Rob G

In a similar vein, I am always amazed to find English language adverts or websites belonging to large, reputable French companies, where the English is awful. You would think companies of this size would pay to get a decent translation done. Rob

I also would recomment Maupassant's short stories. There's a good collection under the name of "Boule de Suif" (actually the title of one of the stories it contains). If you want to develop some familiarity with day-to-day French whilst having a gentle laugh at the same time, why not read some children's books? I would heartily recommend any of the "Petit Nicolas" books by Jean-Jacques Sempé, which are more or less considered modern classics. In a similar vein are the "Les contes du chat perché" books by Marcel Aymé. You'll find either of these series by going on amazon.fr and sticking one of the titles in. They are delightfully well written, the French is high quality without being difficult, and being children's books they are quite conversational in style. They also have a charming quality of innocence and playfulness about them. I dig them out and re-read them every few years. In a slightly different category is an author named Remo Forlani. These are not written for children, but are definitely in the "lighter reading" category and I found them quite charming as well. The three that I've read are called "Valentin tout seul", "Tous les chats ne sont pas en peluche" and "Papa est parti, maman aussi". Rob

A couple of slightly incidental points. Whether the compromis de vente has been drawn up by an estate agent or a notaire is immaterial. In either case, it is a legally binding document once it has been signed by both parties to the transaction. When we bought our house, it was the agent who drew it up and the notaire's involvement only begain later. (In fact, on the compromis we had to specify which notaire we wanted to use.) The compromis usually (though not necessarily always) states that if either party pulls out after the seven day cooling-off period, for any reason other than those laid down in the "clauses suspensives" (so-called "get-out clauses"), the recalcitrant party must pay a predetermined amount - usually 10% of the purchase price - to the other party. Practice seems to vary widely as to when/whether this 10% is actually ever paid. In our case, we never had to pay a penny until we completed the purchase. But that didn't change the fact that if we had pulled out for no good reason, we would have owed the vendors 10%, for which they could have pursued us through the courts. Finally, in our case the amount of the notaire's fees was stated on the compromis - it was up to us to contact the notaire and find out what the fees would be. These were paid by us on the day that we completed the house purchase. Imagine our surprise last week, some three months after completion, when along with copies of the signed sales contract and deeds of the house, we received a refund from the notaire of over 500 euros! Rob

Indeed, the French like to find all kinds of ways of wishing you "bon X", where X can be a whole range of things. One of my favourites is when you receive an e-mail which says "bonne reception". (Before any pedants point out that I've misspelt this by missing out the accent, it's because I'm using Mrs G's laptop with English keyboard!) Rob

Hello Bob's other half (sorry, I don't know your name!), You qre more or less right that you will be entitled to "exoneration" of the first year's social charges. This is true of new start-ups where the owner is either in receipt of unemployment benefits, or failing that, they have been registered as unemployed for at least six months. I think you will find that there are still some first year charges you have to pay - tax (although should be mininal if you register as a "micro-entreprise"), and one or two other bits like a contribution to national debt repayment etc. Shouldn't be much though. I thought about going down the whole chamber of commerce route, but as I'm looking at going into what is termed "les professions liberales", my first point of contact was the local URSSAF office, who were very helpful and informative. The CCI offer a five-day course in starting a running a business, but I think this may be a bit overkill for me. (I think most CCIs run the same course - it's called "5 jours pour entreprendre" and where we live it costs 150 euros.) Anyway, unfortunately I can't avoid the first year charges unless I wait until I've been registered unemployed for six months - this would be July. I can't afford to wait that long, so I think we'll be taking the plunge sooner rather than later, charges and all! Having spent about two whole days last week reading through various web sites about social charges and the different "regimes", my head was virtually spinning at the end of it.....but hopefully I will soon become an expert in the field! By the way, given that you can't exercise your desired profession in France without re-qualifying, what line of business are you going to go into? Let us know how you get on. Rob

Sorry if I'm missing something here, but the wholoe point of having a French keyboard is that in most cases you don't have to do awkward operations like holding down Alt while keying in numbers. If you have an AZERT keyboard, they way to get a circumflex (^) over any letter is simply to key the circumflex first (nothing will appear on the screen), then key the letter. So to get an "ê", simply key "^" followed by "e". Rob

