letrangere
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Posts posted by letrangere
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Fully understand Ejc's prudent approach and agree with every word of Debra's post. Although money (or lack of) clearly isn't the only reason people return to Britain, I suspect some people seriously under-estimate how much money they will need to live on in France, wrongly basing the general cost of living on the relative affordability of property and wine. It's easily done and, in all fairness, it's not until you actually live in France and start paying bills that you realise how darn expensive some things are. M
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Yes, welcome back Mr. & Mrs. Jongleur and how are the hens keeping?
Coco, congratulations on your elevation. Although I feel it's preferable to the previous title of fanatic, I still tend to think of most gurus today as being pretty bogus. Now surely that isn't LF's intention???
M
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Venice, can't speak Italian and I think it would be too expensive.
Oddly, it isn't and you don't need to speak a word of Italian, everyone speaks English. My boss is staying at the Danieli next week in a room with a lagoon view, that's Euros 590/night. But he also looked at a whole host of other hotels for around the Euros 150 mark, all of which looked really nice. Venice is beautiful in October but I can't think how you can get there in less than 4 hrs, unless there's a really good connection Marseilles/CDG/Venice or Marseilles/Milan/Venice? M
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For a guide to gorgeous hotels in France, go to www.chateauxhotels.com. You'll be spoilt for choice here. Re area, both the Lot and the Dordogne valleys are sensational in October as the hillsides change colour. And they're gloriously quiet too, free of the summer crowds. IMHO it's the best time to visit. Beautiful drive from where you are through the Ardeche, across the Aveyron, though possibly at the extreme of your 4 hr limit as the roads are slow and you'll be tempted to stop at lovely spots en route (Ales, Rodez, Figeac, Cahors). Why not do 3 days touring each valley? I see there's a lovely chateau hotel in the centre of Figeac, fabulous town and perfectly located for visiting the Lot in both directions. I would then move on to Sarlat, hideously overcrowded now - and can get a bad press as a result - but stunning out of season. And more wonderful places to visit within half an hour's drive, Domme, Beynac to name a few. Enjoy yourselves. M
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Second is that the motorway junction somewhere around Orange/Valence is the busiest in Europe.
Know it well and it's certainly busy but with the possible exception of the next three days (and nights) surely it doesn't carry the regular volume of traffic of the London M25 between T4 and the M1 turn off? I would have thought M25/M4 was much busier. Last time I did that at 06.30 in the morning, it was four (or it is five?) lanes of stationery traffic trying to go clockwise. Friends tell me the A6 north of Lyon is much easier now but can anyone remeber the horrendous queues of old as you approached the tunnel? When I was a child, no summer holiday was complete without me being car sick on that section. I think that's what put me off holidaying in France in August as an adult!!! M
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French management is just awful.
As someone who reports to one, I couldn't agree more. And that's despite the year at INSEAD. M
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The number of properties on the market but not selling is the talk of many friends in the SW. Nothing new really, the French market was traditionally very slow. But fuelled by UK house inflation and the mad rush to buy in France, people rather got used to things moving a lot faster in recent years. With the exception of those selling up, everyone puts it down to owners (be they Brits, French or any other nationality) getting greedy and asking too much. French friends from Bordeaux with a very generous budget looking to buy around Sarlat (they're Anglophiles) were driven to a state of near apoplexy at some of the places they were shown in their price range. A Brit agent in NW 24 told me recently it's impossible to make some owners see sense and that she's embarrassed showing prospective buyers around some houses. She also says she's receiving less enquiries to buy than anytime since she started in the business in 2001. M
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I guess these returnees have the experience of living in another country but they also have to start all over again within the UK economic system which is ever changing. A big hole in a CV is not always looked upon with favour in a competitive environment. The going could be just as tough as the one you are leaving.
