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riff_raff

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Everything posted by riff_raff

  1. The move is on!!!!  Contracts were exchanged today!![:D][:-))]
  2. Hi everyone, its been a while since our last post but there has been progress[:)]  As I mentioned before we have sold our house on the first day on the market[:-))] I have to confess it has been a very stressful time as we sold our house straight away and everything has been smooth sailing but....Mr Raff had to endure 43 viewings to his house before he finally got an offer last week[:D] To say we are thrilled is an understatement.  We have all been worried as we complete our sale on the 27th April and have nowhere to live for a week until the rental house is ready on the 7th May!!  So we are spending a week in our tourer caravan in the sunny climes of Chichester for a week!!!! Thewn moving into the rental on the 7th.  It has been stressful all round as we are thinking 'what if they can't sell???' They have been thinking Oh my god what if we can't sell???' With our house sold and us paying somebody elses mortgage with our rent is not my idea of fun....but....it has all turned out well and as from next week we will be in a postition to seriously look and posibly buy a lake.  I am in the process of packing up our house while Mr Riff is fishing a competition!  Oh yes and BTW they didn't have any luck in the British Carp Championships so don't worry about watching sky sport fishing!!!!!!!!!!!Mr Riff's french lessons are coming along great and soon the kids are to have them too.  Me??  Well, I am last in line but I am fine  with that as I am happy to learn later and hopefully off the rest of the famiily too.  I'm sure Mr Riff will update you all soon on any other developments.  I cannot wait now I am so excited and am totally prepared for the culture shock and homesickness that I may experience.
  3. You are not wrong about the price of tackle nower days, im having rods built at the mo and they are costing some 425 each to be hand made. You have Crown Derby left ?  he must have only just started on ther very expensive sport carp fishing is lol [;-)] Oh wish us luck as Mr Riff and Mr Raff are in the British Champs next month so if your very very lucky and we get through this round you can all oggle us on Sky Sports lol now that will be a treat for you hehehehehe Mr Riff
  4. well Mrs Riff moi petit chickadeeeeeee [:P]   now i think my spelling was correct on that occassion ( others im sure its not hehehe) Hello all, im sure id make a cracking ambassador for forum conflicts lol..... Thanks all for your comments, even the neg ones but thats life [:P]    Kathy the distance was a problem if that was to be the region and the cost was also a problem as it was wasted money, if there was a fishery there then no it wouldnt have been  for obvisous reasons. i have fished in France for some 20 years and have traveled north south east west and for a lot more than the milage i covered that day. Horses for coarses really. Im glad soem of you enjoy my posting and we will endever to keep you all up to date with the ups and downs of are mission.[:D] It really is fun believe it or not. Regards ALL Mr Riff  
  5. Hi, this is Mrs Riff now as Mr Riff doesn't seem to explain himself very well[:)] I understand what you are all saying in reply to Riff's posts but the fact is that he was in touch with this 'seller', agent  or whatever you want to call him for a couple of weeks before hand.  They had spoken on the phone on numerous occasions and the photos sent of the lakes were fantastic, although no one could estimate the actual size of the lakes from the pictures...we just had to take his word for it!! To drive 500 miles at a cost of £100 in diesel (sp?) to view the lakes I can fully understand why they were upset about the agent fabricating the sizes.  Never mind it is all in the past now and we are expecting to have quite a few fruitless trips in the future, but will avoid this 'agent' like the plague[:P] Like Riff mentioned they met some great french guys at the fishing lake that belongs to a friend that they all happend to be fishing overnight and have swapped email addy's and are in touch by email.  They are also going to keep their eyes open for us too as they are carp addicts as well. The lawyer mentioned is a lawyer in Portsmouth who is a Frenchman and specialises in French law.  He was brilliant and I think we have all the inheritance issues covered now too.  This lawyer works in a huge firm of solicitors in Portsmouth, so that is very handy for us too.  We will not be put off moving to France, ever.  Like we mentioned before we are not out to make our fortune just to have a peaceful life and more importantly enjoy life with the children in far better surroundings than we could ever hope to find in the UK. As long as we can pay our bills, food and clothes we will be happy.  BTW Riff's French is comiong along great he's having two lessons a week and is making real progress.  Myself and the children will be learning at a later date as we cannot afford for us all to have lessons at the moment. Riff is teaching us what he is learning as he goes along.  Also let me also stress that he can speak better french than he can spell it!!!!!!!!!!! Bonsoir??????????????[Www]
