Coco

Our petit licence was very easy to get and was in fact free! On a slightly different subject, but may be useful for Mike toknow too; I've just been chatting to the lady at our local tourist office about joining GdF.  We went through the list of compliances in order to do table d'hotes and I had everything covered except certificate d'insurance d'intoxication alimentaire, which I understand is insurance against food poisoning!  Miki, obviously it makes sense to have this but it's not something I had thought about before; is this compulsory for anyone doing table d'hotes or is it just a criteria of GdF?  Also, do you have a rough idea of how much it costs and do you just get it added on to the house insurance or is it a totally different policy?  Our plublic liability was just added to our house insurance and would this cover the food poisoning aspect, as there wasn't actually any mention of public liability in the GdF list, so would this be another way of covering it.  ie, if I have insurance d'intoxication aimentaire AND public liability am I just paying twice for the same cover?

Just been back to the UK and stocked up on "Pop-ins", little purple, lavendar scented bags, which are so much nicer for the ladies than nappy bags.  500 should last us a while! Nice to have a reminder for oneself too!  I have started buying some of the thicker loo paper recently - you tend to forgt that not everyone is on a fosse septique and therefore if it's in the supermarket it must be OK.  Must get back to wearing the hair shirt!!!

We have two French gays living just down the hill from us.  In our village of 170 inhabitants most are very macho farmers who have never lived anywhere else and think that a trip to Caen (50 kms) away is like visiting the other side of the world.  They do find the gay couple a novelty and take delight in nicknaming them Thierry and Thierette (both are called Thierry) and wondering just what exactly they do get up to.  One of my neighbours told me that "two men live in that house, one goes to work and the other one stays at home and makes the house nice ...... if you know what I mean".  But I have heard no spiteful or nasty comments about them, everyone just seems to find them a bit of a curiosity and would love the opportunity to meet them, but they do keep themselves very much to themselves.  Based on this reaction in a VERY rural and insular village, and what others in rural locations have already told you, I really don't think you will have any problems. Just one point on the Gite idea.  Six full months bookings per year is quite optimistic.  From our experience as a gite in Normandy during 2001 and 2002 (near to ports and getting all year round bookings) I think 4 to 5 months per gite is more realistic.

This same thread is running in Postbag but called "Trouble at the Top".  We came back on Monday in a Force 8 and there was no hesitation in sailing, just the Captain's announcement that the crossing "may not be too pleasant".  In fact it seemed to me a lot smoother (apart from a few big bumps) than the Cat crossing we made from Newhaven to Dieppe a few years ago.  The girl at the bar is still hanging on to the coffee machine in rough weather, as she was in the programme - same girl too! Shame Mr Stavis isn't still making every crossing with his customers - that would be a perk for the girls and increase his sales no end I'm sure! Having now tried them, and pleased to see that they sailed in weather that would most definitely have grounded the old hovercraft or indeed P&O's fastcraft to Cherbourg, I shall whenever possible use them in the future.  We got a great deal in December "Buy one get one free" for £50 return!!!  So we have a free ticket to use any time this year except July and August.  

Scrummy Gay!  In fact not at all unlike the Captain who came out and met us yesterday on our Force 8 crossing - a very "nice young man". As for having a persecution complex - there were dirty tricks going on all the time when I worked for P&O on the world cruise in competition with the QE2 a few years back.  Anything to get the best berth at each port, so personally, I believe every word he said!!  It only makes me more determined to use Speedferries in future and I hope they get the good publicity that they deserve from this programme.  After all, many of us on this site signed Jonathan Miller's petition a couple of years ago and at last something concrete is happening.  I wish Curt all the good luck and success he deserves!

Well I'm glad Bill pointed out that LF is still a lot slower that TF.  IT IS!!!  I think I used to make about -50 posts a week on the old site and have only made about 50 since August (THANK GOD I can hear a lot of people sigh!!!) but the sole reason is the slowness of the site.  I look at tF because it's faster but can't be bothered to contribute because I still believe this to be the best site.  I long for the day we get a fifth computer in the village and we can therefore get broadband via satellite - until then, due to the slowness, I shall have to remain mainly an observer!!

