What did you wish you’d brought or left behind

If you mean that you need to own a UK car for 6 months to avoid import tax when you import it this only applies if you are moving your principal home to France. Once you are resident here you will pay import duty & VAT on any vehicle imported from a non-EU country, just like any other french resident.

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I would have too cut an 8ft hole in the turret of the château next door to get a sky signal :laughing:

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Reception can be complicated. If you’re using Sky FTA then many channels use the European beam, which has better coverage, and an 80cm dish will work just fine. Freesat uses the UK spot beam which gets much worse once you get further South than the Dordogne. Also, certain transponder frequencies tail off quicker than others when you go South and so certain channels are OK and others not with a smaller dish. So, it can actually depend upon what channels you normally watch.

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Uggghhhh :nauseated_face:. As others have said, teabags in France are awful. If you’re OK with Tetley teabags, you can buy them in lots of 720 on Amazon at a decent price … well, cheaper than anywhere else you can find them here.

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Why not buy loose tea???
We stopped using teabags quite a while ago in an attempt to reduce waste …

and there is such a wide range of tisanes available… almost spoilt for choice.

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I use a 90 cm dish in Albi.

I got away with a 60cm dish In Limoges.

Certain of my business suits and blouses are still hanging in there! I know I must clear some of that stuff out…

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Yes, I was the same. I figured it was easier to keep an existing subscription going than to try and get a new one if I missed British telly once we were over here… I was well aware how dire French TV is generally (not necessarily a bad thing as I think it makes people seek other forms of entertainment and generally be more sociable).

I got rid of it about 6 months ago because I couldn’t really justify the cost - especially the sports channels.

Yeah it’s a different experience if cancelling the subscription. Don’t notice any channels not being available… although I only really watch BBC, ITV and C4. The biggest bug bear with the Sky box used for watching only free-to-air channels is that Sky disable the recording feature. No live pausing or time shifting is a killer :frowning:

Not familiar with Manhattan boxes. I’ve got a Formuler Z8 Pro which is absolutely awesome, but probably not really something to talk openly about in public :zipper_mouth_face:

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You’re about 100km North of me, and that 100km can make quite a difference. I used a 60cm dish, and then an 80cm dish in Deux Sevres. Both worked well.

Edit: Just looked it up online. For Albi, 80/90cm dish is recommended. For us It’s 110/120cm.

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We really don’t need the hostess trolley here.

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I did bring quite alot of tools and equipment over with me to work on the house, garden, car etc, but wish I’d thought a little more about what I would need and got more in the UK, primarily off ebay, as secondhand prices in France are crazy - great if you purchased new, with lower depreciation, but not good if you’re a buyer. Folks in the UK seem to chop and change so often, you can pick up some great bargains! As for my RHD car, more than pleased that I dragged it over with me and got it re-registered - had the car for a few years, know it very well, know the history and I would have had to pay a premium to purchase the same car in France, and wouldn’t know the history if I purchased secondhand.

What I should have left behind were tv’s, dvd players, dvd’s, and that sort of electronic equipment, as never seem to have time to use them. The exception is the laptop that has been a fantastic tool in helping me source various and research/understand various things French!

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I’d forgotten we even had one … in its day (back in UK) it was very useful.

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Thank you. That would be excellent. I cannot even begin to describe how useless we both are about this sort of stuff. It all depends on if we buy this bigger house we haven’t even seen inside it yet but it is actually on our rue. And we’ve walked past it many times. It has a small dish attached at the moment. Where we are now you couldn’t really have a dish as it would look grotesque.

We are decided we need something a bit bigger for full time living. Thanks again. I really appreciate the offer.

Arrrgh re 90%

Yes we are moving our principal house to france and becoming resident. I am concerned about changing and owning car for 6 months before moving over though.

We had thought we’d keep a base here but on (financial) reflection we’ve decided to keep it rented out instead so as soon as we get a buyer we’ll be off.

I feel my tea street cred is low, while I can cope with pg tips I detest Twinings…

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Oh I remember them with fondness back in the day.

We do have quite a few tools and will never buy a ‘project’ so we are probably ok but should try to work out what to get rid of.

We have a single elderly and small tv and a speaker for streaming music and radio so not much to get rid off. Agree though re laptop amd we should actually upgrade before moving.

Just looking at the embedded advertising above your post, is the house you’re buying one of these? If it’s the first one, can we be friends? :grin:

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