Originally Posted by sallysimmons

Glad someone else enjoyed it.

I was just developing a bit of a crush on Steve Coogan so it's probably as well it's over

Re: character homes, I was watching an episode of Grand Designs last night where this couple took on a derelict Georgian house in London and renovated it.

They did all the work themselves so it has taken years and it's still not finished, but what they have done is so beautiful.

They found layers and layers of wallpaper and were able to get all the way back to the very first wallpaper ever put up. (They left a piece of it up and painted round it). The husband built a custom kitchen using Victorian shelving from the old shop that was once below the home. They stuck together hundreds of pieces of an original marble fireplace to make it almost as good as new - oh the whole show was just wonderful!

I would love to do something like that but the only problem is that I can't even bang a nail in the wall without hiring someone to do it for me!

Originally Posted by cheers

Bee,
Sorry if I missed that post. When was it?
Cheers

Originally Posted by islandwoman120

I just had a look at the stats for my Flickr site and 72 people have clicked on the Frome photos. Way to go! Now if anyone is interested in coming to Frome, I already prepped the two Real Estate companies that I dealt with - told them they might get strange emails from all over the world, from BE members... So if anyone wants their email information, please PM me as I am not advertising on the site.

Originally Posted by Tanto

Gosh J.J., That's unbelievably expensive! It's worth taking a course here in tax preparation........
Tanto

Originally Posted by Tanto

Hello Don,
Would love to join you all on the trip around the UK! How are you looking at these villages? I am semi-literate as far as computers are concerned - can you give me instructions, please? Sorry, everyone.........
Tanto

Originally Posted by sallysimmons

That really is incredibly expensive. I hired an accountant to give me an assessment of UK versus US taxes for my business and it cost me £400. Another firm quoted £500. In a way, my request was more complicated than an actual tax filing because I had a lot of questions about collecting VAT etc. And for that fee, she calculated both our US and UK taxes. I can't find her website now though.

£1,000 seems very high.

Originally Posted by islandwoman120

Hi everyone. I went to Frome on Monday, and returned last night. It was a lovely little town, with all the basic amenities. The people I met were friendly - only problem, when I was talking to the older folks, I could hardly understand them. In fact, the first man who gave me directions sounded like he was in a 'Two Ronnies' skit, as the only thing I understood was his hand waving in the air and 'bump'. That was to tell me that Catherine Hill was around the corner and over the hill...

I stayed in The Blue Boar Inn, which is a pub that leases a Grade 2* building on a nearby street, and rents rooms as a B & B. I stayed in a room with 4 single beds and a shower room the size of a regular bedroom. It was clean, but not in the least bit elegant - £40 per night, including English breakfast and 'entertainment' provided by the cook who was also the Publican. She was a local person and gave me lots of tips for living in the area.

I saw two places to rent - one was a house share with the nicest artist, and we made friends but decided not to be housemates. Instead, I took a small studio flat, complete with a decent kitchen and a shower room. It is on the main road unfortunately, but is in a 17th century building, has a nice aspect to the rear of the building, lots of light, electric heating/shower, fully furnished, and is very close to town and the Public Library. I move in next Wednesday, December 15th. The Lettings Agent will meet me and all my many bags at the railway station - Frome or Bath, whichever I choose to use, and take me to my new place. How's that for service. Of course, I had to pay a Lettings fee, so I am capitalising on that fact with the extra service!

The two days were very cold and damp ones, and it snowed a little bit overnight on Monday night, so the roads were slick. Bee had already told me that the cobbled streets are lethal in the wet weather, and she is not wrong. Which is one of the reasons I chose not to have the house share - it is in the historic part of town, up a little hill, and a slip and slide event. I took about 150 photos, most of which are being loaded onto Flickr as we speak, and will be accessible to anyone who wants to look at them in about a half hour.

