That's a bargain Nick, and you know it's definitely dry. Having my own workshop, I use my off-cuts for kindling and it's brill. (Oops I used that word again.)
but as much as you can stuff in a landy and trailer...! I reckon you'd get a couple of stère at least!!!
Really glad you're happy in Croydon Natasha, not my cup of tea really but we're all different and at least you don't have all the ferrying around of kids in cars that we have! However I do agree with what Nick has just posted and have to say that with the views you already have, and are entitled to have bien entendu ;-), you may be better off not building in Normandy or just using it for holidays rather than moving here as I think you'd end up losing nearly all your creature comforts and world you obviously love and end up spending all your time in the car taking kids here there and everywhere and having to drink de la piquette like the rest of us!
Bon dimanche ;-)
Teehee, sounds expensive to me. Off cuts, we are working on our house and barns so we have plenty for nowt...
I know it is off topic, but it is an interesting aside. Here in the Deux Sevres we buy ours by the chorde, which is 3 steres. We paid 170 euros, but they were cut small to fit our wood burner.
We have now started getting wood from a furniture manufacturer, whose off cuts cost us 12 euros for a trailer and Land Rover full. It’s just too cheap not to use.
Hi Natasha -
I'm sorry you didn't get a reply about your inheritance tax question. This site is a bit tricky to navigate your way around if you are not used to it and so much content is posted that things that are not in the 'right' place get missed. I suggest you post in the Friendly Advice Group and you will get a reply within a couple of days from our resident cross channnel legal expert, Guillaume. Hope this helps!
hmm, where to start. If you would please re-read my post, you will find that it is a repost to the many anti European posts , not knocking the UK, just mentioning some facts.
I understand your love for where you live in the UK, which is great, as I love the UK as well, but economic realities are what they are. Your conclusion is completely wrong on all blogs being anti UK, that is just not true. Many people on these forums do not hold that view at all.
I have to say though you hit a nerve when describing all French wine as merde 
I’m sure you could be taken around the odd vineyard and have your mind changed on that one. New world wine can indeed be lovely, but the old boys in France , Italy and Spain do know a thing or two about the topic.
Well, I come from a council estate above a tube station that was on the right line for getting to Brixton and had buses to Wandsworth (work that out). I hit the right note at school and did so well I was pushed into where I studied, but that does not mean I have discarded who I am for what I pretend to be. The highest my father got, I always say, is the storey he was working on as a builder and my mother died very young of industrial poisoning but well after the firm had gone bust and joined history. I also do not want my children to have what I had.
Thanks Brian, you've answered for me, correctly too as usual ;-)
Oooooooh! But who is (I ask) smug (not meaning you Hayley) given the nature of the response? I sometimes read what I write after editting is finished and have regrets, but perhaps Natasha might just try it. The 'wood gang' today, for instance, have been here before and Andrew and I have said that we consider ourselves immigrants, not those unmentionables mentioned there.
:-D
Perhaps it is not entirely off track. If I compare the wood business here with what I previously had in Cambridgeshire for years and years there are clearly nuances that people who run national economics could learn from. Don't have that degree though ;)
Ditto, more or less. We lived in The Mumbles in Swansea. For a couple of months a year we found it hard to park outside our place despite residents only signs and tickets on unpermitted cars. We got rubbish, ice creams and all thown in our garden (perhaps in revenge), threats about telling the wardens or police (which we never needed to) and getting people their tickets and the list could grow. The rest of the year we had lovely beaches, walks and all to more or less ourselves (local residents meant). So understand 100% Hayley.
I used to live in south devon and cornwall - just the same, 10 months of the year lifes ok and you feel at home but in july and august you can't go anywhere, it's a nightmare. Aix was like that too, I went back one august and hated it, turned round when trying to go to the beach as it would have taken hours of queueing...!
What a smug post!!
I joined this site - only posted once about inheritance tax but sadly got no reply. The feeling I get from ex-pats on twitter, blogs and the like is that they have to justify their move by basically slagging off the UK. There is a general sense of smugness all round. I would have to say that if I lived in France, whilst keeping a half eye on current affairs on the UK, I wouldn't have to be reading the Daily Mail on a daily basis for an update. And if you think that is a fair representation of what's going on then you are deluded. Personally It would make me feel more homesick (not the Daily Mail) to be following every little detail so closely and make me unemotionally detached from the country I have choosen to live in.
We have had planning application approved for a home in Normandy (took 2 weeks to be given the go ahead) and haven't decided what we'll do once finished as we are very happy here. Normally you move because of the schools, policing, violence, quality of life. We have none of these issues. My husband gets home at 5pm most nights, is self-employed and we all sit down as a family. We don't have to drive miles to get anywhere for a family day out. Oh and I think French wine is shit. Maybe they export the crap stuff and keep the good but the New World wines are fair superior.
I don't live in rural Buckinghamshire - I live in Croydon home of the riot and love it. I love the people, the sense of community, the local primary school that is 2 minutes walk away. My son's class is made up of Polish, Iranian, French, Italian, African and is flying. The after school clubs are free chess, cheerleading, book club, film club, hockey, netball. The teachers give up their time for this. Last week they staged an alien landing in the playground the day was full of creative writing etc. The secondary up the road has been turned into an academy and has not had its £12 million pound funding removed. There is a surestart center also up the road - totally new building (thanks to Labour) totally free to all for families with free activities in half term. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who has a bad word to say against the NHS - I know of some many people who say "you can't fault them". I don't feel unsafe here at all. You don't get that in the Daily Mail do you.
Yes people are struggling but I think you'll find that in any european country at the mo. But I'd rather live here near London any day.
Natasha
Good point. We have learned too that in longer lengths it is far cheaper than shorter and also buy upward of eight stéres and it is suddenly as cheap as six (OK, we cannot work that out either) and when, as we found this year, buying for two winters you buy some younger wood to put at the bottom for next year and the stuff for this year together the two pices are different. As said, we bought from a local we are friendly with and asking over lunch we paid on average €30 the stére (remember it is three kinds and young and matured mixed) whereby at the top it was probably €50 normally and €20 at the bottom of the range. We have a barn that we put four rows across and at least three tied stéres high into but I shall not say how little it actually came out just not to titivate.
well I have to admit you really have hit the nail squarely on the head there!
Done - best of Luck!
Oh yes, some places do approach perfect. Problem - the likes of us (probably you too) cannot afford them!
stacked too - good deal Tracy
This will give Hayley an idea of firewood in the midi-pyrénées:
http://www.leboncoin.fr/annonces/offres/midi_pyrenees/?f=a&th=1&q=st%C3%A8re