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What does France have but the UK does not ?


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@ ET

I don't think I know anyone who was not born and bred in a town or city. They all come from rural villages but have moved for work. They are not 'townies'. I, like you was born and bred in the country.

In terms of the british moving rural in France, many are indeed townies who can't cope with le chasse and barking dogs and the other joys which why they get themselves into a mess. Me, these things don't bother me in the slightest.

Given the choice I would live rural. Not sure I would live rural France. Rural UK, in a heartbeat. Well, what is left of it.
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There is the myth that the UK is just a concrete jungle with a few bits of green when in reality just 2% of the land mass is built on, of course you've got forests and lakes but there are still hundreds of square miles of rural idyll to move to IF you've got the money.
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[quote user="BritinBretagne"]Britain has it all and her citizens have an inbuilt talent to have fun and to make the most of every opportunity.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5244239/new-years-eve-2018-boozy-brits/[/quote]

In the summer I had to leave the suburbs of Paris very early (3-4) in the morning to go home.

As I left all the kids/students where coming out of the clubs and what not.

The girls were dressed the same. Bit more classy maybe but they had the same amount of clothes on. The only difference was that they were not being chased by some pervy Sun or Daily mail photographer taking photos.

There was a report on French TV the other day that said 2 out 3 people (something like that) were expected to drink and drive this xmas/new year.

Draw your own conclusions Mr Brit.
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Plus, DB, the British are so damn possessive of their land and heaven help you if you so much as put a foot out of an official footpath whilst out walking.

There are fences, warning notices and certainly I guess that common land with easy access has to be diligently looked for.  Also, I never feel very safe walking on my own in the countryside; sometimes for fear of going where I shouldn't be.

Here, in France, I wander where I like, observing the countryside code as I would do back in the UK.  I don't tread on crops, I close gates, I obey notices if present.  I have often been spotted by a farmer on a tractor who would wave or call out a bonjour if within hailing distance.

Depends what you enjoy doing, of course.  I love big towns, even cities in the UK, but only for visiting and would hate in any event to live cheek by jowl with anybody.  What if I have to live next door to someone who likes playing pop songs all day long?  I'd have to kill myself, no joking!

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Oh mint, LOL!

Not long ago I was asked to represent friends at a

bornage instigated by their elderly neighbour. They live

In a village some 8km or so from me. The neighbour

wanted to erect a wall. As it happens, she engaged

the brother of MY neighbour to do this, so I got

the whole story of her reasons.

Turns out she took great exception to my friend (who is tiny) walking across her drive with their lawn mower

in order to mow the grass in front of the elderly neighbour's house: land that belonged to my friends but which was in front of their neighbour's property. The irony was that they only mowed it to keep it neat for her and to improve the view from her house. More recently they sold it to the commune and it's now an overflow car park for the Salle des Fêtes. Saves them having to drag their mower 50 yards and remove part of their fence every time the grass needs mowing. Mind you, the old lady's house now looks out onto a car park. Still, she got a nice new wall.

I can cite you another handful of similar examples. My own neighbours had a dispute (Or were the victims of one) which led to a bornage. The other party lost his claim to the small strip of land he was claiming and in front of my neighbour, the géomètre and other witnesses, told my neighbour (who lost his son in a tragic road accident) that he wished him the same fate as his son.

So, please don't assume that the French aren't "so damn possessive of their land"...because I've never come across anything quite like it in the UK. In fact, just before the aforementioned bornage I asked a friend here why on earth the French seem to have a géomètre on speed dial. "En France, le terrain, c'est le pouvoir" he said.

ETA: where I live in the UK, I'm surrounded by

Common land. Used a lot by people living in the

area. Walking groups abound, as do dog walkers

, cyclists, runners...no trouble finding it, using it or

feeling safe doing so. And absolutely no worries

about being shot by a drunken chasseur who mistakes you for a sanglier!
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Sorry Mint but I have to agree with Betty. I used to attend shoots in the UK every week and we never ever went on public land or private gardens let alone flashed the guns in view of the general public, here we've had dogs in the garden and shot rain down on the roof despite the so called 150 metre limit and we cannot walk the chemins on shoot days as the risk is just too great.
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Cajal, just tell me where that house is and I'll be sure to avoid it.

Well Betty and DB, now that you mention it, I do remember Jonzjob, or is it Gardian, who was involved in no end of trouble with their neighbours about a land boundary.

It's just that I have had no experience of people shouting at me for walking on "their" land ever in all the hundreds of times I've walked in France.

True, a group of us inadvertently walked on land belonging to a chateau once and the lady of the chateau came out to "have a word".  After we'd explained we'd made an error and apologised, she actually invited us back to the chateau on another day for a tour.  She'd got out all the plans of the chateau when it was new, told us its history and about how her husband's antecedants were given the baronetcy by "erection".  Me, I didn't know the meaning of that word in that context and I nearly bit my lips to shreds, trying not to laugh.

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I have managed three pages of this thread and am now jumping in.

