Good call on the car ownership paperwork, ormondroyd. Its little things like that that could end up catching us out, knowing that she has all the relevant paperwork to actually be allowed in and out of the country.

I’m not sure that they’re all strays. I think it may just be a project offering free neutering for people’s pets and education for the owners, so that they don’t choose the cheaper option of not doing it and then causing a stray dog/cat problem. And vets generally don’t like to put otherwise healthy animals to sleep, if possible.

Cheers for the input. It all sounds pretty promising. I’m pretty jealous about the trip myself to be honest. But I can’t take two weeks off my job to go with her – and not sure I’d be much use on the neutering project either!

She is going to be driving there (we live in the Netherlands which, while closer than the UK, is still a long old drive!), as she won’t fly. So that means that she won’t need taxis, but does mean she’ll be in the traffic with the locals, which sound like it could be interesting! But she’s a good driver with plenty of experience of driving in various countries.

She’s going to be staying just outside of Belgrade. She’s going with one of the vet nurses from the practice she works in, here in the NL, and should, I assume, be meeting up with locals who work on the project she’ll be helping with, so I would think they’ll be happy to act as a guide around the local area.

Don’t think the beer or the football will interest her, as she doesn’t drink and has no interest in football!

My first few lessons were a little unnerving, as I’m the only native English speaker in my class of around 20 people. Most are Polish or French speaking Belgians, but we also have two Thai girls, a Spaniard, a Columbian, an Italian and a few Bosnians! I might be learning Dutch, but not sure I’m going to be speaking it in Dutch accent! Once I got past the initial nervousness, I actually started enjoying it. Most people seem pretty keen to be there and I’m not under any real pressure to learn, as we intend on moving back to the UK, probably next summer. I just thought it was a good opportunity to have a go at it, as the best way to learn a language seem to be to live where they speak it, so I hear it and see it every day, whether I want to or not!

Ik spreek een beetje Nederlands! I’ve been doing night classes, once a week for 2.5 hours, since September. Funnily enough, I’m actually learning just over the border, in Belgium. Tough old language to learn, but I’m getting the basics! It does help that my girlfriend is Dutch though!

With Expat Shield, do the adverts pop up constantly, while you’re using it? My laptop isn’t the fastest, so just wondering if the ads are going to slow it down too much to make it worthwhile.

That doesn’t sounds too unreasonable. £300 was around about the figure I had in my head. Hadn’t really considered that Freesat was actually free. Stupid really, as the clue was in the name! 😳

Hi Cranberry. We actually planned to visit a satellite dealer this coming weekend, to check out the costs for Freesat – it was just coincidance that I spotted this topic on here. Have you got Freesat then? Do you know how much, roughly, the subscription/set up cost was?

Expat Shield sounds like a decent option for accessing online content as well, as I usually end up missing the stuff I want to see, as I like sleep too much!

Marge, I’m interested in your experiences with Expat Shield? Sounds like you were quite happy with it. I moved out to the Netherlands earlier in the year and I’m missing my UK tv! We get BBC1 & BBC2 with our tv package, but nothing else. We can’t access BBC iplayer, ITV or C4’s online on demand stuff as it realises we’re outside the UK. Am I right in thinking Expat Shield bypasses this? Any downsides to it? I’ll just be running it through my laptop or PC.

I moved to the Netherlands from the UK earlier in the year. As it’s only going to be temporary, I didn’t want to bring my CD collection over with me (1000 albums plus). I’d got the majority of the albums ripped to my PC, so investigated connecting my PC to my hifi system and playing my music that way. I tried connecting via the 3.5mm headphone port on my PC but, even to my ear, which is by no means cultured, the music sounded pretty dead. Someone suggested to me trying out a USB DAC so, after a bit of a search, I ended up with one of these: Musical Fidelity V-DAC 2 I’m no expert and don’t have the most sensitve ear, but it’s a massive improvement on the sound and worth every penny.

Sounds reasonable for private. I live in the Netherlands and have recently had two filings done here for around 300 Euros. This then lead to needing root canal, which then lead to the tooth breaking and needing extraction, which all added up to a four figure hole in my bank balance! I miss the NHS!

This is Ginny, our greyhound/bearded collie (we think!) cross, studying the start list for this year’s Team Time Trial World Championships!