Well readers of this particular forum from a couple of years ago will know how Miki, Quillan and I were spilling blood about B&B's.  However, those wounds have long since healed and I find myself agreeing more and more with Miki as time goes by. If we had not had a 20 year ambition to open a B&B I most certainly would not have attempted it when we moved to France two years ago, as we would have been joinging the world and his wife, however, we had to "give it a go".   We started with two rooms two summers ago and have done extremely well, although our local tourist office tells us that this is an area that wishes to develop it's B&B but not gite business!  This year we are hoping to create a third en-suite room which will also have the potential to be a family suite.  We are also going to make a private area for ourselves to live in, which after two years of sharing our living space with guests is, as Miki says, absolutely essential to preserve one's sanity.  After only two years I don't think I could continue without that privacy.  The hard work isn't a problem but the lack of privacy could become one!!! We are now experiencing a fair bit of repeat business and again, as Miki says, feel after our second season, a need to close for a good two to three months to recharge.  Last year we would have taken anyone at any time just to earn the money.  Following the 2004 season we need a recharge.  We are also on the verge of signing up with Gites de France, having resisted for a couple of years, but I really believe it will increase our start and end of season bookings considerably (as does the lady from our local tourist office!)  Although, this is something that can't be considered without a fairl good ability to speak French as 80% of GdF business is from the French market. A word of advice to anyone wishing to start up; there are considerable ongoing costs in the form of renewing bed and bath linen along with public area furnishings.  I have just returned  to France tonight from the UK having spent over £500 in really good sale deals on new towels, duvet covers, cushions, pillows etc.  And that's in addition to a few last year.  So remember to include those kind of costs in your budget! Finally, my sister-in-law came to stay at New Year and commented on how hard we both work now and that anyone in the UK who thought we had taken the easy option was much mistaken.  I'm glad she could see how hard we do have to work.  However, secretly I felt that no matter how hard it is, and for an ex-office worker it's B***** hard! but it's by far a preferable life to the daily grind of commuting into London!!  And these days I ALWAYS (expect for perhaps the end of September, after six months of smiling and being nice) have a grin on my face!!!

Having just returned back to France on their excellent service (buy one get one free for bookings made in December, therefore 2 crossings during 205 for £50!!!!) I shall also be interested to watch.

Pucette What do you mean by "don't forget to change your euro coins pronto"? Quillan More radar traps - ABSOLUTELY.  There's a new one on the N13 between Bayeux and Caen!!  My husband got caught on 30th December doing 76km/hr on a stretch of road that had dropped down from 110 to 90 to 70 in the space of about 200m.  The 70km/hr stretch was only about 150m long!  To slow down any quicker would have risked a rear-ender!!!  The margin for machine error is 1km/hr!!! We decided to pay the 45€ via the internet.  Got charged the full 68€ and it was within one day of receiving the fine.  I phoned the department and got told I could get the 23€ back by sending copies of my internet receipt and the original fine to the Tresorie in Rennes.  They don't make it easy!  You also have to pay the full 68€ if you pay by the automated phone system.

Emma I've just received the news about Clive from another source.  How terribly sad.  Clive and particularly Glynis, made such a fuss of our cat Kobi whenever we took him to them, it was the one place we never minded leaving him. Monty is absolutely mad as a hatter but completely adorable.  If it wasn't for Kobi I would offer myself, and I'm NOT a dog person.  Anyone reading these messages, he really is lovely.  PLEASE don't let him go to the SPA!!!  I'll ask around here in Manche to see if anyone can take him in - I would hate to think of him in a dog's home.  Oh, and to anyone that's interested - cats shouldn't be a problem, it's just that mine is old and grumpy.  Every time he went there Monty desperately tried to make friends!!!

