I know that this may sound a bit dumb but we do not want to have a housefull of electrical adaptors for our various appliances that we bring over.

Can and how do you safely connect a UK 3 core electrical cable to a std euro plug ???

have a look at this

http://users.pandora.be/worldstandards/ ... tm#plugs_f

Put the green and yellow (earth ) to the earth terminal on the euro plug. The earth terminal is the one that goes to the strips which go down either side of the plug. Put the brown (live) and the blue (neutral ) onto the two pins that stick out of the end of the plug. Does not matter which way round as the plug can be put into the wall socket either way.

Many thanks, I thought that is how it was done but wanted to check anyway