Going back to the Matiz, I had one for quite a while and really liked it! I easily used to do over 200 miles a week in mine. It’s perfectly reasonable, as long as you don’t mind taking your time! It’s was a resiliant little bugger too. I accidently drove mine into my house and also into my neighbours car and it was fine, bar a little scratch (which is more than could be said for my neighbour’s Ford Focus!)! Mine was roughly about eight years old when I had it and I did about 20k miles in about a year, including a few long distance Norfolk to Wales biking trips (loaded up with two bikes, two big kit bags and two reasonable sized adults!). In all that time, I never had any problems with it. The only time it went to the garage was when I accidently broke the windscreen wiper lever off! Not sure I’d buy another, but for something cheap and cheerful, it’s not too bad!

Another +1 for Bavaria. And responsible for one of the funniest tv commercials I’ve seen in a long time here…

I saw them in Belgium weekend before last, at the Pukkelpop festival. They were just as enjoyable as I remember. Last time I saw them was in 2003, at 650 capacity venue, supported by a little known band called Snow Patrol!

higthepig, where abouts do you live? I just moved to the Netherlands from the UK, 5 weeks ago. I live down south, in Landgraaf. Not the nicest of towns but, to my surprise, there are waymarked mountain bike trails literally from my front door – and they even have some proper hills on them. I echo what you said about being hills on the Amstel Gold Race route. The missus and me went out for a drive to have a bit more of a look round and saw some stunning scenery down near the southern border.
I actually think lobby_dosser is spot on with what he says about the Dutch being quite cliquey, stingy, conservative and slightly racist. All of this is particularly true of my missus’s parents! (we don’t get along, if you can’t guess!)

Sadly, Delia doesn’t have a pie shop (although the match day pies at the football are supposed to be to her recipies!). She does however have a restaurant at the football ground, if that’s your thing.

You’re a little bit out of the city centre, at the UEA campus and there’s nothing of note locally, that isn’t on campus. There are regular buses from the UEA into the city centre though. There’s plenty of the usual chain pubs and restaurants in the city centre. The nicer, more interesting pubs tend to be a little bit out of the main city centre. Try the Unthank Road area (I think the bus from the UEA actually stops there) or maybe St Benedicts Street. If you want a pub that does good pub food and good ale, then try the Coach and Horses, on Thorpe Road (about 5 minutes walk from the train station, which you may be able to get to on a bus from the UEA).
As already mentioned, if architecture’s your thing, check out the castle and the Cathedral and surrounding area. The city centre is very good for shopping, with two good sized shopping malls; the Castle Mall and the newer/bigger Chapelfied shopping centre.

If you’re after a burger restaurant, you could try Captain America’s[/url]
If you’re after a pub that does good food and good beer, you might want to try The Coach & Horses[/url], just up the road from the railway station
Not sure about “good/different/quirky pubs” in the city centre. They’re all much the same, to be honest.

Bad idea. I’m flying next week and got an advisory email today, saying not to wrap presents, as security will ask you to unwrap them.

A shout for the album ‘Yield’, too.

Best live band I’ve ever seen. Should be getting tickets to see them in Amsterdam next June, very soon. 😀

I’ve got a compression top that I sometimes wear. The only difference I’ve noticed is that it stops my moobs bouncing about quite as much.

I’ve commuted to work regularly by bike (about 10 miles each way), for about 8 or 9 years. I have always listened to music through earphones and not once have I ever found it to be an issue. You can’t hear cars coming behind you? You’re on a road, cars are going to be coming from behind you, what difference does it make if you can hear them or not?

My old bluey, from a few years back. The tyres seemed like a good idea at the time!

Bluey’s gone, but my good lady now has this little one:

I rode there during the weekend just gone (the day before the rally). It was wet. Particularly loop 2, where there was loads of standing water on the singletrack. It’s rideable, but be prepared to get very wet!

I drove a Daewoo Matiz for a while and had two bikes, two big kit bags and two people (me and passenger) in there on a few occasions, so I would assume that if it’s possible in a Matiz, it’s possible in most cars! It was a case of both wheels out and handlebars hanging over into the front of the car a little, but it was doable.

I don’t see that it’s right or wrong to use flats on your road bike. Use whatever suits you. I have flats on my road bike, the same as I have flats on my mountain bike. I prefer them.

