mandy

ooh dont get me started, english mastiffs forever, they are the (to me) without exception the most wonderful companion, known as the "aristiocratic guardian" BUT they are big often up to 20stone, they slobber on your ceilings, they nick your chair/sofa & bed space (all of it), give you bruising just by giving a cuddle (ive got a great black eye) they are quite formidable to look  at, but sooo cute if you take the time to look properly, but they are the most gentle of creatures around their smaller counterparts and children, please take time to have look at the breed, when we bought out first one 8 years ago after months of waiting lists we were told we would become addicted to the breed, 3 later dont really know what they were talking about!! Mastiff (not bull mastiffs, neopolitan, dogues de bourdoux, etc) are not a nasty  breed but they are guarders,( I do not know of one mastiff attack against a person), and i am  member of many groups etc where this kind of news is reported,  however many mastiff owners will tell tales that when their dogs have found an intruder in the house they dont attack, they just simply sit and keep them there!! until the owners return home and call the appropriate authorities. definately  a breed worth considering! any further info please do hesitate to ask

thankyou everyone for your replies, thankfully the positive posts have started to come in, i was feeling  little dispondent, and infact we had almost shelved the idea, i was beginning to think why people bothered to stay there, without going into too much detail our capital is in the region of 200k, i do have an nhs pension, and Tony does have the option to work in london, on a freelance basis, due to the massive regeneration of london for the olympics, im sure his income would far outweigh his expenditure travelling, even him being away 2 weeks a month is better than 4, mainly 7 days week, however we accept all the comments and realise the main points of concern are 1; the language, we do want to be able to communicate and mix with people, and 2; the legal implications ie tax, healthcare, hidden costs etc, I still do believe that we could buy a fairly nice home for about £100k with potential for future plans, (impossible in the uk) leaving us what i believe is a healthy balance, to start us off, etc, I understand that our reasons for choosing may not sit well with everyone, ie financial, and quality of life issues first, but i dont think we can be the only people who have made the move for these reasons then fell in love with place later, we will certainly be doing our homework, and will definately rent first, possibly coming over later in the year, and doing the winter (it cant get anyworse than that can it) then if we like it look to buying next year, if not we can always come back to england, nothing ventured nothing gained as they say! anyway thanks again to everyone, still welcome your comments good or bad,

hi thanks everyone, it would be our intention to learn french and sooner rather than later, however it still seems that its difficult to find work when reading posts, so in the meantime we were considering the feasibility of commuting on an ad hoc basis back to london to provide a fairy healthy income, which would cover our living expenses, we would not be looking for a derelict property as our main home, however as we both enjoy physical work and diy we would like some outbuildings that we can have as an ongoing project with the potential for running as gite, in the very distant future, but not provide our main income, tony is an industrial electrician and while he can do domestic work its not really his cup of tea, so i dont know whether he will ever be able to find work, I think the point i was trying to make is that we have found ourselves in a posistion that many retirees are in, ie financially, and we have considered our choices and feel we can either stay here and get a mortgage to buy a dream house, and slog our guts out for the next 20years to pay it then move, or take a chance and move to france now buy a lovely house without mortgage and still have money left over, i suppose we are capitilising on our equity from our home, to gain the quality of life now, rather than when we retire, giving us the time to establish ourselves within a comunity beforehand

Hi everyone, our names are mandy & tony, we are in a bit of an odd place at the moment, having just sold our house, and not finding anywhere we have left ourselves homeless, well actually all is not bad as i am moving into my mums and tony who works and stays in london can remain there until we have found somewhere,  (we have literally lived apart for 10yrs) always wanting to be optimistic we are going to use this opportunity to our advantage, as at 39 and 37 yrs (me being the oldest) we might not get an opportunity again in the near future, we have been looking for a house in the south of england where hubby might be able to commute daily however what is available for our budget is not really inspiring us ( the thought of a big mortgage terrifies me) and being able to commute is unlikely, due to traffic etc, we have considered building also but even land is so expensive now, so we started to consider france, we had thought about this in the past but to be honest i am a financial worrier and did not want to use our savings to buy a holiday home that we would could only visit a couple of times a year, due to having to work long hours to pay the mortgage back home, so are thinking is if we moved to france we could buy a house with the proceeds of our sale, still have a substantial amount left to get us started in our new life, and at least have the chance to live together, we would love to live the dream of having a couple of gites to renovate in our spare time, but would like our main house at least partially renovated, we would want to be amongst other ex pats but also want to be able to integrate into the french community and enjoy the way of life, we dont have children but we do have three mastiffs and a cat that would be coming with us, i am obviously concerned as how they would be received, also if things get financially desperate how easy would it be to commute to england to work, say for  couple of weeks every couple of months tony is an electrician and could earn a good wage for a weeks work, plus he likes to work and if he couldnt get work in france he would go stir crazy, At this point we have a very little undertsanding of the language, financial implications, areas, or anything else for that matter but are willing to learn, i have read about some intensive courses run by people on different matters, are these any good? have we left ourselves too little time for preparation? although we could stay here realistically until winter, would it be better to rent somewhere for a year and is this feasible with 38stone of dog (combined weight), any advice on getting started would be gratefully received, or even honest opinions on our reasons for the move, are we living in the clouds!, please be honest and thankyou in advance, will look forward to getting to know your community on the forum