[quote]Same sentiments as Will but from Brittany and I have got to wait until end of Feb until it happens ![/quote] Miki, does that mean you weren't at Kempton, or is it Sandown Park on Boxing Day?  I thought of you and was quite envious.  The only time of the year I wish I was in the UK rather than France is the week around Christmas Day!!!  Still, brother in law did bring us a wonderful carry-out from his local Indian in Bedford on the 29th - chicken dansak, chicken madras and a pile of Bombay duck! Happy New Year everyone! Going back next week for a bit of retail therapy in the John Lewis Sale!

I'll start by quoting Val: "The only people who can make the decision to move here are the posters themselves but not because of a whim or fashion but because they realise and understand it is a completely different way of life and they cannot change that however hard they try to and if you are anti-French from the start then it will never work anyway" If you are coming for the right reasons you're halfway there.  Too many people know nothing about France, it's culture, way of life or history and come purely because those STUPID programmes persuade them that they will find a house for tuppence ha'penny and will set up a successful gite business overnight. We had wanted to live in France for 20 years before we came here permanently two years ago.  We did live very close to London so to us everything is still cheaper, sometimes only marginally, sometimes HUGELY.  For example, in the UK we paid £960 a year council tax for a terraced cottage.  Here we have a three bedroom/3 bathroom farmhouse with outbuildings and pay 220€ for tax d'habitation AND foncieres! Only yesterday we sat down and worked out our costs and targets for our B&B over the next year, based on last year.  There are two of us, in our 40's, running one car, no mortgage and we believe that last year it cost us aout 1400€ per month to live.  That includes all taxes (except income tax), mutuelle, utilities, TV licence, diesel, car maintenance, food, wine, beer, wood, insurances and 100€ per month for miscellaneous costs.  What it didn't take into account was clothes, birthdays, holidays, eating out.  However, we do eat and drink VERY well and I'm sure we could easily knock 200€ per month off that bill by more frugal living - but what the hell! My husband's brother and sister in law came out for New Year and came to the conclusion that we have not taken "early retirement" as most of our friends in the UK seem to think, but in fact have a much harder physical life than we had before.  I have to agree with her (on the day of their arrival my husband had spent the whole day splitting logs down that were too big for the wood-burner) but it is still SO, so much better than spending 4-5 hours a day in traffic jams to make a round trip of only 60 miles!! As for going from nil French to fluency in a year.  Whoever said that this is only possible if you are 3 years old is correct.  Unless of course, you move in with a non-English speaking French family and have no contact with any other English speaking person!!!  It also depends on what you regard as fluent.  My French neighbours all say that I am.  However, as soon as they start joking with each other and speaking colloquially I am totally lost, so NO, I am nowhere near fluent, and I too had A level French when I arrrived. And beware, as another poster said, about picking up the local accent.  I have started to get a Norman accent, which one of my Parisian neighbours is now trying to knock out of me!  Back to square one again! It's not easy living in France, but it's heaps better than living in SE England.  If you really want to live in France - Persevere, despite the many hurdles, in is worth it.

We have to go over to the UK in early January to see my husband's mum who's ill.  At the moment Speedferries are offering their 2 for 1 offer.  If we buy before 31st December we pay £50 for one journey and get another (sailing on Tues, wed or thurs) any time during 2005 free.  That sounds great and suits us down to  the ground and I'm not even too worried about a sailing being delayed for up to 24 hours or so.  However, whilst I appreciate that none of the other companies will co-operate and accept Speedferries passengers being transferred onto their ferries (obviously too scarey competition!) do you totally lose the crossing or do you get a credit to use at some other time?

Going back to the original question - I cannot believe that either term can be exclusive to gites de France.  In our own experience our local tourist office refer to us as a chambre d'hote and refer to many other "holiday cottages" in the area as gites, even though they are not part of the GDF network.  Both terms are also defined in the Larousse English-French dictionary with no reference to trademarks or GDF and finally, I can understand that GDF may not "go after" every small business calling themselves a gite or chambres d'hote but if these truly were protected terms then I have no doubt they would by now have taken legal action against one of the biggest CDH websites called www.chambresdhotes.fr and another called www.chambresdhotes.nl but they haven't!