Firstly to BIB, I have to admit, IF we returned, it would be to Brittany, because I like the people and adore the north coast. However, it is still just a place and I have, when holidaying, encountered enough of life's inconveniences, even there.

Your apparent hatred of the UK seems odd to me, I have seen too much of it on here and found your vehemence very disturbing and wonder  why, but I suspect that I shall simply be told/cited stuff one reads in the Daily Mail or some such nonsense. And that would just bore the socks off me. And I just imagine that the blinkers are on now and so firmly fixed in place that no reply would feel in anyway logical or reasonable to me.  

We went out into the wilds on New Year's Eve, lovely afternoon out.

And to y'all, feels like some of you have the supposition that ALBF hates living in France, and I bet he does not, just gets on with it, and simply looks life straight on and sees it warts and all, as I did when living there and still do. Being realistic is fine with me.

Re politesse in France and saying 'bonjours' etc........ and yet people do that and the next minute will be carving you up in their car or pushing in front in a queue, LOL, 'queue' in France......... nah, it is the merest shadow of what a queue should be.

And now to ALBF's question........... unless someone speaks decent french, then I have not idea why anyone would retire to rural France. I just don't.  I have asked in the past and probably been answered. But I shall never get it, never. For the life of me, I cannot work out the why anyone does it, or how they manage. I didn't even want to spend my old age in France and deal with french bureaucracy in my dotage. Or even be speaking  french on a daily basis to be quite honest. What does France have, I don't think I can answer, as all I can say is nothing particularly special as far as I am concerned.

IF brexit gets a little strange, then we could end up moving back and I shall just get on with it, because I am an old french hand and know the ropes, and as ever will be self sufficient and not be asking questions on here about Marie etc etc......

And re british people being so materialist........ french people are too.  However, british people do give more to charity than the the french, so some brits may like 'stuff', if that really is the case, but are also generous.

And food costs and food being better...........food being so expensive is one of the things friends in France complain about all the time.

And the food is better ????? how many pages do you want about that little bug bear of mine. Apart from soirees or fetes, most of the french people I know have a boring everyday diet. A prime example of an evening meal, is plain pasta, or rice, no sauce, no butter, nothing, just dry and fish fingers or a piece of ham even the dreaded 'epaule' (beurk)........  followed by a salad vert, but sometimes not and a yoghurt......haut cuisine it is not! 

We always had a struggle to find a good restaurant and still do when we return. Maybe I am fussy, probably because cooking is one of the things I do really well and when I am paying,  I expect food to be at least as good as mine, so from a professional, it should be even better.

The only thing I ever miss is a good pizzeria, because we did have some, and I have found one here, but some distance in Gosforth. But I don't fancy pizza that often and make them myself too. I have found a few good restaurants round here in NE England, good food, and better still, good service which is all part of the show, isn't it!

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And all of this goes to show that we are all different and one person's ideal is another's nightmare..

So... if you don't like where you are then move... life's too short to be miserable and too short to wonder about 'what if'.

However, if you have problems, be them personal, your relationship, financial , health or just struggling with getting older..those problems move with you, wherever you go. So make sure that it really is your external environment that is making you unhappy and not something else.

I could probably make a good go of it in most places for a while, and I'd certainly enjoy the adventure. We all move on eventually. On that note happy 2018.
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[quote user="lindal1000"]And all of this goes to show that we are all different and one person's ideal is another's nightmare..

So... if you don't like where you are then move... life's too short to be miserable and too short to wonder about 'what if'.

However, if you have problems, be them personal, your relationship, financial , health or just struggling with getting older..those problems move with you, wherever you go. So make sure that it really is your external environment that is making you unhappy and not something else.

I could probably make a good go of it in most places for a while, and I'd certainly enjoy the adventure. We all move on eventually. On that note happy 2018.[/quote]

Exactly. Different people have different reasons for living where they do and what suits one individual may not suit another. The people I particularly resent are those who move to another area then complain non stop because things are different. It surprises me how little research many people do before moving. Complaints like that shops that close at lunchtimes are my pet hates, re shops, the ones that are shut at lunchtime are open at other times so surely it’s best to adapt your shopping habits.

In my opinion ALBF certainly isn’t someone who just gets on with life; he is an individual who gets great pleasure from winding up others and does so through his favourite topics. It doesn’t matter how much evidence is stacked up against him, he doesn’t care.

I can understand how people manage to live comfortably in many parts of France without speaking or understanding the language, I know many people who do but, in my opinion, those people are going to miss out on so much I can’t imagine why they are reluctant to make the effort.
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A couple of thoughts, not really part of the argument but simply reflections: most big European cities have a similar kind of vibe. It's in the country, or used to be, that you got a real sense of the difference, not just of which country you're in but which area of the country. A Worcestershire village is totally different from a Suffolk village or a Yorkshire village or a Norfolk village or a Welsh visit - local accent, land use, smell in the air, building style, everything. Same in France. Cities are basically cities, just the weather is different, but outside of the cities you can tell immediately by the land use where you are, is it fields of sunflowers or is it vineyards or is it apple orchards. I think it would be very sad to lose that.

