RichJ

I live on that stretch of Melbourne Grove. As the statistics bear out, the vast majority of drivers do travel at sensible speeds. It also a relatively busy road which makes speeding hard. However, it is nothing like as narrow or congested as the northern stretch of the road by the station and, at quieter times, the road can be quite clear. I have seen the occasional car traveling at what I would class as dangerous speeds. I am not sure that these cars would be deterred by a 20mph speed limit (although it couldn?t hurt). What I think would help is some proper speed bumps. With the current ones with the gaps (the technical term escapes me!), it is very easy to just line up your wheels with the gaps and speed straight through. Arguably you could make these points about any residential road, but MG clearly is a bit of rat run, offering a short cut from Grove Vale to the southern end of Lordship Lane, and therefore probably does warrant special treatment.

Hi, We have just been through the same process. I think the issue is not so much an quantifiable figure but more that if you agree a net wage you are effectively guaranteeing the nanny a certain amount, whatever her personal tax affairs, and you therefore bear those risks. For example, if she had issues with tax from a previous year, you could ultimately pick up those costs. Similarly, if tax or NI went up, you would bear this cost. With a gross wage, that would be her risk. We had an informal agreement on a net wage but did agree to put a gross wage into the contract. If you didn't want to re-trade your agreement, you could put a net wage in the contract but add wording that it is conditional upon a certain personal tax code, no unpaid tax from previous years, no other part time jobs etc. Good luck with it all.

Hello, am resurecting an old thread here as am in the processing of agreeing this myself. I agree that ?10 p/h (net) for sole care and ?12 p/h (net) for nanny shares seems to be the market standard round here but all the advice is to agree a gross wage in the nanny contract. Has anyone converted an agreement in principle on a net salary into a gross wage in a contract? Based on some online tax calculators, it seems to me that a ?10 p/h (net) sole care and ?12 p/h (net) nanny share rate would become approx ?13 and ?16 gross respectively. Does that sound about right to anyone that has done something similar? Any input gratefully received. Thanks very much.

My wife and kids were on the platform at the time - a woman jumped in front of a train. Pretty grim and very sad.

The fact that houses are going to sealed bids suggests that vendors are right to be holding out for as much as possible - the demand is clearly there. That said, it sounds as though you are in a strong position so keep plugging away, I'm sure it will come good for you.

We went to the Begging Bowl a couple of weekends ago for lunch with our nearly 3 yr old and 9 month old. It's a bit of a squeeze getting the buggy in and the tables are all very close together but they do have a couple of high chairs and there are quite a few families there at lunch time. Plus the staff are very child friendly.

I think trying to even out the gaps between trains would help. Having no trains between the 7.37 and the 8.04 seems crazy at that time of the morning and makes the 8.04 absolute carnage.

I agree, it's regularly total carnage there. Does anyone know what actually got done to the ticket hall while it was closed for a good few months last year last year when the temporary blue footbridge was erected. I assumed it was closed to widen the two doors, so was pretty surprised when months later it re-opened looking exactly the same!

Scareyt and snowboarder - we went to Caserio del Mirador in Sept 2011 with our then 15-month year old son and absolutely loved it. Would definitely recommend. There is the opportunity for some socialising but it is optional - you (or Mr scareyt) could easily keep yourselves to yourselves if you wanted to. Last year we went to the Porto Sani Village in Greece, which was also great (although a bit pricey). Having our kitchen done this year so trying to drastically scale down the budget - am thinking Normandy or Brittany but have never been to either before so not sure where to start....

Thanks everyone for the helpful posts. It confirms what I already suspected - that, other than perhaps for antiques and cars, there is very little money in the second-hand game. I will look into the two auction houses though, thanks for those.

For various reasons, we have some high quality furniture that we are looking to sell. We have a large 2m x 1m oak dining room table, a large oak sideboard and 8 leather dining room chairs. They were bought in Hong Kong when we lived there and probably cost about ?2-3k in total (my hazy memory plus the foreign currency makes me a bit vague). I have sold or given things away on the forum before and know there is limited appetite on here for buying anything for much more than ?100. Do I have any other options for selling something a bit more expensive? I guess there is eBay and Gumtree - any others? I thought that a second-hand furniture shop might be a possibility - does anyone know of any? Thanks very much

Hi Bambi70 Not sure which hospital you plan to go to, but when I gave birth at Tommys, they gave out a taxi number of a firm willing to take labouring mothers. I was given this when I did an ante-natal tour of the unit. Perhaps if you call your hospital they may have a similar arrangement? Best of luck for the birth - I in fact nearly gave birth in the cab to the hospital!

Thanks both for the tips.

Does anyone have idea what is going on at Denmark Hill Station? They closed the main station entrance for months and erected a tempory footbridge, now the station is open again but looks identical to before (albeit perhaps with a lick of paint). I thought they might have at least done something about the crazily narrow doorway which is a total bottleneck when busy in the mornings. I have seen drawings somewhere of a gleaming glass and steel footbridge with lifts included, but progress in constructing this seems unbelievably slow. Summer 2013 now looks more realistic.

