life after Brexit

[mint]

I don't mean "life" in general, I mean YOUR life in particular.

I can't be the only person on the forum who have had a fleeting thought now and again of what if I had to return to live in the UK?

Yes, yes, I know nothing's been decided and even after an out referendum, there would be time enough to make plans.  Still............on such a cold and lacklustre March day, I thought I'd get a new thread going to see if there's any appetite for this topic[:)]

For me, as I am sure for everyone else, there will be plus's and minus's, so here is an initial list without too much reflecting:

I shall miss my lovely home with magnificent views and spacious garden for the dog.

I shall miss all the lovely walks in the upsy downsy Dordogne countryside and to have it all to myself as I have yet to meet another dog-walker.

I shall miss little children turning their faces up to be kissed, with nary a thought for paedophiles (not sure if that's a good or bad thing but it's sweet)

I shall miss speaking French in everyday life.

I shall welcome again libraries stocking books I can read and understand.

I would love to attend concerts again as something you do all the time and not just for a rare and special treat.

To be able to shop at a supermarket with a varied range of foodstuffs would be wonderful.

Then, there is the advantage of hopping into the car and not have to think now which side of the road should I be?

Sometimes, although it's very rare in my case, to not have to choose my words when deliberately being rude to somebody (alas, French insults do not as yet come readily to my tongue)

So that's 5 each for advantages and drawbacks just for a quick list.

So, what do YOU envisage your life would be like?  For the purposes of this, could we leave out family and friends because they, of course, are already a given.

Oh and let's not se chamailler........it's not meant to be serious, just light-hearted and hopefully amusing!

[NormanH]

My life wouldn't change much I suspect.

I couldn't return to the UK for financial reasons, and I don't wish to.

I will still have the amazing range of food direct  from the producer in the country and the 'exotic' produce from the North African, Turkish, Russian, Chinese shops in town.

There may be fewer imbecilic booming Brits mangling the French language and spouting Daily Mail clichés ...

I will still have battles with bureaucracy, and I hope still benefit from the humanity and care of the French Doctors and Nurses who have cared for me so magnificently over 10 difficult years.

[idun]

Ah NH, that is it!!!!  Really what I do to french, 'mangle it'........ and your ears may not appreciate such a thing, but strangely my lovely french friends do[;-)] and boy do they  take the mickey out of me and that is perfectly fine.

I'm glad that I never lived anywhere in France where there were booming brits spouting Daily Mail cliches and would not live anywhere that was like that in France.

Glad that you have had care and humanity from french nurses, I may have had both from french doctors, but nurses, well Nurse Rachet must have trained the ones I have encountered.

I have battles with bureaucracy in both countries these days and  if we moved on, could end up with battles in three countries[Www]

mint, there are places in the UK where you have land and views and are not necessarily that expensive, ie London/SE prices.

The weather, well, it is what it is, and suits me, never hacked those summers in SE France although the other seasons were OK and I did love my winters. 

IF Britain leaves, we will have to seriously think of moving on which is OK, we'll just get on with it and do it. As far as I am concerned no where is perfect, and I never expect it to be.

Just remembered there is prog on channel 4 each afternoon...... A New Life in the Sun and one woman has moved to France and stated that it is 15 times better than her life in the UK? Such statements make me want to scream at the tv (I don't)............ as there was no justification for such a remark so I want the WHY AND HOW of that statement, as it is beyond me.

[Patf]

I've thought about it - I wouldn't mind either way, I still think of UK as home but we're happy here too. Husband says they would have to carry him out in a coffin.

The main thing I'm stuck on though is that if we were forced to go back it would be very difficult to sell our house here and we would be lumbered with debts, prelevements would continue etc.

But I try not to think about it, husband refuses to talk about it.

[Cendrillon]

So that I don't high Jack Mint's thread Idun's

reference to A New Life in the Sun programme has prompted me to start a new thread. Posted on Earning a living in France.

[andyh4]

Whichever way the vote goes, life will go on.

The euro may go up (or down) and a portion of our income will change. We will adjust.

We may have some extra bureaucracy to deal with. We will adjust to that too.

The NF vote will go up but Marine has said that Europeans are not a problem. There will probably be some changes in reaction to that. We will adjust.

[Lehaut]

Hopefully no change, slight drop in pension income if the £ suffers. We took dual nationality some years ago, mainly for our children's sakes. We have one at FAC and the other has, ironically, just been accepted to finish off his MEng at ICL in London. So he will find out what its like to deal with UK paperwork ;)

Did a motorbike trip up to Mallaig and back from Portsmouth last year, what it must be like in that traffic in a car would stop me even consider going back.

[mint]

Yes, lehaut, the traffic...!  We were watching some news from Wales and there was a shot of the M4 on screen and OH immediately said I wouldn't like to be driving in that again.

Come to think of it, I hope I could still manage to drive if I went back there to live.  I can imagine a lot of confusion on my part and a lot of frustration on that of other drivers because of me!

