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[quote user="nectarine"]I come onto this forum every day and have found it invaluable, just reading all the subjects and 'taking in' the information, filing it away in my brain. Even if the subject doesn't immediately interest me, it's useful to know for the future. Originally I posted a lot, asking lots of questions, then gradually felt able to answer a few questions and pass on my own experience. I also belong to a couple of regional forums which are quite active ... they certainly serve a purpose in asking "where can I buy xxx" and problems with local services and the quirks of local prefectures. For here I go straight to 'active topics' and rarely look at the board overview. It seems to me that the Forum sections are very clear and well laid out, you'd know where to search on a specific topic. Perhaps, as someone said, there aren't as many newbies in France, housing market and all that. Is there any way to check how many people are logging on and not responding? Perhaps there are many who, like me, check in regularly, read a lot but don't feel able to reply (not enough knowledge) or the subject has already been dealt with, but our 'silent' visits do count towards forum activity?[/quote]

Me too

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[quote user="You can call me Betty"]1000 views and (with this one) 40 replies. So to all intents and purposes, the few are still providing entertainment for the many..[:D]
[/quote]

 

and we do appreciate it, even if we don't always contribute 

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Quoting Betty:

"I remember those days....the days of "fluff" and "rose-tinted specs",

where anyone who didn't portray France as The Promised Land was roundly

chastised, and any attempt at offering a reality check was met with

undisguised hostility! Those were the days when the "UK bad-France

good" mentality reigned, and I remember rather frequently being accused

of having overdosed on sour grapes because (by choice) I wasn't rushing

to sell up in the UK and move to France immediately. "

So true ... but I rather suspect that most of us who came (and stayed), came originally with that idea ... ie I want to get out of Blighty-syndrome, so it was quite likely that we'd arrive with rose-tinted specs....  I'll confess to that myself - but then life my life in the UK had not panned out quite like I'd hoped, and I'd wanted to come to France for years before that.   So maybe I'm not typical at all.

Result - I now fall into the category of being able to see (having experienced the difficulties, and having got good answers and help from this forum) that France is certainly not all it's cracked up to be any more, but staying remains the better option (than returning) at least for the  moment.

I fear I too fall into the look but don't often contribute brigade, as by the time (as now) I get to look at the forum, the answer has often been supplied.  Whilst I wouldn't regard myself as a mastermind, the research I did do before we even took the plunge might just allow "France" or some aspect of it, to be my specialist subject.  I could hardly do worse than some of the so-called "celebreties" displaying their dismal knowledge over the last two weeks!

If I could say only one thing to the "rose-tinted" newcomers, it would be ..... research, research research, and use your head and not your heart in any decision.  It is very much harder to get out than in, especially if you have a house to sell before you can get out!

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The forum is a port of call almost every time I come online. I'm not very good at offering advice, but my OH does, and I've noticed on occasions that his comments have not been responded to. That's fine,  as Sweets says, it's the OP who needs to acknowledge the people who answer their questions or share their experiences, but often a thread will move forward and other questions are answered within its context. In fact I really enjoy reading many of the "drifts", they're the posts I might reply to.

But at times I genuinely feel I have nothing of any value to add, so I don't.

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Sigh ... no I do not come on here to make friends (seriously confused).  Never mind I have asked a french person in french.

I came on here because I was expecting some kind of intelligent response from someone with experience.  And i would point out if there was someone who wanted information here when I joined, I would have no problem giving it for free as I have several people not on forums..

Too many sarcastic offensive comments nowadays......... idle hands

Time to go away again for three years. BYE

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a[quote user="suein56"][quote user="Russethouse"]http://services.completefrance.com/forums/completefrance/cs/forums/3038392/ShowPost.aspx

I think the real point is that no one has answered Geoginas other question....[/quote]

I wasn't aware it was compulsory to answer questions on here ... have the rules changed over Christmas ?

Sue

[/quote]

And this is another reason no one comes here

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[quote user="Georgina"]

Too many sarcastic offensive comments nowadays......... idle hands

[/quote]

such as, for example...