  6. Hello and bonsoir my friends, [:D] Firstly Will, the "English" guy that affiliated to the agents had told me on a number of times that the lake was infact over 9 acres in size and as he said he was a professionel then im sure even a new guy to the profession should have some idea as to the rough size of said acreage ? 9-10 acres   and then turns out to be at a push 4 is completely wrong and unprofessional.  You say i should change my atitude...... if you look at the post it was made in a very light hearted way and no im not going to justifie myself to you or anyone as i was not in a million years going to leave hundreds of pounds of fishing tackle behind a bush to take a guy back that had obviously tried to joop us already ! what chances do you recon there would have been if we had left our gear there being there when we got back ? I am very well aware that we will have loads of disapointments and ups and downs fully prepared my friend but im also very aware of people that will try to pull the wool and this i will not tolerate. This guy was not only the agent but he was infact the owner of this lake and land so he should have known exactly what he was selling before we spent all that money on a wasted trip that cost alot of money. Please dont forget i did tow him out of the place and also got him and his car out onto the road free of charge, or should i have charged him or left him in the ditch where he had broken down. My atitude is perfectly ok and im sure i should have worded it more ummmmmmm   correctly lol but hey im just Mr Riff [:D] Kind Regards to all. Mr Riff
  7. I really dont know . Mr Riff. p.s maybe they didnt like the wine     [:D]
  8. Hi all, came back with LD Lines last week and to be honest i hope i dont have to travel with them again! Firstly when we wanted to cash money we went to the information desk to ask where we could do this and the guy pointed over to his collegue at the cash desk, she looked over and as we approached she pulled down the shutter and said" sorry we are closed" then promptly sat behind the desk reading a book! Secondly we encountered the cxxx food !  we were horrified to find out how much they charge you for food! 2 x men, 2 x sausage and mash a can of sprite each.  Price ?    £18.00!!!!!!!!!!   i told them i was disgusted at that price and then sat down to eat it! to find out that the mash wasnt even good old spuds but infact cold instant potatoe out of a packet! cold and disgusting. I will from now on pay more instead of putting up with that!. Moan over :O) Mr Riff
  9. Hello all, its me again lol   Well just an update.   French lessions coming along nicely :O) House is sold just need friends to get rid of theres :OP I have been to France for 4 days last week looking at lakes ! and the "ENGLISH"  agent was a complete shark and was dealt with accordingly ( will tell you more in a mo :OP) Have made some very usefull contacts so fingers crossed all will go well. Have spoken to a solictor and have alot more knowledge of what we can do and its all good news :O) Now back to that twurp we dealt with in Brittany! We spoke to the guy on the phone in England and arranged for a cd with pictures on it to be sent, he did this and told us the biggest lake was 10 acres mininum. Ok we thought and arranged to go over, me and Mr Raff, spent a fortune getting over there and then the drive! but arrived at the meeting place. Took us to the lake down an old muddy track! didnt worry me as i took the 4x4 but he had a fiat lol and after showing us a complete waste of time lake that was at biggest 4 acres we promptly went to leave but dom dom dom..........he broke down lol I had to tow him out ! get him out of the track and onto the road! then he had the bloody cheek to ask us to empty my car and take them back to the villiage ! the polite reply was given. Nope walk ! This hasnt put us off at all just the opposite really. After this we travelled up to my m8 complex in Normandie and had 2 days enjoyable fishing with French and Belguin anglers....bliss. Hope your all well Mr Riff
  10. Thanks again all we really appreciate your kind help. Mr Riff p.s   pm Rusheslake [:)]
  11. We too saw 'no going back' regarding the fishing lake.  That was years ago now wasn't it?  We are expecting it to be hard and realisewe need alot of money behind us to support ourselves.  We are prepared to make do and go without and work extremely hard in the hope that ths will end up as a successful crusade for us.  We have roughly budgeted out what we need and the next stage rearding this will be to take it to a financial expert for advice as to whether we are being realistic, over generous or cutting ourselves short!! This venture is going to be a business yes.  I think it may be ideal if us wives and kids stay in the UK until all the details like permits, night fishing and all the other nitty gritty bits that are required are fully in place.  Then we can save money on feeding the families over here using our family allowance and whatever as when we go to France I know we will be loosing that income eventually.