Going back to the original question - I cannot believe that either term can be exclusive to gites de France.  In our own experience our local tourist office refer to us as a chambre d'hote and refer to many other "holiday cottages" in the area as gites, even though they are not part of the GDF network.  Both terms are also defined in the Larousse English-French dictionary with no reference to trademarks or GDF and finally, I can understand that GDF may not "go after" every small business calling themselves a gite or chambres d'hote but if these truly were protected terms then I have no doubt they would by now have taken legal action against one of the biggest CDH websites called www.chambresdhotes.fr and another called www.chambresdhotes.nl but they haven't!

I agree with Bill on this one, in response to question 2.  Last year I fell foul of this with URSSAF.  I worked for my old company in the UK as a freelance from France.  URSSAF classed me as a subsidiary of the company, set me up with a siret number and I had all my own (employee) payments to make as well as employer contributions of 40% and Assedic (employer) contributions of 10%!  I had already taken an 11% increase in salary from my UK employer (equivalent to UK employer's contributions; I couldn't really charge him more than he was paying for me in the UK) but was quite shocked to discover just how much more I had to pay here.  Even with the 11% increase I was still left with 50% less salary than I would have received in the UK.

I heard that one too Gay  I also heard that there is a shortage of lard which will lead to a shortage of mince pies and Christmas Puds.  Don't quite follow that one; if the lard shortage is current it shouldn't affect Christmas Puds, which should have been made quite a while ago. As for out of date goods in France.  You don't need to pay a visit to a special shop, just don't pay attention to what you put in your trolley at any supermarket and half of it will be out of date by the time you get it home.  I gave up buying creme fraiche a few months ago because every pot was curdled.  Eggs HAVE to be checked, not just for broken ones ut to make sure that they are still in date. Yesterday I made a wonderful new find - Patak's Naan bread in the foreign food section - one more thing to knock off the UK shopping list from kind visitors!  It's that vacuum packed stuff that lasts for months and although it's new to our Champion shelves, when I got it home yesterday I discovered that it went out of date last Saturday.  Tasted fine to me but I wonder whether they bought it from an out of date shop in the first place!!

I have to say I back the other comments made here.  It really wouldn't be very professional to recommend somewhere else without knowing what it was like (you could jeopardise the way people judge your standards!)  I too have recommended others from this site but I have either visited them personally, or like Miki, have had guests who have stayed there and compare us both favourably.

Hi Jeffrey Does Villedieu come under Vallee de la Vire region of Manche?  I think it just about does.  In which case I can save you the time.  Our local tourist office are very keen for us to increase the number of rooms in our B&B and have told me there are grants of about 25-33% available for this purpose.  However, she emphasised the fact that these are (as far as she is aware, and she is quite switched on) only available in the vallee de la Vire area - for example, areas closer to the coast are not eligible.  And only B&Bs are eligible as she says that the area is already flooded with gites.  The work also has to be carried out by registered artisans - you can't do the work yourself and claim for materials etc. Hope this helps.

You're right there!!!  Here in Normandy we paid 300€ per day for a full-sized thing - nearly as big as our house!!!

Pamela When we moved to France nearly two years ago I was in exactly the same position as you.  I was going to continue with my UK job, laptop-based, from Normandy.  Unfortunately, I was too honest with the DSS and admitted that I was moving to France permanently, otherwise, I would have had the option that Will is suggesting for up to two years.  However, by being honest it meant that I had to be taxed in France, even though I was still working for a UK-based company, because I was living for more than 183 days a year in France.  I then discovered that because I was the only representative of the company in France I was regarded as the employer AS WELL AS the employee, which meant I was liable for both sets of cotisations (similar to NI) and employer's contributions are almost 40% here!!!!!  I ended up paying nearly 60% of my salary in cotisations (the only upside was that I did not therefore earn enough money to reach the tax threshold!).  Here is France, when I explained the situation to URSSAF, ie that I could not afford to live if I paid such high charges, they gave me two solutions - 1.  I was entitled to claim any French benefits I needed because I had paid into the system, or 2.  My employer in the UK would have to pay the 40% contributions.  Unfortunately, I knew that my employer would not be happy to accept these extra costs.  In the two scenarios you are proposing, I think you will find that for option one you will run into the same problems that I encountered.  You could possibly go with option two but make sure that the extra fees you charge the company will cover the extra contributions you will pay here. Needless to say, I no longer work for the UK company!