[quote user="Georgina"]

I always got a quick response on here but I see how many people cannot even be bothered to help anyone anymore.

Sorry it went that way here.  Where has everyone knowledgeable gone.????

[/quote]

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I have always regretted that the lurkers don't post at all, and that those that post sometimes don't post more often, I wish that you would.

No one has to answer anything, even if they know the answer. And I have seen really bad info on here from respected members. All I can say is, as I always say, that everyone should check what they have been told.

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The question I could never bother to reply to was:

I want to move to France. Where is the best place to buy a house?

Muppets.

[quote user="idun"]And I have seen really bad info on here from respected members. [/quote]

I've always wondered how posters become "respected". Number of posts? Time served? Effective use of spell-check software? A respected poster is a very rare thing and I can only think of two who deserve the description: Sunday Driver and Parsnips.

I've seen some rubbish posted over the years by long-standing members. Of course, they've truthfully posted about their specific experience but failed to take into account how old the experience is (things, regulations, requirements, etc, do change) the poster's precise circumstances and also region. What is normal in Normandy (say) isn't necessarily so in the Auvergne but those of a dogmatic disposition usually failed to acknowledge this and entered into tiresome tirades about how anyone disagreeing with their experience must be pink and fluffy.

Someone's experience of how the health care system works may be

absolutely correct for their circumstances (working for French

companies, perhaps) and utterly useless for an early retiree or someone

starting off as a self-employed builder... or maçon if s/he's metier

specific. Too long in France may cause fonctionnaire vision - too narrow and sometimes defective.  [:P]

Many maires won't give a stuff that someone new (nationality irrelevant) has bought a house in their commune. Contrarily, and carrying on from where our ex-maire left off, our maire makes a point of going out to visit them and if they are English-speaking, she sends her tame Brit off to greet them and welcome them with a bi-lingual handbook explaining how life works. She is delighted if the new arrivals go in to introduce themselves to her and considers it an affront to her efficiency if there's someone in the commune whom she's not managed to meet.

A British-owed holiday home was broken into in the summer. When it was reported to the mairie, the maire called the gendarmes and went down with them to inspect the property. She spent several hours ensuring that arrangements had been made to make the house secure, that the gendarmes had the owner's contact details, etc. Is she unusual? Yes, probably. But her attitude proves that going to introduce yourself to the maire, while frequently disparaged on this forum and others - is not necessarily an absurd waste of time, especially in the small communes frequently favoured by British people. Though I am confident our maire would politely decline any spiritual gifts. [6]

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I've always wondered how posters become "respected". Number of posts?

Time served? Effective use of spell-check software?

Catalpa, what an interesting question that is.

For me it certainly isn't to do with how many posts, I never look at that. And the respect part is how I see some posters being perceived by other posters.

And time served, well, could be, but I do believe that that has little to do with it unless the person concerned has bothered to learn french. I am talking about residents here and not people who have second homes and holiday in France, which for me at least is very different.

Spell-check, LOL I'd be pleased if I had a half functionning computer at the moment never mind it doing tricks like making sure my terrible spelling is right or not.

I think that this extra care your Maire gives is down to the size of the place you live in. Our village was too dispersed with lots of hamlets as well as a decent size village which made the whole thing quite big really and no one would have been made a special case....... and getting the gendarmes out of the caserne for anything was very difficult. Maybe that was just the region we lived in. However, there are some good people in my old village and neighbours would rally. ie the neighbours chimney blew down and part of it putting a hole in the roof, in a storm  one christmas day whilst they were away and my husband and the other neighbours got on the roof and covered it with a bache, in the same storm, so we didn't just call the neighbours.

Also, the first Maire we encountered in our village, was not an honest man, we suspected he wasn't and then he lied to our faces. I wouldn't have wanted him in my home, even with the gendarmes, doing anything at all in our absence. In our 25 years in our village we had one good Maire for a couple of terms, a lovely man and I never heard of him doing anything bad or iffy. The current one, well, horrible horrible bloke with a horrible horrible family and he'll speak as kindly of me. When our village expanded the Mairie started to have an annual get together for people new to the village and they would go or not. There was nothing like that when we had arrived and we just trotted along to the Mairie when we had to, to get on with general things one had to do in France, like carte de sejours and fiche familiale and civile, of the latter we seemed to need up to date copies of these fiches, at an alarming rate, so they soon got to know the anglaise who spoke french like a vache espagnole and still does. We had lived in a city for our first two years and there was no chumminess with a city Mairie.

