Streupflicht und Schneeschaufel

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Thanks Gabster for the inspiration for the thread!

Add your resolutions here & I can slip alongside and pretend I'll make some too.
Still too fragile - my sleep patterns go haywire when I'm home, stay up till 1 or 2am, then awake at 5am (6 here, usual flipping school time) then I come back & keep crashing on the sofa at 10pm and wake up at 4 bright & breezy.

We have snow, very pretty and h is off till Weds so am pushing him out for Streupflicht, bartered it for a fry-up with real English bacon, hmmmmmm.
Forecast is for -12C to -14C tonight - and when the children go back to school on Thursday. Yikes.

The house sounds good, or the village does. What is the house like?

I know what you mean about maintaining a healthy distance between yourself and parents. I would hate to live to close to ours, particulary the pils. We may have taken it a bit too far by moving to CH though.

Wow, that was quick Gabster. Well done. It's alot less stress for you if you atleast know where you will be moving to. Have you started sorting out yet? That's step one isn't it? Chuck all the things you don't need and sort through drawers and cupboards.

Did you get any further with MyHammer?

oh God, don't talk about organising to move house (in terms of de cluttering & packing. horror)

SOunds like a good logistical location Gab. When's your db going for a nosey?

Hi everyone.

SOrry you're not sleeping well Dr. G, hard to function normally without enough sleep What part of the country is the house in gabs?

House is in v.small village just north of Stansted (hopefully not toooo close IYKWIM) and neighbouring village has doctors have just found out now too, and they seem to do everything, even dispense. Period cottage with 3 beds. Down side, old windows and grnd floor bathroom, upside: on village green with big rooms and a garden and parking for cars and hopefully caravan and central heating. Agent said they can put a shower in if none at the moment, and so DB is hopefully going there today or tomorrow to take picies for me and make sure it is not rotten/mouldy. Fingers' crossed.

Sure will be a relief if dooable as really panicking. Having to sort out house and new car before can do anything else. Next nightmare - sorting out registration for DS so he gets NHS number and how to claim child benefit. Now where did I put those neurophen ....

bloody hell DrG, hope you're keeping v. organised list of stuff you need to do, like get ds NHS number, how to apply for CB etc etc (so I can steal it off you) Seriously though, we should maybe pool ideas, I've done international move reasonable recently, there's so much to think about.

House sounds good. Downstairs bathroom wouldn't bother me, particularly. See if you can get a map of the flight paths. We did this when we moved to Kanton Zurich. We got a house only 10 minutes from the airport, but we had a copy of the flight map, and no planes went over us at all, so we had basically no aircraft noise, despite being so close.

A couple of villages along was a completely different story...

House sounds good too far, Gabster. The garden will be great and having the village green right in front of the house means you will meet loads of people.

We went sledging this morning with my parents and the DC. Mum sledged with the DC for about 20mins before declaring herself parched and heading over for a cup of tea and a crepe. The DC carried on sledging down the smaller hill for a wee while and I took the dog for a walk. She gets cold just standing around.

DD is invited to a birthday party this afternoon so Mum has just bathed her and got her changed. They are playing in the playroom with DS while Dad clears the ice and snow off the path. I am sorting out the health insurance mess.

We are insured throught the German Krankenkasse, but the paperwork is done by the Swiss health insurance company. This means that I have to pay all the bills then send them in to be reimbursed. So far I have shelled out over CHF 3000 and have only had CHF 300 back. It is a massive pain in the butt as it is lots of running around and sending forms off etc.

I think you lot need to start a relocating to UK thread for everyone's tips to be put together. See, for example I had no idea about them needing a NHS number. Obvious now I think about it but if I do move back I'll have the thread saved! Go on one of you start one!

Village and house sound great TheGabster. Hope you get it if you like it after your brother has been.

mmeL, you have my sympathies. It took me ages to get my head around the Swiss Krankenkasse, and the amount of paperwork involved was so complicated, time consuming etc. I reckon I finally finetuned my system and got it really running smoothly - after about 7 years of living there and not long before we left. If you want to be bored rigid, I'll share with you. Mind you, I am such a plank, I'm sure a sane person would've worked it out aafter 1 month

HAving 5 people to deal with, in 2 different Krankenkasse made it worse. Who are you with? we found it a lot cheaper for adults & children in different KK. They have strict rules on when you're allowed to change/alter cover (monrhs in advance) mind - found this out the hard way & some are a lot easirt than other wrt paperwork

Sounds like you're having a great time with your parents over! It's nice to have the company - I'm so looking forward to my mum being here next week (as long as gran keeps well enough to be left)

I remember the French insurance system was like that, all the forms and little stickers from the medecine packets had to be sent off to be reimbursed. Are you still in the German Krankenkasse? That's another thig when you leave Germany and want to maybe come back - if you left the Kasse they sometimes won't let you back in! I heard that from a German who went to live in Spain and had to pay private insurance when she came back.

Ernest
Please bore me rigid with your tips for the Swiss Krankenkasse, it is doing my head in. Any advice you have saves me dozens of phone calls, I am sure.