What an extremely interesting thread, and since this new format started, it's the first one that has extended past two pages that I have bothered to read all the way through. A lot of good advice has been given and (as far as the original article is concerned) a lot of sweeping generalisations! We don't have a gite, but did used to fall into the category of letting out our second home when we weren't staying in it.  We let at the going rate but it still really only covered the costs of our ferries for the year (although we did come 8 times a year), our taxe d'habitation and fonciere, our gardener and the couple who did our turnround for us. We now live in the house and do B&B.  I suppose because we don't have kids we did not give them a great deal of thought, and because we only have two rooms, knew that we needed all year round busines and not just June-August bookings.  We had also seen some friends go through lean years when the franc/pound exchange rates were unfavourable, so decided, like Miki, that we needed to promote our property to the European market.  This has paid dividends, as at least 50% of our very busy September/October customers have been from Belgium, Holland and France.  And last year (our first) probably 70% of our July/August trade was French - Brits weren't coming abroad because of the heatwave, buy boy did Parisians want to get our of the city a the weekends!   The other 50% of this autumn's visitors have been middle-aged Brits, not restricted to school holidays, who have waited for the ferry prices to come down after the ridiculous July/August rates of £500/£600 per car. One generalisation that I never wholly agree with, is that which says you can't make a living out of less than 3 gites or 5 B&B rooms.  Surely it depends on your level of charges, your competition, your own overheads, your own lifestyle, size of family, and overall your earnings expectations and willingness (or not) to work hard.  We have no mortgage, have never lived an extravagant lifestyle, have no children and have only two letting rooms.  We don't earn quite enough to make a living, but I do think that with one, or preferably two more rooms we would.  We would never get rich and we have to work hard; however, not as hard as we did in the UK and we prefer the work!  I am positive that if we had even one child then 4 rooms would be nowhere near enough.  We haven't even put up any roadside advertising yet, and I'm sure we would get a lot of business from that because a) our guests frequently tell us that they had difficulty finding accommodation in this area and b) our local tourist office are desparate to find more accommodation - although I do have to admit, they emphasise that they are looking for B&B accommodation and NOT gites.

I haven't seen the programme (we only have BBC) but whilst staying at a B&B near Saumur last year we met two couples who had just come from a chateau, I think in the Limousin, where they had been filming "No Going Back".  It was up and running last summer and these people said it was lovely, if a little expensive.  They also said that the woman was about to go back to London to film the first episode, ie packing up and leaving the UK, so it seems it's done a*** about face anyway.  Perhaps these people contact the TV rogramme makers once they're up and running to see if they've got a good enough story to tell and then some poetic licence is added to make it "interesting" for the viewer.  After all, can you really see the production companies starting from scratch with people and taking the chance that there are just the right amount of problems to make it interesting, but not so many that it is a total disaster.

We introduced my husband as Michael didn't want to try a French version because I've always thought Michel is too poofy but they all came back with Mick-ay-ell, which suits us perfectly, as he's usually called Mick or Michael, so it combines both perfectly. The girl's name I think sounds so much nicer in French is Audrey.  Always makes me think of Audrey Roberts from Corrie.  But Oh-drrray sounds so much softer and for some reason Audrey Hepburn then springs to mind - much prettier picture!

CJ has a kennels not too far from Caen, but I'm not sure if she's open at the moment as she's about to give birth.  Why not try sending her a private message.  You can usually find one of her postings in the pet section.