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This is a collection of meanderings about life in France and urban Belgium, over the last twenty three odd years, observed and commented on in my own, rather irreverent way.

My idea of heaven is to rummage through the byways of French culture, places and people, peeping down alleyways, following scents or lifting stones and even skirts to see what lies beneath. In no particular order, nor hurry, nor, I hope, with any agenda; just a butterfly in the garden of French life and history.

For a while I chundered round in a mobile home but found that most of the time was spent wracking up huge mileages without really doing any nosing beyond a few fotos, and anyway, it was an excuse not to try and stay still.

Every person who settles or tries to settle in France has a different reaction to, the place depending on their character and mood, I suppose, where they settle, whether they have a young family, or if they are retirees or here to work and whether they speak French or not. A friend who lives down a litter strewn passage in a gritty southern town tells me that his reaction and experience of France is very different from mine.

Some see Her (remember that the national emblem of France, representing the State and its values is Marianne, modelled over the years by such ladies as Bridget Bardot and Catherine Deneuve) as the Promised Land, others as an escape from the homeland, and still others as a right pain.

Some people hate the place and flee at the earliest opportunity or hide inside an expatriate community, not learning to speak French, shouting at the locals as if they will understand English better that way and becoming avid Daily Mail readers.

If you want to have a bit of fun, go onto a forum about France or approach a group of Brits and ask them whether they are expatriates or immigrants; few will accept the label “immigrant” because of an unwillingness to equate themselves with the generally Third World people who come to Europe and the YewKay(sic) to seek a new life.

Some expats seem to spend their time praising the innocuous trivia, such as the price of wine and decrying the availability of French plumbers, others try with varying degrees of success to become part of the community and disappear.

To many, it is a place to retire, where the climate is mainly good, in the south at least, though with surprisingly cold and wet periods and where they can eke out their pensions in genteel but declining comfort. Others get trapped here when the dream goes sour, property prices tumble and they cannot afford to return to Blighty. (How I hate that word!)

So often, one hears the word ‘integrate’ used by expatriates as some kind of Holy Grail, and some are very disappointed that they never achieve it. Remember the French expression ‘avoir garder les cochons ensemble’ – have looked after the pigs together, meaning to have shared life’s experiences from youth upwards. To achieve this in the small rural communities in which many expats settle one would have to have been there since birth, or almost. If you are a Parisian, it can never happen!

And of course, there is the question of family ties. Rural France is, and has been, notionally at any rate, a secular society since the French Revolution, but in fact retains many Catholic values – perhaps catholic better describes it, summed up by the Petainist slogan Travail, Patrie, Famille, which are both a strength and a weakness, but which make it very difficult for others to penetrate and integrate.

Long term French incomers from other parts of France who have been living near by for 30 years and raised families tell me that they have never truly felt accepted and are often referred to by a noun referring to their origins, such as La Normande, for someone who came from Normandy, la Bretonne, for someone who came from Brittany, Les Parisians or even les Anglais or perhaps Les Anglois (which refers to the language but which has a pejorative undertone).

I am far from having the rose tinted spectacles or the mouths open with awe of a goodly number of visitors or expatriates. Indeed, France sometimes makes me wanna scream when she is at her obtuse worst – when for example some bad tempered fonctionnaire (public servant) will not admit their mistake, even when shown a copy of the rules, or insists on an expensive translation of your grandmother’s birth certificate to prove your right to a shoe lace allowance.

And She makes me wanna cry when I find that my elderly, diabetic, peasant neighbour has stacked ten staires of logs after they were delivered when I was away because someone might have pinched them and will accept no payment for his pains, though I did later manage to slip him a decent bottle of single malt which he was not allowed but loved and hid in the barn in case his wife saw it.

But on a beautiful spring day, miles from anywhere, when I stumble into some obscure little village and a local person, unasked, takes an hour to show me where the battles were fought, where the wool market was when it was a big and prosperous place, and where the church is with the painted murals, then I love Her all over again. Or when an old lady picking enormous hydrangeas insists on thrusting a huge bunch into my arms.
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LOL Mine would probably be the Perils of Idun, things happen to me that really should not, as I have been telling mint recently!

And yes, Wooly's lovely post has made me think about when I moved to France. I did write quite a bit last night, but then changed my mind about posting. 

Trouble on here is that my first posts led to a bit of a nightmare, which also, has not happened to anyone else, that it made me very cautious about what I say on the internet.

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Woolly,

You have certainly described some of my experiences too, from tourist, to resident, to ?????

What I think is clear from posts on here, plus how life here has gone .. is that all life experiences are useful, but that we should never assume that what happened in the past will happen in the future.  Brexit alone should tell us that.

And I do think that however we move on, it is no sin to decide that no matter how much you "enjoy" whatever your life in France has been, when it is time to move on, back to the UK or whatever, we should accept that life changes constantly.  Our experience alone should tell us that each to their own, but strangely it does not seem to work like that. 

I too would love to hear more, when you feel the inspiration come on you, Woolly!

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[quote user="idun"]LOL Mine would probably be the Perils of Idun, things happen to me that really should not, as I have been telling mint recently![/quote]
You know you've reached the point where you might need spectacles when you read the above as the Penis of Idun...

...and then you wonder about your impression of Idun because initially, you dwell more on how you've always thought Idun was female rather than the likelihood of such a phrase appearing on CF anyway.

[blink]

But apart from that, great post Woolly.

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Same wooly, sid, different name. The dreaded forum software wouldnt let me back in after I had to have a clear out of the rubbish on the ipad which was beginning to stagger. So, despite the best efforts of Hoddy to help it seemed better to tap the name of another family member and start again.

My sister, Randywoolybanana offered herself but given her reputation I felt it better she was not involved!
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