Here's a DUH? moment for you

The first week we moved into the house we received our bill for council taxes. They are similar to property taxes at home. There were 2 bills. One was due immediately to finish out the year (one month left) and the second bill was for the following year. The payment schedule was really throwing me off. This is what it said:
(I'm using a dollar sign because I dont have British sterling pound symbol on my American keyboard)
$xx.xx due 01.05.2007
$xx.xx due 01.06.2007
$xx.xx due 01.07.2007
$xx.xx due 01.08.2007
$xx.xx due 01.09.2007
$xx.xx due 01.10.2007
etc.

Look at it! I could not for the life of me understand why I had to go make different payments every day in a row- Jan 5th, Jan 6th, ... - in person - paying cash - at the post office. Besides it was past January at the time. Was there a typo? Did they mean January 2008?
NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
you see, after I made an idiot of myself calling the local council and asking for an explaination, it was pointed out to me that here in the UK, the day goes first and the month is written second (which I already knew!); therefore, payments were due on May 1st, June 1st and so on.
Lovely. Glad to be the entertainment of the day at the council office.
The date thing confuses me ALL the TIME! First the roads and now the dates. I'm all out of sorts.