  12. Thanks for your replies.  Do you know maybe I should start a diary of this from the very first conversation of moving to France to the actual thing.  Wouldn't that make great reading one day when we are all settled and have forgotten how hard it was from the begining.  I have just announced to my neighbours who asked us where we are moving to this morning.  They were so shocked but said yeah, go for it and good luck.  I thought that was really nice as I was expecting..you are mad!! Lol. Everyone I have spoken to agrees that France is a beautiful country (which we already know) and that if its peace and tranquility you are looking for, rural France is the place to be. I pray to god we get everything right and that it all works out for us because if we fail....we have a long way to fall!!! The reason I and Mrs Raff are so up for this is because we are married to fishermen and have also been fishing in France with them on a number of occasions.  I thoroughly enjoyed it even if I don't fish myself, but absolutely adore the countryside.  I can't wait to see the back of Southampton airport on my doorstep!!!!
  13. No their house hasn't sold yet[:(] Lots of viewings but no offers as yet. Hope it won't be too long before it sells though.  We are going into rented accomodation (for the 1st time in our lives!!) until the French side is sorted and then we will all move over together.
  14. I have never heard of those 'rules' mentioned...will have to check that one out.  Whoooooo, we sold our house today[:D][:D][:D] I thought it would take ages....seems the market is moving very fast, it wasn't even properly on the market, just a board outside cos we were still finishing some plastering in one of the rooms..amazing!! Very excited now[:D]
  15. The particular lake that we are waiting for pictures on we haven't seen yet no.  We are only going out to view it if from the pictures it is what we are looking for.  No this one isn't being run as a fishery at the moment as we want a lake to start from scratch with nobody elses's reputation following it (good or bad).  We are still checking out other lakes and are not pinning all our hopes on this particular one we are waiting for the photos of, although it would be ideal if it was the right one as it is in the right area for us in Normandy and is not too far from the port for the influx of English fishermen[:D] We are keeping an open mind and nothing is being ruled out at this stage of our search. Hope this clarifies things [:)]
  16. Hi thanks for the link, no I hadn't seen lake before.  The one we are hoping for is not on the market.  It is a friend of a friend who is selling it, who happened to mention that he was selling his lake and land the day after we had told the friend we were looking for a lake in France!!  We should have all the pictures by wednesday this week.  It is quite exciting here, the for sale board went up today and our first viewer turned up 5 mins later[:D] he seemed impressed with the house and is being his kids round for their opinion on it.  He's a first time buyer too and we are going into rented accomodation once the house is sold so it doesn't hold anything up if the lake is what we are looking for.  Also Mr Raff's family are doing the same so we will have the cash readily available if its the right lake for us.  I will have to check out the rights for a caravan on the land when we move.  The land and lake we are interested in also has a big double garage so it may be possible to put it in there if we are not allowed to park it on the land. 