I ride my road bike for convenience and it’s a good way of getting fitter for when I ride my mountain bike. I would assume using SPD pedals would train slightly different muscles and technique to using flats, which kind of defeats the object of using it as a means of getting fitter for the mountain bike.

Please don’t laugh.

I’m still to sort out the orange front wheel but this is what I’ve managed so far:

mortuk2k, I think I might have known you in a previous life, judging from your user name and the fact that you mention Norfolk!

Can’t recommend greyhounds and lurchers enough. My missus has a lurcher and she has completely converted me. My mum also now has a greyhound on the back of meeting my missus’ lurcher. On my experience, a greyhound crossed with something else would be a better choice if you want a companion for long walks/rides. Pure greyhounds don’t really have the stamina. Excellent dogs that they are though!

It sounds like you’ve got somewhere to adopt from sorted, but if you haven’t, I can’t recommned these people enough, based in Norfolk too: http://www.kerrygreyhounds.co.uk/

I passed him twice. He didn’t seem to be going all that fast.

(I may have been in my car! 😉 )

Firstly, excellent choice of dog breeds, assuming you are going to adopt a rescue? My girlfriend and I have a rescue lurcher and my mum has a rescue greyhound. They make excellent pets and are very affectionate and good natured. Given the right amount of exercise they’re happy to spend the rest of the day sleeping! But, certainly from the experience I’ve had they will not cope with being left for 8 hours. Ours struggle with more than 2-3 hours on their own, they are dogs that like company. If you can’t get around having to leave them for that length of time, then don’t get one.

lol! Where on earth did you hear that awful song?

I was at a festival in Germany a few weeks ago and went into a little dance tent, when it started pouring with rain. That song came on and all the Germans went crazy! It stuck with us all weekend. Awful, but very catchy! 😀

Ding-a-ling-a-ling?

So why do the public generally all refer to Holland and why are we not aware of the other provinces?

Because, generally, the British are ignorant of other countries and cultures! 😉

As TJ posts above, South Holland and North Holland are two of several provinces of The Netherlands. People who live in the Netherlands are Dutch. My missus is Dutch and she’s from the Netherlands, as opposed to Holland (she’s from the province of Limburg). So, in a way, saying she is from Holland is like saying a Scotsman is from England. But they’re not really offended by it, it’s just not strictly accurate.

Same as DT78 above, I cracked a 27.2 at the clamp, in cold weather. I was riding across a car park at the time and I’m no lard arse! I wouldn’t buy one again.

Does anyone know what’s open and what’s not, on Skyline? I keep hearing that certain sections are closed, but the latest news I can find on line is that it’s all open again. I’ll be visiting Afan in a couple of weeks and have a bit of unfinished business with Skyline as I crashed and broke a couple of ribs last time I was there! I’m desperate to ride it again!

I really like mine. I’ve had them 3 or 4 years now. Have no complaints with how quickly they change from light to dark and back again. As mentioned about, mine are a little easy to scratch – having said that, this may have been sorted on the newer lenses, as it does now say on their website that they have an ‘anit-scratch layer as standard’. Not sure if that was the case when I bought mine.

As above, you can use Tesco Clubcard points – although I think it may be double points now, rather than triple. My missus is Dutch but hates flying and ferry crossings, so we use the Tunnel a fair bit to visit her family and always trade in our clubcard points to do it. Saved several hundred pounds over the last few years.

Another vote for Optilabs from me. I’ve never got on with contact lenses, on or off the bike. Tried the Adidas Evil Eyes, with prescription insert, as mentioned above. They were ok but I found they misted up very easily – and because of the insert, you don’t just get one misted up lens to look through, you get two! My prescription is too strong for Oakley and, frankly, they’re a bit pricey for my pocket, so on the recommendation of a friend, I tried Optilabs. Had them for about 4 years now and really impressed. The fact that they have the style of lenses that go dark in sunlight also means no faffing about changing lenses. Would definitely recommend them and will probably get myself a new pair before too long.

Out of interest, what MPG do people get from their Transporters, Vivaros, Trafics, etc?

Thinking of getting something like this, in the not to distant future, but it would be my only vehicle, so would have to get me to work and back on a regular basis. Interested to know how the MPG would compare to what I have now.

Don’t whack it too hard, they can be a bit delicate. I had an SDG I-Beam and the post split at the top – where the clamp is bonded into the tube – riding across a car park!