We are insured through the Lamal Krankenkasse, that is who the company told us to go to. I don't know if we are allowed to change or if that was just the recommendation. We don't actually pay for the insurance, it is covered by an agreement between our German KK and the Swiss one. As DH is officially "entsandt" he is still paid in Euros and has all his sozialversicherung still in Germany. We pay Swiss tax but it is all worked out by the tax advisors that the company forks out for. It would be impossible to do ourselves.

It is all very complicated and timeconsuming.

The next thing is getting Kindergeld. We have not worked that one out yet. We are entitled to it as DH still is paid in Germany but I am not sure who to apply to. Will start that next.

A relocation thread would be good, I had not even thought about NHS numbers and such things. I have an ancient card but I don't think the DC have one. They do have British passports though.

Ernest
Just a thought, I am battling with the Familienkasse at the moment, they have sent me hundreds of pages of forms to fill out so that we get the Kindergeld. Do you happen to know

• Träger des Wohnort - who would that be in Switzerland? This is the form to say that we are not getting Kindergeld in CH, so the Swiss equivelant of the Familienkasse.

I also need to know the French for Gemeindeverwaltung/Zivilstandamt, if you happen to know that by any chance.

[head explodes]

état civil = Zivilstandamt
municipalité f. die Gemeindeverwaltung
administration communale

dict.leo.org this web site should be useful for you online dictionary (eng to german & french to german)

can't help with träger des wohnort yet, sorry. btw can't you get all forms in German? We were able to request everyhing in either

Swiss KK sounds like the stuff of nightmares I'm hopeless with anything like that.

The snow is finally melting today and I have to say hurrah for Streupflicht or I'd have to wade through piles of slush to get anywhere.

Congratulations on finding somewhere to live Gabster.

ok, might be a bit different given what you've said about still paying in euros etc, but anyway -
what I found hard was keeping check of what had been reimbursed etc.

pay bill
send to KK
put copy in envelope/plastic wallet (maybe 1 per family member if you get loads like us!)
when the reimbursement letter comes through remove copy from wallet, check off, check bank account and file as paid. That way unpaid bills separate and only get filed when you know what's been reimbursed.

Don't evy you - was such pain inbum

That sounds like a good system. I am getting confused already about what bills I have submitted and which still have to be paid.

Ran around town all morning getting sent from office to office, went to 4 in all and still did not get what I need for the kindergeld. I will have to phone the guy from the Familienkasse to see if they will accept the form from the Swiss as the Swiss will not fill in HIS form.

Also had a meeting with the lady who is helping me find a job. Was quite good, I have to update my CV and make it suitable for Swiss companies then she will set up an interview with the language school, if they are needing teachers at the mometn. She will practice interview techniques with me before, which I am glad of. The last proper job interview that I had was my apprenticeship over 12 years ago.

Sounds like a nightmare mmelindt. Hope you get it sorted, could the relocation person who helped you with everything not tell you how to get it done quicker?

Just heard from home, mum is setting off soon so she'll be here just before midnight! All the ice and snow has gone, thank goodness otherwise we wouldn't have got much done. They certainly aren't as strict as Schwabenland with the Schneescahufeln und co here in Hannover.

does sound very complicated, unnecessarily so really. Hope someone can help you get that sorted out ML. Wouldn't know where to begin myself.

Admylin, your mum must be there now. I hope she'll have a good stay.

Hey Admylin - hope you are enjoying the company.

ML - sounds completely pants on the KK front. I don't envy you.

Hope everyone is well. Raining here today so what little snow there was is fast disappearing. Somehow doesn't feel like German winter any more. Thought my last one would be more memorable somehow .

Hi, yes it's nice to have company! Had a usual Monday of hell and stress so mum observed!

Not planning any outings today although dd wanted to go into town after school. All depends on homework I suppose.

Have you got any news about the house Gabster?

hi everyone,

Admylin how is your grandmother?

Thanks ZZZen, she's recovering! She's amazing.

oh that's great!

Good news Admylin (about your Grandmother). The house hunt is not really progressing. Everytime I think I have found something, it all falls appart. Landlords want to meet you in person or they won't take the dog, or there's no central heating - or one my brother went to was so dirty he said he could have spent all day cleaning it with his wife and he sill did not think it would be fit to live in. He was really shocked it was being shown in that condition - apparently the fridge had mould in it and was rusty?! Getting very frustrated.

On the good side, DH has found a car in UK, and his dad went and bought it for us! And we have had lots of interest in our car for sale here, although I can't understand what most of them are saying/asking me.

On the down-side, I had overlooked a few things which have turned into real headaches here (just paperwork and stuff- stupid baby brain), we still don't know when DH is actually going to finish work, and I am considering going back early with DS to try and find us somewhere to live. Not looking forward to living with my sister. Love her to bits, but its just not ideal and going to miss DH and the dog terribly.

Needless to say my insomnia is now back with force - stress !!

Glad to hear your gran is better, admylin.

Sorry your house hunting is not progessing smoothly, Gabster. I don't envy you going through all that. Hope things start to get sorted soon for you.