 And I suppose, it boils down to, that I do not expect any more of my french town hall than I would of my local town hall in England.

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LOL! I haven't ever needed to visit our Maire, as the one path we needed smoothing was a deal-breaker when we bought, which was whether we'd be granted permission to install a pool, and the vendor and pool installer between them had covered that one off before we even signed the acte! The only other time we needed to visit the Mairie was to get the annual schedule for emptying the bins, after we didn't receive a copy, and I ended up creating a bit of an "incident", which ended up in me meeting the two secretaries, the Maire and his adjoint in one fell swoop.....and when I pointed out that I couldn't always put out our recycling bin, one of the secretaries asked where I lived, and I waved vaguely in the general direction of our house, almost 2Km away, and the secretary instantly replied "Well you could ask your neighbour, Mme X to put it out for you!". Proof positive that you don't need to make yourself known to be known.

(The "incident", BTW, wasn't anything bad. During our discussion, I mentioned that - as I said above - we couldn't often put out our recycling bin as it's only emptied fortnightly and that doesn't always coincide with us being there. The secretary suggested that we take stuff to the nearest recycling point and telephoned the C des C to find out where it was, on our behalf. It turned out to be about 12 Km away and we laughed as I pointed out that a) we'd never noticed it as it wasn't on many of the tourist maps, and b) it was a good job we don't drive a Twingo as we'd probably have to do about 10 round trips to dispose of the backlog. Joined by the Head Man and his sidekick, who'd popped by for an entirely different reason, the discussion expanded to encompass them, and it was generally agreed that my comments has raised an interesting dilemma, and action should be taken to ensure that recycling facilites were made available at the village's own dechetterie as we surely weren't the only people facing this problem)

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[quote user="Catalpa"]The question I could never bother to reply to was:

I want to move to France. Where is the best place to buy a house?

Muppets.

[/quote]

And the answer that always amazed me was a variation of "come and live near me"!!!  I'd just be hoping that the OP in such a case would move as far away from me as possible!

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So many people have moved back to the UK since I came to France, let alone came on this forum and to be honest, they have not been replaced in the same numbers by brits moving here which means less action on these francophile forums because people are no longer interested if they have no more ties with France, I certainly would not continue looking at forums if I had moved back. Even now, some long standing brits in this region (only one in my village) are desperately trying to sell up and return because in the main, they are getting on in years and are scared stiff at either being widowed,ill or lonely in a country they still have not mastered the language sufficiently nor understand how things work or have family here. I don't think we will see the likes of the numbers of people coming here to live that we did in the 90's again and with work prospects here for foreigners declining and the exchange rates taking away a chunk of pension each month that retirees can ill-afford to lose, think many more will try and return than ever this year if they can sell up and go. All this has a knock-on effect on forums such as this and as has been said, you don't need to ask questions these days when you have google and the like or good neighbours. My OH always said that moving to France was for the wealthy retired with no cares nor worries and how right he has been proven by some of the horror and sob stories we hear on forums from very desperate people stuck here who did no research before they came and found out too late it was a mistake.

Well if nothing else, this thread has provoked some interesting replies and no nasty tirades either which I could have done years ago!

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I will wade in a little.......

Sarcasm - yes, especially between WB and NH but I believe that it is all well intentioned (they look out for one another) and certainly provides some amusement for me.

If OPs do not get a reply perhaps it is because others do not know the answer and do not post, or would OPs like every member of this forum to post'DO NOT KNOW' so that they do not feel ignored.

There are certain posts that are relevant to the group, such as for those who still wish to receive UK TV.

There has been the loss of a few keen knowledgeable posters who have either relocated or sadly passed away.