Frome is a small town, a market town, with a thriving artists colony of sorts. Theatre, music, painting, pottery, galleries. There is an Arts Festival each year. I brought back many leaflets to look at over the next few days. The buildings are unreal - nothing is straight! There are some newer buildings dotted about, and apparently, whenever a new development goes in, a percentage of the buildings have to be available as rentals. There is local work in the hospital, a community college, cleaning firm and other sorts of stuff. In the town I could see Solicitors, many independent stores, a real greengrocers, a bakers, tea rooms, cafe, The George which does meals at reasonable prices, and also has an hotel side to it.

That about sums it up - I got what I went for, and more. A place to live for the next 6 months at least, a decent community - and best of all, I got the feeling on Monday night - that I did not want to leave. Hopefully - I have found my home.

Originally Posted by DDL

My husband was in IT, a Web Developer/Programmer/IT trainer. His new job is as a Planning Enforcement Officer. (He had previous experience as an Estate Manager, many years ago.)

Originally Posted by DDL

Hello to everyone! Here's a wrap-up on what we've been up to. This is going to be long, so pour yourself a cuppa and grab a Custard Cream. Nay, a package of Custard Creams.

JOB SEEKER'S ALLOWANCE
Tony had been drawing Job Seeker's Allowance of about 62 quid a week which is for a single person. I was not eligible to draw as my Settlement Visa said "no recourse to public funds" BUT because he was married, I still have to report with him and we both have to show our job seeking efforts, etc. We had been reporting every 2 weeks but now we have to go in every week. It's a pain in the you-know-what, too, because there's absolutely no parking in, at or near the building so it means a brisk walk from the nearest parking lot, but hey ho, 62 quid is 62 quid.



JOBS
However.....don't think we'll be needing it any longer as Tony's been offered a job with Runnymede Borough Council. They haven't given him a start date yet. He will be their Planning Enforcement Officer. It's full-time, permanent, and £16,000/year LESS than he was making at the council (another council) when we left the UK to move to the US. A killer, that is. But with no job offers for the past 4 months, he jumped at this opportunity. I also think he's looking forward to the career change (he's been working in IT as a Web Developer/Programmer for about 10 years). He was an Estate Manager many moons ago, and has a lot of other relevant experience to this job, so I think the change will do him good. (He loves forcing people to obey the law. )

I've still not been invited to one single interview despite putting in for scores of Legal Secretary jobs. I had widened my scope to include other Admin type jobs, but a position has come up in Weybridge that I really, really want. It's a Legal Secretary job in the Legal Department of JTI - Japan Tobacco International. BIG corporation, which is what I love. I think I am extremely qualified having worked in corporate law before. The only thing that could potentially work against me is that I used to work for the American law firm that was the very first firm to take on the tobacco companies and the firm that won those huge settlements against them...but that was years ago and I did not work for them at that specific time. But I can assure you that when they look at my CV, they will recognize the name of that firm!! Anyhoo, there are 9 of us whose CV's have been presented to them and they will choose 3 to interview. Hoping to hear something by the end of this week.



LONDON
Several weeks ago on a Sunday I took the tube into London and met an online friend (from Twitter). She writes for About.com and we went on a Tea walk together done by London Walks. It was brilliant, and just really nice to be with another woman talking "girl talk". I really need a girlfriend! My best friend back home will always be my best friend, but I think the friendships of women are so important in our lives, at least they have been in mine. I'm sure once I start working, getting out, etc., I will meet a kindred soul sister.



EYE EXAMS
We had eye exams the other day. Went to the local Specsavers. Tony's exam was free because he has diabetes, but he had to pay for his glasses. (Well, they did have some NHS frames that would have been free, but they were pretty naff.) He ended up getting one pair of verifocal glasses, and a second pair for close-up work and it cost him £115. And that was for 2 pair of glasses with top-of-the-line frames.

Because I was married to someone on Job Seeker's Allowance, I was also entitled to a free exam and was entitled to a voucher towards the purchase of glasses. I ended up getting 2 pair of reading glasses (one for home, one for work) AND a pair of long-distance glasses (which I did not need, but she said they would be great for watching telly) ... all for £32.



