39TDS

This morning it was by the wife telling me I had forgotten to print the invoice she asked me for at 9:30pm last night and that I had only had one job.

The modern day paths to riches bewilder me. It seems the days of hard work being the path to wealth have been replaced by gambling on pretend money, being a Youtube "Influencer" or flashing your blurter on Only Fans. It is a very strange world.

Had a similar experience when pruning apple trees in my orchards, an old boy wandered up wet through and no idea who he was, where he was or where he had come from. Well dressed but inappropriate for in a field miles from anywhere. Took him to my house and gave him a brew, got him warmed up. Called the police who did turn up within half an hour (that is rapid response in my experience). I felt they were quite rough with him tbh, searching his pockets and talking to him as if he was a drunken tramp. I was quite surprised how they were and not at all respectful of him. I guess they see it all the time and compassion had worn off. They took him away and that was the last I heard, never did know who he was or from where he had come from. Well done for looking after him, karma will pay you back

My experience of people with dogs is very much @enfieldsparesversion and very much not your version. Most people seem to think farmland is there for them to use as open parkland for them to wander around with their dogs running all over the place while they can help themselves to any crops they might fancy. I managed to train some of the regulars to behave but only until my back was turned. The only group of people I could praise would be the kids coming through doing their DoE hikes, they were polite, stuck to the paths, don't leave any litter and don't have dogs. Can't say the same for their supervisors but the kids set a good example.

I do. It took me over 5 years, a lot of hard work, a lot of stress and sleepless nights. Had to learn new languages in order to converse with lawyers, estate agents, accountants and also had to live in a caravan for 3 years in someone else's garden. Only 2 interested parties, one had no money and the other was indeed a developer. That land is lost to farming now.

It would be a good idea to say where you are. Welcome to the forum.

Still means the end of the business and livelihood but I think more importantly means the end of that family farm. As Kier said "It can't come back", I really do think that should be a national concern but nobody seems to care. That £350k is £500k if left to offspring.

Is the threshold not £1million then? I think the interest is charged at 9% on that. In any case, why does any inheritance tax exist? Seems very unfair to me that they tax you for dying.

A viable farm needs to be about 200 acres, at £10k/acre that is £2million. The house, buildings machinery etc are going to add up to another million. If the owner dies and hands it down there is a £400k tax bill under these new rules where there was none before. That farming business is going to have to sell land to pay that bill, it then becomes unviable as there is no longer enough land to support the business. This means the whole farm gets sold, no more farm, no more farmer, no more food. This will destroy the countryside as we know it. There are ways to plan for these things, you can hand over to the next generation and pay no tax providing you survive 7 years but nobody of any age can be sure of that. If the farmer dies young there's a good chance he hasn't gifted to his (or hers) offspring yet as they are maybe not old enough, that farm has gone. Up until the budget it made great sense to die while still owning the farm and every accountant would say so, new rules mean there are 80 year old farmers with no hope of surviving 7 years if they gifted immediately so that farm has gone. The figures I use are minimum, that size of farm is already struggling to pay its way. The tax raised won't amount to a massive amount and it is more a tax of spite, same as taking winter fuel payments away. As for the NFU, they represent the supermarkets not the farmers and that has been the case for some time. Having said that Tom Bradshaw (head of NFU) did release a very sensible statement on the matter. Starmer knows all this and said as much very recently

And in a month or so time we will all be bringing one indoors, drying it out in our centrally heated houses and dangling cheap Chinese electric lights off it. What could possibly go wrong? This is my Christmas tree after Christmas, there are 4 seconds between the pics. Reckon you could find a fire extinguisher, hose, bowl of water in that time?

It is a big problem, the handed in "scrap" guns are added to the "surrendered weapons" list and the numbers used to try and illustrate how awful these deadly things are.

Fair play to you Ditchy, you didn't half have a lot to deal with when your missus was bad. Tough beyond words and you did well. So sorry for the rest that are going through it and I really do wish them all the best.

Nice one. I had steak tonight, Costco's best ribeye. It was as marbled and had as much fat content as your second to last pic. Not cheap but I cut each one in half, still very much plenty for me and a whole one would be too much. Tonights was probably the best cooked steak I ever had, not under or over cooked and probably about what you would call rare, I don't mind very rare/raw but this was nicer for having a little more time. Fried in a pan with beef dripping and then in the oven for a few minutes, cooked on my wood fired AGA type cooker so the oven was hot anyway. The downside for me tonight was I used a little more dripping for the onions, garlic and mushrooms than ideal. Live and learn and will adjust accordingly for next time.

You would have to build a lot of jails if that deserves a custodial sentence. He most definitely should not be an MP any more though.