thanks Sharley,
sorry I didn't know it was 'off topic'.
I have seen similar questions to mine posted by a good many people on several forums and no one got a 'resolved' answer.
Plenty of answers contain replies such as 'just download all your Wordpress files to the local version', which we know doesn't work.
It's a pity if it can't be done because it would mean that there'd be little point in having a local version except for experimentation.
Thanks for all the help with this and if it can be done and you can explain it in a sort of a, b, c, d, type format then it would be wonderful if you'd email it to me at michael@ourchangingglobe.com
I was able to download my database a few days ago and I haven't touched anything since.
http://www.yearinbrazil.com/misc/payoffdebts_wp.zip - is the database. Not that you'll want it but you'll see that it was exportable.
thanks again,
Mike