If you view your French experience - whatever shape or form it took - as a positive thing, you will hopefully be able to talk about it confidently when job hunting in the UK and convince prospective employers that you are a stronger candidate for the job because of what you've done in France. But it isn't easy and some companies may be reluctant to employ people who have had the wherewithal to move abroad fearing that they could just as easily take off again. Both my husband and I encountered that very early on in our careers, and I'm sure we were often (quite rightly as it happens) seen as "flighty". But it depends what you do for a living. An idea might be to try and get something in the UK that can draw on your French experience.
However, the problems you face in the first few months after you return to the UK - finding somewhere to live, finding a job, re-adapting to the pace and way of life - may well start you thinking, "perhaps it wasn't so bad in France after all".
I admire Pat's courage in admitting to loneliness as I'm sure many, many others feel the same way. And it doesn't help either when you also miss not just companionship but family. A Forum member friend e mailed me this morning and said, "You should have also said it's easier to live in France if you don't have have elderly family or grandchildren back in England."
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Thinking about this more and in particular why it works for the retired permanent residents we know in rural France, some of whom have been there full time for over ten years. They all speak reasonably good French, a couple are fluent, one being a former French teacher. They had all spent an awful lot of time in France before they moved. Two had lived there previously but all the rest had owned holiday places for many years that they visited 3 or 4 times a year. They're all pretty gregarious and make friends easily irrespective of nationality, background, etc. I know one said that Amazon mail order really changed her life for the one thing she really missed about rural France was access to a wide range of English language books and videos. Many also share a lot in common with Alexis and are what I would describe as pretty self contained. They're also all very in to country pursuits, wild life, walking, etc.
But the most interesting part is they all still continue to travel and although home is most definitely France, they take regular trips, so perhaps this is the key if you can afford it. Two couples now do something called house swap through an agency on the Internet and have swapped their place in France for homes all over the world including New Zealand, California and Rome. Another, found a guy to rent their place for two months back in the winter whilst they went off back packing round SE Asia.
So perhaps variety is the key to maintaining interest.
M
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Don't you just love them? All the weeks of preparation for the month in the countryside or by the sea. The stream of articles in women's magazines giving advice on how to cope, cook, dress, tan and spice up your sex life during the most important four weeks of the year. The packing, the anticipation, the sitting in the traffic. The huge house parties with friends and several generations of family, the French have certainly perfected the art of holidaying en famille. The shame if, like by closest friend, you have to confess that hubby will only be joining you for a week at the most. She cites pressure of work but eyebrows are raised and even I'm thinking perhaps his mistress is making demands this summer!
And it's not something they leave behind even when they live abroad. For every self respecting French expatriate is on the first plane back to Paris at the end of the last working day in July. If one particular Air France jet had crashed last night, I'd have lost many very good friends.
Then spare a thought for those poor unfortunate individuals who are left behind? A friend in Paris is making herself out to be such a heroine, almost Joan of Arc, purely because she has to hang around until the middle of August in the deserted capital. How will she cope having to walk two blocks to buy her morning baguette? Will life come to an end because her dry cleaners have gone to the Cher for four weeks? She was last seen in Monoprix stocking up for a seige quite convinced food supplies will dry up once everyone leaves.
Personally, I much prefer to holiday out of season but it's still an aspect of French culture that never fails to fascinate.
M
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Even when it was primarily retirees, the British population in rural France has always been a pretty transient crowd, I think it comes with the territory. For no matter how well prepared you are beforehand, something crops up after a few years making you think, surely it would be better at home. That said, staying with friend recently, the conversation around long term residents' dinner tables was the increasingly rapid turnover of new arrivals, especially young families moving over permanently. One wag spoke of the Great British Retreat. Others felt it was a natural response to the mass move from Britain of 2001/2. M
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There was a Frenchman who had a passion for houses and doing them up. But he said that once it was finished, it didn't interest him any more, so he sold it and went on to another project... It's not what we have that interests us, but the project of something else
I know an English woman who feels exactly the same way about doing up houses. She must have bought, done up and then sold five times in the last ten years. I think I would understand it more if she were doing it purely for financial gain but that hasn't always been the case. And it's not even as if she's just a very talented decorator (which she is) who enjoys spending her husband's money. It's worse. She's simply never satisfied with her surroundings. She never lives anywhere, relaxes, makes a house her home. Like the Frenchman it's just a project, something to do, something to fill her time with. After three place in the UK, she did the French bit three years ago before moving on recently to southern Spain. Interesting to note she lost her lovely husband en route. Sick of the smell of paint and sight of fabric swatches, I suppose.