PRESCRIPTIONS
Tony gets free prescriptions because he has diabetes. He takes a total of 12 tablets a day for various things and at different times of day. It's always been a bit of a pain every week for me to dole out his tabs in one of those plastic weekly medicine containers. We found out that with a "batch" prescription from the doctor, selected Boots shops will - for free - pre-package all your daily tabs into individual blister packs. We're going to start doing that in January and I think it's a brilliant service that, I believe, is available to anyone.



COMPUTERS
I am still using my US Acer Aspire netbook and have no complaints.

Tony finally broke down and decided to purchase a computer over here. The old (8 years, at least) UK laptop he was using was just about to give up the ghost. His dilemma was ... buy a laptop or buy a PC. He already had a wireless keyboard and mouse, and he knew what size system he was looking for and what brand he was NOT looking at, so he ended up just buying a CPU.

We were finding, however, that decent sized monitors were extremely expensive.

Well, one day we were in Tesco and the very helpful young man there in the Electronics Department (who had helped us in the past and who really knows his stuff) reminded us that there was currently a Double Points promotion on Tesco vouchers, as well as a sale on TELEVISIONS.

To make a long story short, using our Tesco vouchers (we signed up for a Tesco club card as soon as we got here) we ended up paying £140 for a 22" HD TV with built-in DVD player and Freeview, that has a VGA port which at the moment is now serving as Tony's computer monitor. Later, once we move, it will be our television, and at that time he can think about getting a proper monitor or, depending upon the price, maybe just another television to use as a monitor. It's a great alternative to a monitor which, like I said, seem to be way over-priced for what you get.


IMMIGRATION
I received my ILR (Indefinite Leave to Remain - i.e., Permanent Residency) last week at The Home Office in Croydon. £1,250!!! In 3 years, when I am eligible for British Citizenship, it will cost me another £780, plus £77.50 for a British passport.



CHRISTMAS
I've done all of my Christmas shopping online for my family/friends back home and it couldn't have been easier. You can even order restaurant gift cards online, Visa or American Express gift cards online, grocery store gift cards online, etc.

Soon, we're down to Devon for a few days where we will be met by Tony's children/grandchildren. We've rented a big Georgian house that is situate on a dairy farm. There will be 17 of us and we can't wait!

We've decided to give one another year-long National Trust memberships for Christmas. "The gift that keeps on giving."



MISC
Today, I treated myself to an hour long pedicure (£40) and an "express" manicure (£15, on sale) at a local health club. Also had a haircut (shampoo, style, blow dry) yesterday (£32). Extremely satisfied with all.



SUPPER
Chicken Cashew with Egg Fried Rice, courtesy of Tesco.


Sorry this has been so long, but there was a lot I wanted to share! Now, it's off to the kitchen!

Originally Posted by Fish n Chips 56

Hello Rosie.

Thanks for the update, I love your descriptions and pics, the mail box hanging on the lamp post is awesome, as is the Cold Cold River, there are so many lovely pics, it gets me all excited, It looks like you may have found your place, I hope so, I'm so thrilled for you.

This is such a lovely change from when you first got back and was considering returning to the USA.

My wife has no real interest in this forum but occasionally I will read something to her, for example Ed's previous posts or Rods return last week, I just read your post to my wife and while reading the last paragraph I had tears on my eyes, I suppose that sez it all.

Originally Posted by cheers

I wanted to save some of the posts or part of them and I was thinking of using cut and paste but when I do that and I try to paste on the Microsoft Word Processor it says 'the content is too large' which I know isn't.

Any ideas?

Originally Posted by dunroving

Have you tried "Paste special" and then choose "unformatted text"? It may be trying to paste as a picture or HTML, which takes a lot more memory.

Originally Posted by dontheturner

Thanks for that, dunrovin, Didn't know that. Don

Originally Posted by Beedubya

Wow this thread sure moves on at a cracking pace!! You go to bed, get up and have to read 10 pages LOL!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/barbwindermere/

Originally Posted by windsong

Bee, I love your photos and it looks wonderful in the snow It looks as if I may have a few neighbors/friends if I move to Somerset