Tax and self assessment
July 30, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
In the UK there’s a self assessment system for your tax payment. The formal name of the “taxman” is Inland Revenue and self assessment means that you have to do the lot yourself and there’s no sending of tax forms to your home address, like it’s done in Holland. It’s your own responsibility to get the relevant forms and fill them in on time.
I recently stumbled on the .gov websites of the UK government, with an impressive amount of content on how to pay your tax. Some day soon we’ll have to dive into that… not looking forward to it though… But hey… death and taxes… the only certainties in life!
The postman…
July 30, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
… he never rings! He’s not to blame as we have no doorbell but even if we had one, I guess he wouldn’t bother. It took us quite some time to get used to someone just pop in the house, drop the mail and leave again, generally before you could say “hi”.
Now we have a neat mailbox at the top gate, but every now and then a big parcel arrives and then the postman just opens the front door and drops the lot in the hallway.
Ah well… I guess just another one of those things that we have to get used to after leaving the crowded city in Holland…
The Golden Eagle
July 25, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
I walked Neist Point recently during a rather grim and cold day. Neist Point is a local beauty spot on the northwest shores of Skye. The main features are an old light house and some very impressive cliffs. It’s only a 10 minute drive away from our house. The walk to the shore requires descending and later ascending well prepared but very steep stairs and paths, so this walk is a very good daily exercise.
On that specific day, while waiting by the car, catching my breath after the climb back to the car park, I heard a “wooshing” sound and saw a massive bird from the corner of my eye landing on a fence post, only 3 meters from me. I didn’t know it then, but I was eye-to-eye with a golden eagle. A massive bird of prey with a body - head to toes - of about 50 to 60 cm, maybe more and impressive claws. It sat there and looked at me for about 5 seconds then it flew away. It was an astonishing moment and - of course - I didn’t have my camera at hand.
Later, back home, I tracked the bird back to a golden eagle. Here’s some detailed info on the species:
Scientific Name: Aquila chrysaetos; named for the Greek words for golden eagle.
Life Span: Based on banding records, most birds live less than two years, although some wild birds have lived to be 11 years old. One captive bird lived to age 48.
Measurements: Males range from 6.5- 9.5 pounds, females from 8-13 pounds. The golden eagle is 30-40 inches in length with a wingspread of 60-80 inches. Females are generally larger, although there is some size overlap.
Diet: Rodents, such as ground squirrels and marmots, are important golden eagle foods, as are lagomorphs, such as cottontails and jackrabbits. Golden eagles sometimes feed on deer and pronghorn fawns and domestic livestock. Golden eagles commonly feed on carrion, or dead animals. Since these birds are large and visible, many people assume they have killed what they are eating, which is commonly untrue.
Lord, here comes the flood…
July 25, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
An appropriate line from a song by Peter Gabriel, that accurately describe the current situation in the Midlands in England. After severe rain a large area of this part of England is flooded and thousands of people are in a really bad situation: no water, no electricity and flooded houses.
Over here in Scotland, rain has been bad as well but not as bad as in the disaster struck areas. Further more we are well above sea level, where the English villages in the Midlands tend to be built in lower areas, very close to major rivers like the Thames.
This must be a real horror story situation. One of the things you have to tell your insurance company when you want to insure your home is whether your area has had any flooding. If you tick that box, you can say goodbye to insurance. This has of course far reaching consequences. I’ve seen images on TV, showing houses with at least a 60 cm water level inside. Think of the immediate damage that’s doing to flooring, walls and furniture. Not to mention the damage that will happen overtime due to humidity inside walls and the possible erosion on wooden beams.
For now, the only thing is to sit it out and hope the situation will not get any worse, although the forecasts for the upcoming days look rather grim.
Removal / Verhuizing
July 22, 2007 | 7 Comments |
This post will be in Dutch as it describes the total cock-up of our removal by our Dutch removal company:
Op enig moment moesten we natuurlijk ook een keuze maken voor een verhuizer. We besloten om een drietal bedrijven uit te nodigen, waaronder het verhuisbedrijf wat ons twee keer eerder binnen Nederland verhuisd had.
Na drie bezoeken van vertegenwoordigers was duidelijk dat we ongeveer 20 m3 huisraad te vervoeren hadden. Dit valt voor een verhuisbedrijf onder een kleine verhuizing. De oorzaak was dat we een belangrijk deel van de inboedel zouden verkopen via internet, aangezien dit niet zou passen in de landelijke stijl van ons nieuwe Schotse huis.
Na het nodige heen-en-weer gebel kozen we uiteindelijk voor KHZ Internationale Verhuizers uit Alphen aan den Rijn, omdat ze volgens hun commerciele vertegenwoordiger de heer Jordan van Loon “de beste verhuizer van Nederland” zijn en ze na veel vijven en zessen bereid waren de laagste offerte te evenaren. De laagste offerte was die van het verhuisbedrijf wat ons eerder twee keer verhuisd had.
Het inpakken en inladen in Nederland verliep zonder problemen. Echter, bij aflevering van het spul in Schotland bleek dat de gordijnroedes ontbraken. KHZ was ze onderweg kwijtgeraakt of had ze vergeten in te pakken… een onduidelijke situatie. Na wat heen-en-weer gebel met KHZ werd de verzekering ingeschakeld en hebben we een schadevergoeding gekregen en nieuwe roedes kunnen bestellen.
