In a different life. Or maybe not. They look an awful fag to me, though they probably have staff….
Do you recommend any particular Manhattan box Mark? Are they best bought in UK/any particular EU country, from any particular source you would recommend?
I should get around to replacing the Humax box that stopped working 5 years ago, this sounds like the replacement?
Hairbear where’s the best place to get your recommended huge dish? In UK if necessary but obvs prefer France or EU.
I have an old 2ft one that’s completely rusted now, prob need new LNB and cable too
Before we left I:
Took nearly all my work clothes to a charity that helps young people from difficult backgrounds to prepare for employments, including kitting them out for interviews…
Was really hard on book collection and filled up local charity shop. Stupidly brought a few boxes of books in the “I should read this one day”category. 14 years later that day has yet to arrive.
What I should have bought over was nice cards for birthdays etc. If you are into sending cards the choice here outside major museums is rubbish.
We actually “entertain” in a more traditional way here, so lucky I hesitated over the inherited fairly posh crockery, cutlery and glasses and included them. They have been very well used.
I wish I had managed to persuade OH to sell all the vinyl. I have shifted those boxes around 20 times and never been opened.
Large box of paracetamol, plasters, general first aid kit. Much better choice OTC in UK.
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I buy loose-leaf smart tea and drink builder’s tea (Yorkshire tea in bags) you can get the teabags in sacks of 1040 (used to be 1200, pffff) which is what I buy. I don’t like other easily-available-here teabags.
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If it’s one of the Humax Freesat boxes, and it stopped seeing the hard drive, that can be repaired. The older Humax Freesat boxes are much better than the newer Arris boxes, and I say that as someone who used to design STBs for Arris (Pace before that). Sadly, it’s gone downhill precipitously since I retired.
In the UK, I’ve used
And
In France, I had someone local source and install the dish for me as the cable runs were very difficult to do, and I didn’t fancy doing it myself.
If you get a big dish, it’s best to either ground mount it, or mount it low to a wall using a heavy duty aerial mount rather than the normal elbow mount.
Edit: There are loads of large dishes on Amazon France. Just get a decent one and a decent LNB. The sort of mount I’m talking about is
https://www.amazon.fr/DETRIERS-Fixation-Murale-ANTENNE-Parabole/dp/B08TX4SWN5/ref=sr_1_17?__mk_fr_FR=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&crid=3RCRVS0FIA759&keywords=Fixation+murale%2Fsupport+pour+mât+en+acier&qid=1648902793&sprefix=fixation+murale%2Fsupport+pour+mât+en+acier%2Caps%2C428&sr=8-17
You can get some really good Turkish loose leaf teas very cheaply here.
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So agree - I couldn’t bear to part with my parents’ books, so brought them with us. Now, finally, 15 summers on, they’re going to a book sale in aid of Ukraine.
I would have agreed up until the last year or so, suddenly the French are waking up to quality birthday cards - Leclerc Culture has some good ones - it’s true they are on 2-3 stands compared with the 20 or so that are rubbish, but they are to be found.
So agree - can’t believe the tiddly, tiny plasters that are the only ones you can buy OTC - quite frankly with a wound that small I wouldn’t need a plaster anyway.
Not seen Lemsip here, which OH swears by when he gets a cold.
But Yorkshire is much much worse to me than PG…
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Not from Lancashire are you ? 
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PG Tips Gold.
When I worked for Unilever we had the choice of all the brands they own in the office, even some Mariage Frères, but what everyone drank was the PG Tips Gold.
It usually pops up in my London Lidls once a year or so, usually with a PG tips ‘Strong’ also available which isn’t bad.
Luckily I buy ahead and still have loads even though I would have normally restocked by now except for Covid travel blocks. My various food runs will resume when Covid threat goes down to flu level. Tiptree marmelade, OTC medications, big bandages (needed for falling off bikes and motorbike), plasters, bandage supports, decent dried fruit, other fairly priced and effective baking ingredients (France is hopeless for a decent selection in supermarkets so far as I can tell), sistema containers at a decent price, proper quality porridge stuff, various garden bits, tools and power tools including from UK Aldi if you catch it at the right time, sewing equipment and haberdashery ‘notions’ virtually impossible to find where I am, other kitchen and home bits from Lakeland quite a few bits like working gloves from Poundland, etc.
An Italian food run will probably become a thing once my finances settle down as I used to do runs from there too.
Quite a few things I used to import in the other direction though! Such as French stationery bits which are really good. And I wouldn’t give up French goats’ cheese for anything. In fact that’s probably why I chose to be here after Brexit 
.
We are nightnurse afficionados, and the equivalent here doesn’t have quite the same psychological comfort factor.
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I can confirm that simply having a box of Beechams Powders in the cupboard… removes the need for it entirely… 
That magic seems to work even when the packet is years out of date…
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You down by Narbonne ?
1/2 London, 1/4 Oxford, 1/4 Albanian……there’s not a northern bone in my body….
My tea of choice is Waitrose gold blend. I’ll look out for PG gold blend.
Interesting about baking stuff. I’ll be visiting grandchildren in the UK regularly if my daughter ever forgives me…so I’ll definitely be doing a bit of smuggling back
Currently we clink and clunk back up from France and hardly take a thing, a few herbs and spices that I can’t be bothered to search for in France and not much else besides. But that may change when we’re there full time.
Ah I get through them quite fast, one way and another. One of those lasts 3 or 4 months.
Yes because home-baking isn’t a thing here the way it is in the Anglosphere. People make crepes yoghurt cake and possibly a fondant au chocolat (using the recipe in the chocolate wrapper, excellent btw) and that is about it. And if they make those cakes they don’t do icing or anything so they look like nothing and nobody would want to buy them. I used to make a fortune flogging what UK people would recognise as cakes at school fêtes here (a fortune for the school, I mean). Actually that said rice Krispie cake is the easiest way of raising money for schools here in terms of effort/cost /result ratio.
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Now that’s good to know since I’m doing a cale sale for Ukraine soon! I will up my prices.
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