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[quote user="Val_2"]

So many people have moved back to the UK since I came to France, let alone came on this forum and to be honest, they have not been replaced in the same numbers by brits moving here which means less action on these francophile forums because people are no longer interested if they have no more ties with France, I certainly would not continue looking at forums if I had moved back. Even now, some long standing brits in this region (only one in my village) are desperately trying to sell up and return because in the main, they are getting on in years and are scared stiff at either being widowed,ill or lonely in a country they still have not mastered the language sufficiently nor understand how things work or have family here. I don't think we will see the likes of the numbers of people coming here to live that we did in the 90's again and with work prospects here for foreigners declining and the exchange rates taking away a chunk of pension each month that retirees can ill-afford to lose, think many more will try and return than ever this year if they can sell up and go. All this has a knock-on effect on forums such as this and as has been said, you don't need to ask questions these days when you have google and the like or good neighbours. My OH always said that moving to France was for the wealthy retired with no cares nor worries and how right he has been proven by some of the horror and sob stories we hear on forums from very desperate people stuck here who did no research before they came and found out too late it was a mistake.

Well if nothing else, this thread has provoked some interesting replies and no nasty tirades either which I could have done years ago!

[/quote]

There are a few things about your post val2 where we differ. We as a couple never ever intended staying in France for our dotage and moved back to get established before we were toooo old. Unless someone is already fluent, I still don't get anyone retiring to France and daresay I never will.  And if I had been widowed, I would have got out immediately, there is no way I would have stayed in France on my own.

 I have always said that, as I have always said I would never be a concubine in France, if a couple live together, then marry, which my son's girlfriend does not understand, which is a shame.

And we both most certainly got on with french life in all our years there, but even that was not enough to keep us there. We have wonderful wonderful french friends who love us dearly and we all speak regularly. In spite of that, I would have still left if I had found myself on my own. As all our income is from France that too makes us 'different', so we can't and wouldn't cut ties and never will, we are very interested in things french, they affect us directly. Also our eldest son lives in France.

I never lived anywhere where the brits who wanted a 'different' life, wanted to move to anyway, in spite of the beauty of the region, maybe it was, at the end of the day, too expensive to appear to be bargain France, which I imagine was the great draw for many, 10-20+ years ago. Those brits that lived in the area were there for work and we deliberately did not live near any other brits.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And the knowledge, well, we still deal with the CPAM, the Impots, insurance company, Humanis and the CNAV and I still sort stuff out for my son and his girlfriend and sometimes for french friends too. I do what I always did and go and ask official sources. All the info for everyday life was always there, even pre www and as I keep ranting on about, getting on the phone or going to an office is a good way to improve one's french and maybe gain even more info than one bargained for. My maxim is, if I don't know, I'll find out.......... and I mean, I'll find out, and I make it my mission.

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[quote user="Val_2"]

So many people have moved back to the UK since I came to France, let alone came on this forum and to be honest, they have not been replaced in the same numbers by brits moving here which means less action on these francophile forums because people are no longer interested if they have no more ties with France, I certainly would not continue looking at forums if I had moved back. Even now, some long standing brits in this region (only one in my village) are desperately trying to sell up and return because in the main, they are getting on in years and are scared stiff at either being widowed,ill or lonely in a country they still have not mastered the language sufficiently nor understand how things work or have family here. I don't think we will see the likes of the numbers of people coming here to live that we did in the 90's again and with work prospects here for foreigners declining and the exchange rates taking away a chunk of pension each month that retirees can ill-afford to lose, think many more will try and return than ever this year if they can sell up and go. All this has a knock-on effect on forums such as this and as has been said, you don't need to ask questions these days when you have google and the like or good neighbours. My OH always said that moving to France was for the wealthy retired with no cares nor worries and how right he has been proven by some of the horror and sob stories we hear on forums from very desperate people stuck here who did no research before they came and found out too late it was a mistake.

[/quote]

Broadly, and with due deference to Idun, I'd agree with what you say here. Though I'd never trust Google on anything even remotely important.