Hi Maxie, we are very happy with Nelly's. We don't have much to compare it against (it got so many recommendations when we moved to the area that it was the only one we really looked at) but I can't really fault it. The staff are all lovely, the premises are nice, the food is good and it is generally very well run. Our little boy seems very happy there and loves all the staff. No hesitation in recommending it.

Hello, we live in East Dulwich (very close to the station) and our two year old goes to Nelly's Nursery on Rosendale Road. I generally drive him there and then get the train to work from Tulse Hill. The drive there very much depends on the time of year. In school holidays, we can do it in 5-10 mins but in term time it can be much longer - more like 20 mins at peak times. I would guess it would be more like 35 mins to walk and I don't think there are many useful buses (although I have not looked into it). It is manageable although it does add an extra burden to our routine that I sometimes wish we didn't have to bother with. I think that generally the nurseries and primary schools are a little bit better in West Dulwich, so if that is your main priority, you might be better over there (although ED has many other advatanges over WD). Hope that helps.

Just wanted to add a recommendation for Paul (it999). I was having some general IT issues (trying to hook up an extra phone line and broadband to my sky+ box) and needed some IT savvy beyond my own lmited means. Paul came round the next day, worked everything out and even sold me the gear needed to fix it (which he had in his magic bag of IT tricks). He has a no fix - no fee policy and when he does fix it, his rates are very reasonable. Highly recommended.

Thanks Snowboarder, that's very helpful.

Hello I just wondered if anyone on the forum had purchased a Mountain Buggy Duet, and if so, their thoughts. We're looking for a double buggy for our baby to be born in July and our toddler who will then be 25 months. We've so far been unimpressed with the tandems as our toddler is quite tall and already comes off the end on the icandy and my wife found the weight of the phil and ted's off-putting. Impressed with the handling of the Bugaboo Donkey, but it's just so wide. Any thoughts gratefully received. Thanks

Hi Rachel, The only response I got was the following private message: "We put a lean-to conservatory on the side of our kitchen - in effect, we extended into the side return but without taking the side wall out, and created access by taking out and enlarging an existing window. We got quotes from Anglian, Sutton Windows and a smaller local firm, and ultimately got the work done by Sutton. We were very pleased with the build and level of customer service and are very happy with the result - we've recommended Sutton windows to a couple of friends locally and one of them has had essentially the same works done, and, as far as I know, they are very happy too. Costwise, our conservatory is about 14' x 8' and cost c.?15k. This was middling spec - we could have gone for fancier glass etc. and pushed it up to ?20k, or got it down to about ?12k. That figure included building work e.g. footings and brick and block work, plastering, supply and assemble the conservatory, and electricals, but not decoration or flooring." I didn't end up following it up so have no other quotes I'm afraid. If you do get any, I'd be very interested to hear them. Thanks, Rich

Completely agree, was thinking the same thing the other day. Work is supposed to be completed by summer 2012 - they have plenty of time but at this rate, will struggle to make it.

We'd quite like to increase the size of our kitchen but have decided that we can't really afford to have the side-return done. We wondered if putting a lean-to conservatory at the back of the kitchen might be a much cheaper way of creating a bit of extra space. I can't get much of an idea of the likely costs from the internet and don't want to get anyone round for a quote if it is a non-starter. Does anyone have any idea roughly how much they end-up costing? Thanks very much.

I ordered my laptop yesterday and have just seen some of the more recent comments. Im afraid to say that I have gone for a Sony Vaio! It is the Sony Vaio F11S1E/B. It ticked all my boxes and seemed to get universally good reviews. Hope it doesn't prove to be a disastrous decision. Looked long and hard at a Dell but it seemed to have real problem with overheating, which doesn't bode well for a long life-span.

Thanks everyone. Ruffers - fair point, I made it sounds like I was committed to spending at least a grand. I should have said that I'm prepared to go up to a grand but anything less that ticks all the boxes would do very nicely!

Any advice from any computer whizzes much appreciated. I am trying to choose a new laptop. Despite not being very computer literate, I think I have narrowed down what I want: - big screen (at least 15 inches) - it is basically a desktop replacement and doesn't need to be portable (just want the option of working on the kitchen table or in study); - HD screen (we have got just got an HD camcorder); - at least 4GB memory; - decent processor speed; - at least 500GB hard drive (we have loads of photos and music); - integrated webcam for skype calls with family; - main uses - general office work, internet, photo and music storage, a bit of video editing; and - cost of about ?1k. I can't get a mac as they are not compatible with my work systems (I log in remotely). I have been looking at models like the Dell Studio XPS 16 and the HP Pavilion dv6-2106ea but then keep finding reviews saying there are better options in that range. Unfortunately the reviews don't tell me what these better options are! I've been into places like PC World to try to get some advice but it has all been pretty low quality and google is just confusing me more and more. If anyone is a computer whizz and has a view on what would be a good model, I'd be really grateful. Thanks!