KHZ weigert nu de gordijnroedes netjes bij ons af te leveren in Schotland, terwijl wij wel voor het vervoer ervan betaald hebben. Vervoer door onszelf is onmogelijk door de lengte. De verzekering heeft uitbetaald, u bent schadeloos en “that’s it”… of zoals de directeur van KHZ, de heer van Zutphen het omschreef in een email aan mij: “Dit kan kort door de bocht overkomen, maar het is nou eenmaal zoals het is.”.
Wel aan. Daar sta je dan. Je zou toch iets meer verwachten van een directielid, maar kennelijk behoeft het directieschap van KHZ weinig diepgang in klantbenadering. Misschien ook niet op andere punten, wie weet? Zonder buitensporige kosten krijgen wij onze roedes nooit in Schotland en KHZ voelt zich niet aangesproken om de opdracht netjes af te handelen, terwijl de rekening keurig betaald is door ons en er uiteindelijk ook nog slechts 14 m3 door KHZ is vervoerd (30% minder dan begroot).
Deze afhandeling is met name opvallend omdat de vertegenwoordiger van KHZ die ons thuis bezocht, mevrouw Monique van Ruitenbeek, een interessante bedrijfspresentatie had, waarin zij vol trots en buitengewoon boeiend vertelde over een breed spectrum van kwaliteitsprocedures en -maatregelen binnen KHZ. Ons is nu een kijkje in de kwaliteitskeuken van KHZ gegund en de lezer zal niet verbaasd zijn dat wij “not amused” zijn. Deze keuken lijkt vanuit ons perspectief - mag ik de analogie maken? - slechts op een ordinaire friettent.
Tja, en nu… Gelukkig zijn er ook verhuisbedrijven die hun professie wel serieus nemen en een klantvriendelijke attitude aan de dag leggen. We zijn inmiddels netjes geholpen. Ons advies:
Vergeet KHZ, want ze vergeten jou als klant en vergeten ook nog je spullen…!!!!
Ook een onplezierige ervaring met een verhuizer? Laat een berichtje achter. Wie weet kunnen anderen er hun voordeel mee doen!!
The silence of the Lambs
July 13, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
On the plot next to ours there’s a hurd of sheep. By April/June their lambs were born. Cute little things, all white and very much alive. Over the months they’ve grown quite a bit and now almost look like grown sheep. However, their desire to have motherly contact apparently remains.
Generally at about five in the afternoon one of the lambs starts bleating for his mum… mum responds and another lamb remembers… “Ah… where’s my mum?”. Before you know it there’s this concert going on of lambs and mum-sheep trying to find each other and engaging in an impressive bleat ballad.
After about 20 minutes it quiets down… a true silence of the lambs!
"Orange on the Rocks"
July 12, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
It’s very appropriate in the UK to give your house a name. Especially in little villages and hamlets, the address of your house is not (only) the street your house is in but the name of your house.
This is also very true for Skye. So we’ve been thinking for at least a year now about an appropriate name for our house. We’ve had various candidates, most of them Gaelic. Although very appropriate on Skye, the Gaelic language is extremely difficult to pronounce and write. So we decided not to use a Gaelic name.
What then? Well, yesterday I was looking out the kitchen window towards the shores of Loch Duvegan and noticed that rocks along the shore were all completely covered by seaweed. Whether it’s the sun or the time of year, the weed actually looked like it had an orange glow over it.
Well, the rest is obvious. Why not name the house “Orange on the Rocks“. It’s easy to remember and also has a bit of a reference to our Dutch background. The above picture shows the weed, although the actual weed is more orange than the it shows on the picture which appears to be more of a brownish color…
TV
July 5, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
Although Skye is a remote island, all features of modern life are available. So is TV… only a bit different from what we were used to.
First the only way to watch TV is to install a disc and aim for a satellite. There’s no cable on the island. Next you need to decide upon your service provider. Basically there’s not much choice but Sky, although it should be possible to track other satellites but that would require more expensive equipment.
To receive the signal from the Sky satellite (a geo-stationary satellite) you need - besides the dish - a Sky decoder and a Sky chip card. There are several decoder boxes available. The most modern boxes offer a hard disk recorder which allows for easy recording and playback of your favorite TV programs. For the computer buff: unfortunately it’s not possible to attach the box to your LAN and retrieve content from the Sky box…
The Sky chip card is a well known format: a plastic card with an ID chip that tells the decoder which channels you’re allowed to see. This is where the fun starts… You can’t watch everything you want from the long list of channels. For specific programs, like sports, box office movies or theme channels, you have to pay. If you want it all (hundreds of channels) you pay a hefty bill each month. If you’re satisfied with the free channels you still have well over a hundred channels to watch.
Besides any money you pay to Sky, you also have to buy your TV license! This one will cost you £140.00 per year. If you don’t pay, you’ll receive some nasty letters that you’re busy committing a criminal offense and that they’re about to sue you for a substantial fine of a couple of thousands pounds. We decided to be cowards and pay up… All in all, if you decide to go for the Full Monty, your TV license and paid content from Skye, you’ll be looking at an annual bill of around £700.00 to £800.00!! Otherwise you’re done for £140.00 per year.
Unfortunately there’s no easy way to receive Dutch TV channels. That would require another dish / decoder setup, and probably a paid subscription from a content provider. There’s no free lunch!
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Latest music...
Hair (1968, Original Broadway recording). Some naughty lyrics for that time!!
An Rathad a Bhatarsaigh, by the Vatersay Boys