SPRINTER

Why not ask your daughter who lives there to have a look round and see what is available, not much for that sort of money.

Just an added thought, if you have credit or debit cards remember to advise them also of the change of address, I forgot with one of ours and wondered why it wouldn't work, when I phoned them they said you have moved and hadn't told us, whoops, updated the address and all working now.

We have regular UK accounts, one with NatWest and one with Halifax and had them for many years before we left the UK, We just notified them of the change of address and carried on as normal. It might be different if you want to open a new account whilst living abroad, but you would need to check.

We have kept our UK accounts in the various countries we have lived in, just updated the address when we moved, credit and debit cards all continued as normal. Had a call from one of them a few weeks ago to see if we wanted to keep our credit cards as they hadn't been used for a while, when I said Christmas was coming and they would be, no problem was the answer.

We are in SA and just went into the local licence office with our old licences, filled in a form, paid a small fee, given a temporary licence and the new one arrived in the post in a few days. Like most things here it seemed a simple process with helpful staff.

Actually drove through Mt. Barker yesterday whilst out for a drive, the new estates seem to be on the outskirts of the town and boy are the houses close together, I would suggest you get in touch with the developers and get a list of what is and is not included and the cost of the extras you want, could add up to a fair bit extra. Don't expect the houses to be constructed to European standards.

I think not only is it the premiums charged, we could have had lower cover, but at our age you never know what might happen, it is the fact that you also end up paying a percentage of costs involved as well, such as around half the GP visit fees and quite a large percentage of hospital visit fees, so added to the annual premium it can add up to quite a sum. We are also very limited on the number of health providers that will cover us so not much competition for our business.

Another 405 holder here not interested, actively looking at the pros and cons of returning to the chaos of the UK. Health costs here being one of the main reasons, an increase of 80% in premium from one year to the next is a back door way of reducing our numbers.

I notice from the first post that all this is subject to visa approval, whilst it is good to do your homework, are you sure the visa will be granted?

Wow, I must get out and spend more, we live very well on half of the required income mentioned, I would have a real job to spend that sort of money.

Just an update on bank accounts, and Alan knows far more than I will ever know, when we moved to Adelaide last year we opened an account with NAB in Adelaide before we arrived, just had to go in when we arrived to validate everything face to face 5 minutes that's all. Glad to see a couple more seniors moving here.

I know what boxes were checked because of the way I sealed them, they may have x rayed them but actually opened very few, we also had a sole use container. Depending on what customs they come through they may check all or a %, pot luck really.

I brought all my woodworking tools, power tools etc. all I did was blow all the sawdust off with an air line and got them as clean as possible, wire brushed any rust to look as though I had cleaned them. A lot of mine were very old tools so they did not look sparkly clean but clean. Whether customs checked them I do not know as they only check a percentage of boxes.

Since moving here I have completely double glazed with decent German double glazing, plenty of loft insulation, reroofed with decent lining and thinking of cavity wall insulation, a decent heating system is next on the list, most of the heat escapes through the walls now, the next person who says the winters are short here so you dont need all that insulation will get a short reply. Few seem to understand that a well insulated house keeps you warm in winter and cool in summer.

In a similar situation in Blackwood, this last winter has lasted to long and to cold and the houses although supposed to be modern are like living in a shed, with little insulation and decent heating, A UK friend who recently visited and is also a builder as I was most of my life calls them "matchsticks and cardboard" when looking at the construction of some nearby so called luxury houses. Will be looking for somewhere warmer with a European quality build or I will build myself although I have retired.

Suggest it may be easiest to contact the "Office of the Public Guardian" www.gov.uk/office -of-public-guardian. email customerservices@publicguardian.gsi.gov.uk or phone 03004560300 (uk),, they are the ones who deal with Power of Attorney, be prepared for a lot of form filling. I found them helpful when I had to go through this. Good Luck.

When I shipped my tools along with the household goods I diligently packed them into reasonable sized boxes all weighing around 20kg, each box was labelled with the contents and a photo taken of the contents of each box. Removable men came and put them into bigger boxes and mixed them all up and then said the boxes are heavy. Great, so when the boxes arrived instead of just undoing the boxes for the tools I needed at the time I had to go through all the boxes to find what I wanted. All the tools were clean, some over 50 years old so look well used and not sparkly clean but had no problems with quarantine etc. not sure if they even looked at them as I was told they only check about 10% of the contents of the container. Although there are some quality tools here in the shops like everywhere a lot are made to a price and what I call use once and throw away tools, so if you have good quality tools bring them.

Used to travel the road from Lausanne to Geneva quite regular going to the only Morgan car dealer in Switzerland at the time in Geneva. So many speed cameras on that road that all you could see were brake lights. Luckily they didn't get me. There used to be a big festival near Nyon, took them ages to clear the site afterwards.

We used to go down to the French side which was tolerable, a few things used to happen in the Morges area on Lake Geneva, but we also spent a lot of time in Germany to find life. You will always be an "outsider" or "Auslander" as they called us, they couldn't accept that without the 25% foreigners that lived there the country would not work.

Totally agree with the post, just left Switzerland after 10 years and found the people where we lived in the German part the most unfriendly, arrogant people anywhere. It was actually a culture shock coming here after that to find what I call normal people.

Go Matilda did our business invest visa, all went through no problems just a bit time consuming.

Actually with our particular visa we don't qualify for Medicare here, we have to have private insurance.

I think the thing that irks a lot of us that have paid into the NHS via our NI contributions for all our working lives of over 45 years is that we are asked to pay again should we need anything when visiting the UK, we in fact are paying double in that we have travel insurance and have paid full NI contributions. I think we all know that the clever ones that come to use the NHS for free are well versed into how to cheat the system. Lets just hope that Brexit when it is all sorted will stop some of the health tourists.

Just wondering what would happen to a couple who lived and paid into the system all their working lives, so had a full paid up contribution record and then decided to retire abroad, as they have paid in all their lives would they get treatment free.

50 and 55, lifes just beginning, with luck you are only half way through, we were 71 and 66 when we moved here having spent 10 years in Switzerland, have heard so many people say "wish we had done that" , its a big world out there, many different cultures and each one interesting, some more than others. Our attitude, you only have one life, do whatever you can and enjoy it. And don't live your life for other people, at most you are only 20 hours away from anywhere. Enjoy life.