I heartily agree with Daryl. I have tried various different commercial AV programs for home use, all of which have caused different kinds of problems. Norton was the worst by far, and made the whole system unstable. AVG Free edition is stable, updates itself daily, and for the last 18 months has kept me virus-free. There are some other basic rules to follow too. I recommend SpywareBlaster, which runs in the background and detects anything nasty trying to download and install itself, and also Spybot Seek and Destroy, which I run at least monthly to check my hard drives for nasties. All of these are free. Also a very obvious point - be careful when on the Internet! Far too many people click "OK" to anything and everything that pops up. DO NOT click OK on anything unless you're absolutely sure what it is and what it will do to your PC. Final recommendation - get rid of Microsoft Internet Explorer and use Mozilla Firefox instead. It's free as well, has some great features that IE doesn't have, and is widely thought to be much more secure than IE (i.e. it doesn't clandestinely allow things to download and run without even asking you, as IE has been known to do.) If anyone wants any web addresses for any of these freebies, let me know. Rob

Interesting, Christine, your comment about "bonne journée" etc. perhaps coming from the states. I notice a difference though - often when Americans say "have a nice day" they say it in an automated way which lacks any sincerity. Certainly where we are, when someone says "bonne journée" they usually seem to say it with some feeling so you actually feel that they really do want you to have a good day. One thing that I still haven't quite got my head around is this: how late in the day is it still valid to say "bonne journée"? I've been wished this well into the afternoon! On a similar note, at what time would you start saying "bonsoir" instead of "bonjour"? And until what point in the evening would you wish someone "bonne soirée"? And how late does it have to be before you can say "bonne nuit"? Rob

We arrived in France end Nov, phoned the CAF early in December, they sent out a form which we returned along with the confirmation from the UK that we were no longer receiving child benefit. We received the first allocation familiaie payment in early January. Much to our surprise, the system seems to have been remarkably efficient! Rob

Definitely a mistake by the Rough Guide. It always surprises me when supposedly well-researched publications like this make such gaffes. It's a bit like when serious commercial companies in France decide they want to advertise in English or have an English website, but they don't bother to get it properly translates so it ends up looking like schoolboy English at best. Why don't they do thier homework properly, and/or pay to get a proper translation done? Anyway, to come back to our onions (sic), "ça a été" has been in use as a colloquial expression for a very long time. It's one of those things that you won't find in any dictionary, and as already answered above, is roughly translated (depending on context) as "Was that OK?" or "Was everything alright?" Rob

We live just outside Le Havre, so have a close interest in LD Lines. They are certainly getting their act together in terms of pricing. Hopefully they have realised that with spring coming there are going to be lots of custo,ers to fight for. My sister has just booked to come over with her family for five days at the end of May - car plus four passengers bang in the middle of UK school holidays, total cost £43. Can't really complain at that. Rob

Hi Tim, Thanks for your post and your useful insights. I have the benefit of speaking fluent French, but I certainly understand how daunting the language barrier makes the whole thing for many people. On the whole, since I spent a year in France 13 years ago, I see noticeably less bureaucracy and pointless hoops to jump through than I did back then (I'm talking about in general, not specifically in relation to registering a business). We went down to the URSSAF office the other day and spoke to a very helpful chap who gave us lots of info and explanations about the process of registering, the different bodies we would have to pay cotisations to, etc. I'm going to start going through it all in detail tomorrow. Clearly the big question for anyone contemplating starting up in business is what if I don't make any/enough money? This is where the question of yr 1 social charges comes in. I'm interested in your comment that you can reduce these right down to about 1,000 euros - are you referring to the year 1 "exoneration" whereby new businesses can defer their payments and then pay them over the following five years, or is this something else you're talking about? I'd be very grateful for any more specific information you can provide. Thanks again, Rob

Hi Graham, Thanks for your encouragement. You have summed up my philosophy entirely. By the way, I had a look at your website - it looks fantastic. As an ex-marketeer in the UK, I think you've done a really good job. And what a great business to be in..... Rob

I didn't go into details in my post, as I was looking for someone who might be able to give general advice along the way, rather than discussing all the details now. That's why I asked for anyone willing to help to send me a PM. I never said I was looking for it to be easy! I know enough about running a business, and enough about France, to know that this would be fantasy. What I was looking for is the approach that zeb and others have given - positive but tempered by realism. Anyway, thanks to those who have replied positively. I am looking into working on a freelance basis in one, some or all of the following areas: technical translation, building web sites (French and English), teaching English, and possibly one or two other areas as well. Rob

