imagine why they do it, there must be a good reason somewhere ??.... Maybe Hungary has too few football stadiums and railway tracks ???..

Re: Oh the gentle summer rain
 

It's an old tradition in Hungary and the other Balkan states (though geographically HU is part of Central Europe) - there's always a "kis kapu" ...

I'm totally used now to always being asked:

Do you need a receipt? If not, the amount to be paid is much smaller ...

Re: Oh the gentle summer rain
 

Not much chance of setting up a b & b or anything catering then?

Re: Oh the gentle summer rain
 

Otherwise known as the black (or grey if its only half unofficial) economy. You do get inspections on occasions, especially at markets and the typical fine is 100,000HUF of not giving a receipt.

We have run a company (a BT, which is an unlimited company) for about 20 years doing various things and never had problems but you need an accountant

Running an enterprise that involves alcohol of any sort will be fraught with regulations and frequent run-ins with customs and excise who are known for their lack of sense of humour!

As an attempt to reduce the black economy certain establishments have to have an online (online to the tax office!) cash recorder that gives a receipt time stamped to the tax office. It is thought that a good %age of the recent increase in GDP was due to the whitening of the economy due to the new online cash recorders.

GMC girl - you can do B&B or catering, there are various categories under which this can be done, depending on what you want to do and we have done holiday lets and do on-farm catering/entertaining as well as farm gate sales either via our company or as a small farmer (another category) depending which is appropriate for the event

There is a category of sole trader.

And yes the bureaucracy here is much worse than we remember from the UK.

Re: Oh the gentle summer rain
 

I'm sure Del-boy and Rodney could make a success of it out here. Russan hair dryers etc.....!....Would be a 'nice little earner'..

But seriously GMC girl...best of luck and steady as you go. It can be a minefield out there. I have narrowly escaped heavy fines regarding a small extention I built without permission. Two other outbuildings also have no permission but I bought these with the house, I never built them. My solicitor never picked it up ! My point is that if they get their claws into you, they dont take prisoners. In my case there was NO small gate.

Happy to help if anyone is in a similar position...

Re: Oh the gentle summer rain
 

Thank you stargate, we are still plodding on & trying to make sense of it as we go along, hopefully it's time next year, we will be almost there