Can anyone tell me how to specify a range with references relative to the
active cell, so that if I copy or extend a formula into another cell, the
range used in the formula is always from, e.g. row 2 to 2 rows above the
active cell, and the currnet colum to 2 columns to its right.

In other words how do you refer to a cell in relative terms to the current
column and row numbers - Excel doesn't seem to accept cell references like
COLUMN(),ROW()-2

Or does it?

Thanks