Yes, we have also noticed that LD seem to have put some extremely cheap prices on. My mother and a friend are coming over in April for 6 days with a car; they have booked the whole thing including a cabin on the outbound leg for £100. Not as cheap as the prices you quote, but pretty reasonable, and certainly a lot less than they were previously charging. I can see two possible reasons why LD might be doing this now: (1) They've realised they're not getting enough passengers and are reducing their prices as a knee-jerk reaction. (2) A more likely scenario.....LD have done no real marketing of their service yet, and have been concentrating on getting the freight side up and running. We were down at the port the other day taking a friend back to the ferry, and there certainly was a good amount of freight being loaded on. Now that spring is coming (allegedly! - we had snow yesterday), they've decided it's time to be more proactive about building up the passenger side, hence the much more competitive prices. I wouldn't be surprised if they start doing some more active marketing now. Living just outside Le Havre, we were relieved when LD took the route on, and are keeping a close eye on developments. My hope is that they will at the very least keep running it with reasonable prices, and preferably that they will put a second ship on, at least during peak season. It's a pain having to do the overnight crossing from the UK, and equally inconvenient arriving in Portsmouth at 10pm if you then have 2-3 hours drive, as we do. Rob

Slightly off topic, but this could be another example of the extraordinary shoddiness of household installations in France. Our house is 35 years old (not exactly ancient by anyone's standards), and the state of the electrics when we moved in was simply unbelievable. I got an electrician friend to come and replace the old-fashioned fuse board with a circuit breaker box; when he removed the old board, there was a tangled mass of interconnected wires. There were circuits where you removed both fuses and still got a live reading off the wires. It took him the best part of two days to work out what was what and put the new box in. Even now we have different circuits in the house which seem to be wired together for no apparent reason. It really needs completely rewiring, but that will have to wait... Rob

Though I can't tell you what you should do, I just wanted to add that we are asking ourselves the same question. We moved to France at the end of November, and for the first month or so used our heating pretty much as we had used it in the UK - i.e. it was on most of the time. When we checked the fuel level, we found that in one month we had used in excess of 400 litres - equating to about 235 euros. Needless to say, we were staggered. As the boiler looked pretty old, we decided to get it serviced. The heating engineer confirmed that the boiler was probably as old as the house - around 35 years - gave it a good clean out, and made a few changes to the settings. He also advised us that the central heating pump (which pumps the hot water round the radiators) was barely working - I took his advice and got it replaced. The service and the fitting of the new pump cost us about 400 euros all told. Since having this work done, we have managed to get our fuel usage down to about 60 litres a week on average. I put this partly down to increased efficiency - the radiators get hot a lot quicker now - and partly down to the fact that we try to limit the time the heating is on. I contacted GDF to ask about the cost etc. of converting to gas. They confirmed that it would cost about 3-400 euros for the to bring the gas supply to the limit of our property; we would then have to independently pay for a new boiler and for a heating engineer to fit it and bring the gas in from the edge of our property. I reckon 2-3000 euros minimum all told. GDF hqve subsequently sent a very comprehensive dossier which I hqven't yet had chance to look through. Despite searching, I have been unable to get a definitive answer to the question of whether it is cheaper to use gas than fuel, all other things being equal. For some reason, people who have oil heating seem to think it is wonderful and that gas is a lot more expensive; while those who have gas have the opposite view. I will be very interested to see whether anyone can give an objective response to this question. Rob

My post has evidently struck a chord.... We've just got back from a trip to Lidl, where we tend to bulk buy things like water, orange juice, coffee etc. (they also do a very nice Corbières at about 1€30 a bottle...) We noticed that even in Lidl, they have quite a large area given over to fresh fruit and veg. The question is, given all the comments above, who actually buys the stuff and eats it?! Rob

I can't really answer your question, other than to say that we moved here in November; our daughter - who was born in Nov 1997 - is in CE2, and is having to work quite hard to catch up on maths. They seem to be at a more advanced level than she was in her class in England, plus she has effectively gone up a year. They are expected to know all their tables and be able to do long multiplication and also quite complex addition and subtraction. Hasn't been a major problem, but we are needing to give her quite a bit of extra support at home. Our son is 11 (DOB Nov 1994) and is in CM2 (i.e. the year before starting collège). He seems top be way ahead of the rest of the class in maths, and most other areas apart from French. Not sure how much this helps.... Rob

I am resident in France (Haute-Normandie) and am thinking of setting up my own home-based business. I am well aware that setting up in France is no easy matter, and do not underestimate the impact of bureaucracy, social charges, tax etc. etc. There is no shortage of advice on this forum and elsewhere as to the dangers, the need to be realistic, how hard it is - all of which is good advice, but..... ...it needs to be balanced by positive and optimistic advice too. There must be someone out there who has "successfully" set up in business, manages to make a decent living (I know that's subjective) and is happy doing what they're doing. If you fit this description and would be happy to share some of your experience and advice with someone contemplating going the same way, please send me a PM. Thanks, Rob