  17. What you are saying Katie is exactly true.  It is something us two women have been talking about this week in fact regarding a kitchen!!  The lake we are interested in and are waiting for pictures on actually has two chalets in the grounds, each has two bedrooms and a bathroom.  Not ideal I know which is why our faithful caravan is coming too.  We all want this venture so much that we are prepared to stick it our together until the time is right.  I don't think the men would consider renting.  No doubt Mr Riff will reply to you tonight[:)]
  18. Oh god I will have to give Mr Riff a kick when he gets in from work for the way he has worded his posts and given everybody the wrong idea about sharing a house!! [:$]
  19. [:D]Mr Riff's wording does leave alot to be desired doesn't it lol.  We will in fact have quite a large sum left over.  Their house is worth £20K more than they thought and ours is worth £10K more than we estimated[:D] That was a nice surprise I can tell you. Just in case anyone is thinking this is a bit of a weird set up....we do not intend to live in the same house for the rest of our lives!!! This will be a temporary set up while we concentrate on the business.  We are taking our four berth caravan with us too  I have a feeling this is going to be a valuable piece of equipment to get some peace and quiet!!  Luckily Mr Raff is a builder and we hope to build houses in the future, which is why we have to be sure we won't be buying a red herring that you can never build on or whatsnot!! The advice given so far has been amazing and has certainly put us on the right track alot sooner than we might have found it had we not stumbled on this forum. thanks everyone.
  20. Hi everyone, thank you for all your replies...this is Mrs Riff here now As my husband doesn't explain himself very well I thought I would write a few lines  With regards to 'A better life'....what we mean by that is away from the built up towns, which is where we live now, more than 10 minute walk away from the airport!! Which is where we live now, more fresh air, with less cars as it will be a rural area we plan to move to. We all intend to learn the language and my 11year old son is prepared to redo year 7 when we move so he can concerntrate on learning the French language.  We will be without a doubt hiring a tutor or two to teach us all. We all love France and the French people, hopefully they will like us too!!  (we are not really riff raff) A fishing lake has always been our dream, we are not expecting to end up mega rich or anything and will be happy with enough business to feed and cloth ourselves.  Basically 'A better life' to us means, peace and quiet, countryside, nature, being happy and enjoying our lives.  The children are all very excited about moving and talk about it non stop.  Both our properties are now on the market and we are currently seeking advice on the whole moving process with a legal expert that specialises in french law.  We have to do this exactly right and strictly by the book as we want no unexpected nasty surprises that could have been avoided.  We do intend to make this our permanent home and do not intend to move back to the UK.  We will also be seeking legal advice on the subject already mentioned on the board of what is one of us dies or wants to move back or whatever.  Also the inheritance issue will have to be sorted out properly too, we are also currently seeking advice on these issues too.  Thank you all so much for raising points for us to discuss and get rectified before any problems begin.
  21. Hi Kathy, im going to live to regret posting on here i can see it already.[8-)] The reason i said that comment was because at the moment we both work very hard and to be honest have had enough of working for other people, the job we want to do is one we are both very very passioate about and believe we have something to offer, we both have friends that have tryed this before and failed but we think we know why. (we hope)  Also the schooling here changes and at the moment children are not taught languages like they used too, i think they need to be biligual to achive maximum potentual in the future,in our area if your child is one grade below what they think is necessary they wont even teach them a language, or the chance anyway,  the area we live has also changed and not for the better! its gone downhill fast. Yes im sure France has this too and again thats why we are asking questions, surely asking is better than going blindly into the abiss and not knowing a thing. Regards Mr Riff p.s   thanks again Dick, posted at same time..... believe me we are not taking things lightly at all, we are all the time looking on the darkside of things but you can only ask the same questions so many times to each other and thats is why we have come on here. Sorry if we have upset anyone its not our intention.
  22. Thank you Dick for your comments and we take them onboard as people views are a valuable source of info that we dont have to much of at the moment. I have had friends that have lived there for a few years and have heard some right horror stories, ones i hope wont happen to us, but im sure there is a workable way to a positive move there. Im sure there are some plenty of minuses and we want to hear them but surely there are pluses as well? Thanks. Mr Riff [:)]  
  23. No we dont know it all that is why we have posted on here! If there are bad points then please feel free to let us know, as this is why we have asked questions in the first place. There are good and bad in which ever life we all lead that goes without saying, but we all have chioces that only we can make. If you are only posting on my thread to pick me up on nitty gritty points, id rather others gave me advice thanks. We are just normal people asking normal questions and not here to be got at thanks. Mr Riff [:(]
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