British Programmer living in Andorra

Exciting times! Today we launch henisabank.com a pocket money manager website for both parents and children to manage their allowances. My kids names are Henry and Isabel, so the name - henisabank.com is the first three letters of each of their names. For years, when they were small, I'd mentally record how much each of their totals was - this was prone to error and doubt. Later we moved to a Google Sheet solution - I made a simple spreadsheet with rows for each week (their basic allowance is their age, in Euros per week), and another column for recording what they purchased. After he completed the amazing Khan Academy course in programming I thought a fun practical project would be to develop a real-live application with the boy. Since I'm fairly generous with the pocket money, it comes up in day-to-day activities a fair amount - and figured it was a small enough project to complete in a few months. The site uses a .net backend and was my first experie

I've written extensively about the most selfish woman in Andorra who lets her dogs out into her yard in the morning, then clears off for work, leaving the mutts bored out of their tiny minds to bark incessantly at cats, passers-by, birds or themselves all day until she returns from work. I get to listen to them all day long as I try to write complex algorithms in code. When I tell her about this, she just shrugs her shoulders and says "Dogs bark". I've been doing some investigation into the law, and whilst there is no penalty for doing what she does during the daytime 0800-2200 weekdays (0900-2200 weekends), if they are left outside after outside these hours there is fine of 200 Euro. Most often she leaves for work at around 0800 and comes back in the mid-afternoon - once she is in the house the mutts are quiet, but occasionally she does go out for the day, and maybe gets delayed somewhere, and they are left out after 10pm - yapping away.  It is these occasi

Whether we like it or not, democracy will be delivered on 31st Jan 2020. This is a good thing, in some way, because if there had been a people's vote or anything else, we'd have never heard the end of it. Leavers will however have to accept that democracy is a process and the fight for renewed EU membership for the UK will begin on that day, and for some of us - never end. In the meanwhile the EU will be able to move, at pace, towards a fully democratic federal model, Euro stabilisation and further harmonisation among the key objectives. It will take many years, but I believe day to day realities will slowly convince an ever growing section of the public that leaving was a bad idea.  Not necessarily closures of manufacturing industries e.g.  Land Rover or Airbus - these can easily be spun or disregarded, but more personal experiences: - Not being permitted to travel and missing a holiday for having less than 6 months remaining on your passport - The friend with a ne

So, no vote for us.  Shame about the 15-year rule .  Particular as we lived in Raaab's constituency . This was 2017: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2017/may/08/general-election-2017-poll-tracker-who-is-in-the-lead This is today 2019: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2019/dec/11/election-opinion-polls-uk-2019-latest-poll-tracker-tories-labour Looks pretty similar if you ask me.   Labour slightly further behind the Tories, but Libdems have a fair bit more.... Will be an interesting night tomorrow.

1) We left in 2006 and thus have been stripped of our right to vote the upcoming election due to the 15 year rule. 2) So that I can say in the future that no-one I know "didn't know this"... Please read the requirements for a RETIREMENT VISA in Spain - for 3rd country nationals. http://www.exteriores.gob.es/Consulados/SANFRANCISCO/en/ConsularServices/Documents/visas/RetirementVisa.pdf (This is the Spanish California Consulate Document) In particular: - Minimum income required is 25,560 Euros annually plus 6,390 Euros per each additional family member - Proof of having international medical insurance - This will cost upwards of 350 Euros per month at age 65+ = 4200 Euro per year (Note that pre-existing conditions will NOT be covered by private medical insurance) I've highlighted a few fun things that will need to be provided by Brits in the future if they want to retire to Spain.

What madness is this?  I have resorted to wearing ear plugs all day to block out the noise of the damn dogs barking next door.