M
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Here's another, though I haven't tried it, a cherry version of traditional tarte tatin.
Melt 75g butter in pan with 50g brown sugar.
Pour into non-stick shallow 20cm flan dish.
Arrange 450g stoned weight of cherries in base of dish.
Cut circle of ready-rolled puff pastry, slightly bigger than dish.
Lay pastry over cherries. Press down, tucking sides down inside dish.
Bake in preheated oven gas 6, 200C for 20 mins or until pastry is risen and golden.
To turn out: place serving plate over dish, hodling dish and plate with a cloth, invert.
Tatin will (should?) come out right way up with fruit on top.
M
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Benson, fancy something totally different? How about cherry salsa? Terrific with grilled meats, chicken and cold cuts.
225g fresh cherries (stoned & halved)
1 small onion chopped finely
1 small red pepper deseeded and chopped finely
1 fat red chilli deseeded and chopped finely
juice of one lime
1 tbsp of chopped coriander
Mix all the above in a bowl with a drizzle of top quality olive oil. Season with salt and ground black pepper. Best if made a couple of hours in advance.
M
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Val, odd you mention this for I endured three years of chemistry at school before being rightly pushed into the arts stream and the only thing I can remember from those horrid days in that smelly old laboratory was lesson #1 the sand and salt experiment. Can't remember what we did now (it was autumn term 1970) but I guess we must have heated the sand to produce salt separation? I wouldn't say it's worth a detour but Sambhar Lake in Rajasthan is an extraordinary place. It's a very odd, quite eerie, stark white landscape stretching for 40 or so kilometres and is apparently the largest natural salt producing centre in the world. M
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Pat, it's a valid point to raise at the moment. And the Polly Filler columnists in the newspapers wrote enough column inches on the subject in the aftermath of the attacks in the US in Sept 2001. For all the people we see on our TV screens saying they have to earn a living, so have to use the Tube, it's business as usual, etc. there must be those who are thinking, "do we want to live like this?". And this may be the catalyst that turns a few of those currently toying with making the move, into actually doing it.
That said, I would hazard a guess that you've still got a higher chance of being killed on the roads in France than you have of being murdered by suicide bombers on the Tube in London. M
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Oh, absolutely, TU, aren't some people idiotic? But then again when you consider the logistics, with the exception of the final few hundred metres, it would be nigh on impossible for the race marshalls to prevent spectators from doing daft things. On the other hand, the crowd is an essential part of the race. I read an interview this week with a famous ancien French winner of le Tour who said that it was the crowds and people running alongside on empty stretches that kept you going when fatigue was starting to get the better of you. He commented (and I've noticed this too) that it was amazing how spectators often chose to watch the race go by in some of the most isolated spots. M
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Woody, you pipped me to the most to ask this, I was starting to think I must be the kiss of death for poor old Armstrong as I hadn't seen him win once this year. So basically the riders' times are totalled and then divided by the number of stages? I guess this is fairest system when you consider what a gruelling challenge it is. M
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Too many, didn't Revel look nice today? You all say the riders just speed through but there was a huge gap today between the leaders and the rest, and around ten minutes or so between the front and the slackers at the back. Doesn't it make you want to pick up a bike and have a go? Looks such fun. But has anyone been around one of the refreshment stations after the race has been through? How many people does it take to clear up the mess after they've been fed and watered and thrown all their bottles and plastic bags around? M
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Ah but don't be so hard on us, Dick. I'm a diarist but I guard my book of jottings with my life and would certainly never, ever leave it behind on a garden table, even by accident. M
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the move abroad was a way to find ourselves
Agree entirely, V.