Also I was thinking of the rural/urban divide in the UK. A village in Glos that I used to know has an old village pub that serves real ale and home made sarnies, the locals come in with their dogs and discuss farming matters, the weekly livestock auctions and what prices had been fetched, the shows and who was likely to win, stuff like that. When the townies started moving in in big numbers, a fancy new pub opened. There was no cross over. Occasionally a townie strayed into the village pub, drank his pint, looked bemused and went out again. They weren't part of the community, they didn't know the first thing about the local economy. The locals never went to the new pub because it wasn't their kind of environment, it was a pub like you find in towns and cities everywhere with no character and it wouldn't have particularly welcomed groups of farmers standing at the bar with their dogs. ALBF would go to the new pub, I think, and call it a rural pub. As you say DraytonBoy, there is lots of rural idyll in the UK for those that can afford it but very little country life as in, country folk tilling the soil.

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ET you have got me all wrong.

I grew up in a tiny tiny tiny rural village in Wiltshire. We had a pub as you describe. Locals with funny accents, the local hunt, gamekeepers, local tradesmen, farmers etc etc etc. I was actually captain of the pool team. I used to do the gardening when I was kid, bottle up. I have even painted the place.

In the lates 80's, the townies arrived and as you describe they never mixed or used the pub and gradually over time the locals were forced out with property prices and the pub shut. It was like that for about ten years. Now it has opened again and it now a pub that would not look out of place in South Kensington. The pool table has been replaced by a chesterfield sofa, the fruity is now a bookshelf with arty farty books. The dartboard.... is now a menu chalkboard with the type food of foods that only tw&ts eat.

Would I drink there ?....Noooo. It breaks my heart.
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And just to add, everywhere is constantly changing as populations and cultures move..so what you remember of France/UK/anywhere else a few years ago will be different to how it is now, so even if you 'go back' you have to be prepared to adapt your perceptions. I hardly recognise parts of the town I used to live in in UK 6 years ago. I'm a Londoner by origins and last time I visited I really couldn't recognise the parts of the East End I worked in 20 years ago. In the early 80s I lived in Canada for 2 years and when I came back to Uk I had to readjust. Similarly I remember when we moved down to this part of France 7 years ago, how the ring road and shops seemed quiet in the winter. Now you need to get down by 10.00 to avoid queues even in the week, and all the bigger shops open over lunch. I don't know whether I would describe where I live a rural France. I look out over the countryside, I'm 6k from a shop and I commute to Bordeaux for work sometimes.
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And yet albf, in previous posts you've been saying that the green bits don't count, trying to preserve the traditional country lifestyle is laughably naive, rural communities need to change their attitude, villages should be full of townies working from home, you don't understand why your in-laws aren't accepted as part of the community when they visit their country house...

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The green bits don't 'seem' to count.

I have always said, if you want to move to France for a 'French' life then move to a city or large town.That is 'French' living.

If you want 'rural' French living then just be prepared. If you are born in the country you will probably cope. I can't imagine for the life of me how those who moved from London to Wiltshire etc surviving in rural France. Which is why people get themselves into a mess.

When I go back to the UK (Sussex) I often go the local country/south kensington type pub and look at the folk (all pretending to be country dwellers with green wellies and black range rover sports type cars) and know that not one of them could cope in rural France.

Rural france today is rural UK in 70/80's. Green leafy suburban France is the same as rural UK today.
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I think that where people get themselves into a mess is assuming that there are only two countries -or two "lifestyles" open to them. You're only stuck if you feel stuck or want to be. There's a great big world out there. If I had to live the rest of my life between the UK and France, or constantly comparing the two to the exclusion of the rest of the planet, I'd be glummer than a very glum thing.

And wherever you choose to live, if you're constantly comparing it to somewhere else, it's surely indicative of an underlying issue.....
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But that's nothing to do with your OP.

You have a really twisted logic. Back in the UK you won't hear people saying that living in rural Norfolk or deepest Cornwall isn't the real UK, or suggesting that people who do choose to live there should all move to Sheffield or Manchester or Leeds to experience someone else's perception of "real" life.

Life, lifestyle, or the enjoyment of both is as personal as a fingerprint. It's not something you can force others to change because their idea of a comfortable life doesn't fit your blueprint.

I'm a city-dweller. Always have been, always will be. I'm very comfortable, however, with spending a quarter of the year or so in bled/s/oued, because it IS different. That's precisely WHY I enjoy it. Others may have moved permanently for similar reasons, and even if they ultimately wish to move on, probably wouldn't regret the time they've spent enjoying that life. I'm sure there are few who would, even with the benefit of hindsight, have opted to live in Lille or Marseilles or Lyon rather than in the middle of the countryside just to have a more saleable property if they chose to move on. Now THAT mentality is one you seem to embrace with open arms, and the obsession with the resale value of your home is that most British of sentiments. Proving that you can take the ALBF out if Britain, but you can't take the Brit out of ALBF. Strikes me that you'd be sporting your Barbour and Hunters in one of the 'burbs along with the best if them if you weren't stuck in France.
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