My wife is the only English speaker on the council and is named in each municipal bulletin as being the contact point for any new anglophone residents or second homers coming into the commune. Her 'phone & email details are displayed at the marie. In the last four and a bit years she has NEVER been contacted.

There were never very many anglophone residents here anyway; now I think we're down to four aside from us. Second homes for the most part have either been sold or are offered for sale. Those that remain (about six from memory) are seemingly seldom visited and a couple even appear to have been abandoned. It's not as though this is a dead village: the population steadily increases. We have two schools, bar, bakery, post office, shop, doctor, pharmacy and a saddler. But no hairdresser, which is a bit odd. Communal life is busy. Things happen. This is not the middle of nowhere. But as far as Brits are concerned, the traffic in and out of this village has all been one-way since about 2008.

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What very sensible posts this thread is attracting.

I came (back) to France on my own, and before that I'd moved round the UK on my own and lived and worked in London, 'oop North', 'dahn sarf', in Wales, so a bit rootless and a loner by nature, moving across to live and work in France didn't seem such a big deal. I won't say I don't understand why people make such a meal of it, because I sort of do, but I think that sometimes people don't look beyond 'the move' itself so in their mind they build it up into a huge thing. It's the life after the move that counts, surely. If you have no fixed plans other than to be here, well once you have arrived, then what. I think a move needs to be part of a longer term plan complete with goals and challenges and learning curves and maybe the occasional change of tack. Not an end in itself.

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Having been a member of this forum for nearly three years I have noticed a reduction in the volume of  new posts but I would agree that there are definitely fewer people thinking of moving to France at the moment. After 3and a half years unsuccessful searching for the "right property" we are reluctantly coming to the conclusion that what we want does not exist at the sort of price we are prepared to pay.  There does seem to be a great variance in asking price between similar properties in the same area and while some are reasonably priced many sellers seem to have unreasonable expectations.

With regard to some of Georgina's comments I think there has been a decline in so-called sarcastic comments and quite a few of these come into the category of "friendly banter" between old sparring partners who seem to be able to give as good as they get.

As I have not moved to France I feel disqualified from giving detailed answers on how things are done but enjoy contributing to those threads where I can offer my opinion, hopefully in a constructive way.

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 I also don't feel qualified to comment as I do not live in France and she only gets me when the sun comes out . I am enjoying this thread especially as at the moment I am surrounded by flooded fields so its a messy business getting about Today France is where I would rather be

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Maires are indeed some good some bad ... but in my experience it is often the secretary in the smaller communes who is the person who "knows" and definitely the person who" does what is needed, always 'deferring" to the maire as needed.

In the village where we used to live (and where the house is that we have been trying to sell for three years and more) - I popped into the mairie late last year with a bill for a small amount for the house, but we did not know what it was for.  Ah, efficient secretary says, it's for the water - ah, this happened last year (I'd forgotten), they are still sending the bill to the old house, which we visit irregularly to check over.  She promptly picked up the phone, rang the relevant office, and got them to send mail to our new address - just like that!  And it worked.

Our new place is in a much bigger village, and we do not know any of the secretaries - though they seem efficient enough. 

In both places I know the maire - to shake hands to, say bonjour to etc, but not socially as such .... and whilst I am sure he recognises me from various events (and he lives in the next street to us), I'm pretty sure he has no idea of my name ...

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[quote user="idun"]I think that this extra care your Maire gives is down to the size of the place you live in.

Our village was too dispersed with lots of hamlets as well as a decent

size village which made the whole thing quite big really and no one

would have been made a special case....... and getting the gendarmes out

of the caserne for anything was very difficult. Maybe that was just the region we lived in. [/quote]

I

think it is down to size and perhaps also region - ours is a tiny

village, a really tight-knit community (with a seasoning of feuds of

long-standing) of about 300 inhabitants spread over about 10 km² and the

maire involves herself in everything that is going on.

Some

people view it as interfering! but equally, a French family who were

having dreadful problems with EDF and getting nowhere (and were about to

enter a third winter month with two kids under the age of 4 with

no electricity in their all electric new build) were absolutely

thrilled that she waded in, bashed official heads together, and got the

problem sorted within a few days.
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