We've been in France nearly three months now, and have had a few opportunities during this time to be invited to eat with french friends, and to invite French friends to our house for a meal. We have noticed that the French don't seem to go in for serving or eating portions of vegetables with their main course in the same way that we do. To illustrate: - Our first dinner party was ahen we invited a French family round for a traditional English Christmas meal - turkey and trimmings, crackers, Christmas pud, the lot. It was a great success and enjoyed by all, but afterwards we were left with several dishes of untouched vegetables (peas, sprouts, carrots etc.). At the time, we were somewhat bemused by this. - Subsequently we've been to a few French people's houses for dinner, and seem to have found the same phenomenon. Either they will serve for example roast chicken with just potatoes and no other vegetable, or they will serve some kind of casserole that contains vegetables as well as meat. We have yet to be served a meal with vegetables as an accompaniment. Interested to know whether anyone else has come across this, and/or knows where it comes from? Rob

In theory, one would think that a fireplace is made for having a fire, so the materials and construction should be able to stand the temperature. In reality, I suspect the only way you can be sure is to get a cheminée specialist to come and have a look. Will cost money of course, but the peace of mind may be worth it. Rob

Hi Will, Interesting to read your comments, especially regarding the company's satisfaction with the first three months of service. Here's what I've just picked up from the Le Havre CCI website: Après 2 mois d'exploitation de la ligne Transmanche, LD Lines se dit satisfait du trafic fret mais note une fréquentation médiocre en ce qui concerne les passagers. Living just outside Le Havre, the LD Lines service is the ideal way for us to get back to England. In fact, my wife and kids have just gone back to Dorset for five days (total LD Lines cost: 100 GBP). My only comment as regards them not being very happy with passenger numbers is that it's not all that surprising, given that they've done very little in the way of marketing. The biggest pain with LD is that they only offer one crossing per day in each direction. Perhaps it is because of this limitation that they've decided not to do further promotion at the moment. If they decide to charter a second ship (which is my fervent hope), they will be able to promote the service as a worthy competitor to Brittany Ferries. Rob

Hi chessfou, I used to watch TV5 in the UK. We moved to France in November and stopped paying our Sky subscription, and as TV5 is not included in the free-to-air channels, we don't get it any more. I have to say that I was impressed with the overall range and quality of programming on TV5; I used to get it years ago when we had cable for a while, and it was pretty awful back then. They've obviously got their act together and got a lot more resources now to be able to improve it as much as they have. I suspect I watched it for different reasons from you - it was mainly to keep up with "actualités" in France, rather than for world news or to practise my French. This being the case, I found the preponderance of news from Canada/Belgium etc. a little annoying, not to mention the game shows of which you speak. (Btw, I think the English version of "Des chiffres et des lettres" is "Countdown".) One thing I used to try to watch as often as possible was the evening news from France 2. It always amused me how at the end of the programme, the newsreader would say something like "thanks to all our overseas viewers" - very clever how they got this on the TV5 broadcast but not on the normal terrestrial F2 broadcast (at least I assume it wasn't - haven't actually watched the F2 evening news since arriving here!) Rob

Hi, We moved to France 2 and a half months ago. Here is a message from my 11-year-old son Joseph: Hello Roxy, I was scared as well before I moved to France. I was worried about losing all my friends in England, and also I was worried about what school would be like in France. I hardly knew any French when we moved here. I started school at the beginninf of January, so I've had about 6 weeks. I'm in a primary school, my year is called CM2, which is the last year of primary school. I first visited the school before Christmas with my Mum and Dad and sister (aged 8) - the headteacher was really nice and friendly and showed us round the school and introduced us to our classes. My teacher is called Monsieur Galipot. He is really nice. Nearly all the teachers can speak a bit of English so they can help you to understand what you need to do. In class, I do some work with the other children (like maths for example), and then some of the time if they are doing complicated stuff in French, I either go on the computer or I go through some French language worksheets with Monsieur Galipot or with another child. Monsieur Galipot is also giveing me and my sister some extra French lessons a couple of times each week. I was worried at first about making friends. There are about 350 kids in the school, and my sister and I are the only foreign kids. But in fact, all the other kids in my class thought it was really cool to have an English classmate. They all wanted to try out their English on me. I have quite a few mates now, and my sister has made lots of friends in her class too. Even though we don't speak much French yet, we can manage to play lots of games like tig or football etc. I have been able to keep in touch with lots of my friends in England by using MSN and also hotmail. If you don't have MSN yet it would be a very good idea to get it - my dad says broadband is cheaper in France than England as well. Hope that makes you feel a bit better. I am not near Cahors - we live in Montivilliers in Normandy (near Le Havre) - but if you have any questions please ask away! (Although I won't be able to reply for a few days as I'm going for my first visit back to England this afternoon and am coming back next Tuesday. We have two weeks holiday in February!) All the best, Joseph Grayson