I've said before that if you can't cope with life at home, you're unlikely to manage abroad. A couple I know moved to where I currently live 2 or 3 years ago. They arrived fresh from England full of complaints about life in the UK, unable to stop marvelling at the country they had moved to. I guess it took 6 months, perhaps even less, for the honeymoon period to wear off, after which they settled back into their previous state of constant moaning about the minutiae of their everyday life. They sought solace in a circle of similar minded Brits and turned into people you go out of your way to avoid. Naturally, they haven't been able to hack it here so they're off again somewhere new next month and all we hear now is how this new place is the promised land and how everyone else should follow them. I know the world's a big place but they're approaching retirement and you wonder how much further they're going to travel before they wake up and realise they're just a genuinely unhappy couple and it doesn't matter where they run to, they're still going to be as miserable as sin. M
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I would urge the poster to seek professional advice as there are ways of minimising your exposure to this tax if you seek good advice early enough. And it's expecially important if you want to minimise tax on precious income. A good advisor should be able to offer you a range of options. I know many people laugh and shrug and wonder why anyone can get hot under the collar about paying a relatively small percentage of tax on what may appear to be a huge amount of money. I'm sure they think if they're so well off, surely they can afford it. But nowadays it isn't cash, it's invariably just bricks and mortar that catapults thousands of people who never previously considered themselves as being especially well off into the realms of the supposedly super rich. And it does come as bit of a shock. M
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We rent quite regularly in the winter months but are you talking about long term, ie several month lets? Can't help specifically on that but one important piece of general advice for short or long termers is to ensure your cottage is well insulated and has good heating. You'll want to pass your hefty heating costs on to your tenants and it helps if you can give them an idea as to costings in advance, especially if you want settlement in cash. Little touches like arriving to a log fire in the grate is very welcome, as are hottie bottles in beds. You may want to pay more attention to interior decoration/furnishings as guests will be spending most of their time inside. Cold souls in a draughty house often appreciate a rug to snuggle under when lounging on the sofa. Pointing out where to leave wet clothes and muddy boots is useful too. Don't know your part of the country all that well but friends in the Lot have had a good booking record in recent years during the winter, especially Nov/Dec and Feb/March. And people we usually rent from near St Emilion tell me they're already full for Christmas/New Year and the French school holiday weeks in Feb 06. M
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I'd read it, wouldn't be able to resist even though I might regret it later, or then again might not. A visitor staying with us once didn't have any stamps and asked us to post his cards for him after he'd left. I really didn't mean to, honest, but whilst sticking on the stamps my eyes just wandered a cm or two to the left. And I barely recognised myself or my home from his descriptions. It changed our relationship entirely and we welcomed him with open arms on his next visit. Question: perhaps that was his intention??? M
Lack of water in Lot
in Gardening
Posted
I came across Di's phrase recently, apparently a London headmistress is advising her children the same.
Re saving water, a couple of tips. We always water house plants with dregs from tea cups or the pot, every little bit helps and I don't think the tea harms, may help even. And when in the Lot recently, I never threw the washing up water down the drain, I used it instead to water the plants on the terrace. Don't see them so often nowadays but those huge water catching barrels that everyone in the country used to have would surely come into their own now we suffer global warming?
Finally, in extremis, should water ever be rationed, employ an old trick that we use when camping in the desert. Ever wondered how much water you use during the day just washing your hands? And how much more washing up cups and saucers, breakfast things, lunch plates? Rather a lot. So start the day with one bowl of water in bathroom and another in the kitchen sink and just use these. If you have greasy plates, scrape them clean with a piece of kitchen roll before scrubbing. At the end of the day, throw contents of bowls on the shrubbery. It may perhaps all sound quite disgusting but it does save precious water. M