Also, I think of the cost and admin to do with all our official papers, all the printed stuff of all government and indeed private outfits and concerns.

Will we have our blue passports again?  [:)]

[powerdesal]

I don't think there will be a Brexit.

I think the British voters will vote for the status quo because the majority will not 'rock the boat'.

If I am wrong and the vote is to leave the EU then we will just have to live with the result and deal with anything that happens. There is no way we can influence the result one way or the other ( disenfranchised due to the 15 year rule ) so we have no choice.

[Cendrillon]

Mint, I doubt anyone official would feel the need to change the colour back again to blue though I have to admit a fondness for the blue one.

[idun]

Get a bit sick of the 'traffic' thing, I really do. When I got to France I had never encountered traffic like it in the city where I lived. Often I'd get into one of the many bad jams and husband would walk home and start dinner.

Friends now use public transport instead of driving as driving to work is taking too long. Too much stress too, including, from what my entourage has been saying, even more accidents, which does not help the 'jam' situation.

France is huge, but the big towns and cities are still heavily populated and there are too many cars. The other problem now is that as some people move out into the countryside, up to 40-50kms away from work, then the routes to work, means that the traffic jams are worse than ever, starting miles out of 'town'.

I agree there are great swathes of France with little traffic, ofcourse there should be, but that is not how life is for many french workers.

Strangely, we were out a couple of nights ago and discussing our life in France with friends, and as I went to pull out of the car park, my OH asked why I was hesitating and I said that I feared driving on the wrong side of the road. Ages since I have done it, because it has happened in the past, rarely, I must add. On this occasion my mindset was certainly 'in France' that evening and  better to be safe than sorry.

I admit freely that I try and avoid the traffic and do what I need to do when it is not rush hour, and usually do. Driving is fine, but, and my biggest biggest criticism of driving in the UK is the mind numbingly slow speed limit on motor ways.

[NormanH]

I think that many British people in France forget that the majority of people here live in urban areas, since they themselves have bought in rural tranquillity.

Certainly anyone driving into a big town to work has to cope with long tail-backs..

https://www.google.fr/search?q=bouchons+circulation+grande+villes&client=ubuntu&hs=sWR&channel=fs&biw=1920&bih=827&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiAwLDp_bjLAhUBPBoKHbLTA5EQsAQIPA

[Patf]

Come to think of it, we've twice been stuck for hours on the approach to Paris. much worse than anything on the M25 around London. On a normal weekday, not July/August holidays.

Once we left the Paris blockage and ventured into the centre - it was probably quicker. Had a good map. Trying to get to the ferry .

These days I even try to avoid the Toulouse peripherique at rush hours, which in reality isn' t too bad at all.

[Gardengirl]

We're very careful to make Sure That we Cross Lyon at lunchtime because of the enormous jams. Nîmes, somewhere we go regularly, can also be dreadful and even our little town has jams morning and afternoon - plus, of course, on Saturdays and Wednesdays, market days.

The M25 can be really awful, but that's somewhere else we try to avoid.

Just to add that I've not been able to get on to the forum for ages, although I've read some of the threads. Fingers crossed that I can stay on it. Emma, the digital editor has been a great help.

Any mistakes aren't due to fat fingers - the whole page Keeps leaping about.

[idun]

Lovely link NH[:D]

[Rabbie]

I think there is no need to panic. Either the UK will vote to stay in or to leave. If the vote is to stay in then no change. If the vote is to leave then if the people who are leading it are to be believed (and why not) then they are going to negotiate a brilliant deal with the EU( their words not mine) so that everything in the garden will be even better. So whatever happens no need to worry

[Loiseau]

Yeah! Great link, Norman!

[Jay]

https://www.google.fr/search?q=empty+french+roads+pics&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjE5pDDxbrLAhXEPZoKHaGKC70QsAQIHA&biw=1283&bih=715

You can find anything you want on Google!

[YCCMB]

Had a giggle at Norm's post about people mangling the language and spouting the DM.

Will they, I wonder, come back here and congregate in pubs, peppering their conversation with unnecessary franglais, talking about how they miss the boulangerie, Marie and their "homme à tout faire"? Will they raise a glass, teary-eyed, as they remark that "we used to be able to buy a whole crate of wine for this price?" Will they be spotted, clutching the steering-wheel of their LHD cars, (not yet re-registered in the UK because enjoying the cachet of driving a French car outweighs the potential pitfalls, and "there are hundreds of Polish people who haven't bothered so it must be OK") as they crawl around in the inside laneof the M25 because they're petrified of overtaking in so much traffic?

I wonder.....

[mint]

Oh, Betty, I hadn't thought of all that!  You have exposed a rich vein indeed[:-))]

So, what about the ones who exclaim loudly this paella is disgusting nothing like the real thing?

Or those aficionados of all things Italian who like to say prego at every turn?

Yes, deffo gonna have a laugh with this one but..............er............nah, I think I am getting confused, I think that one is actually estuary English[8-)]

[YCCMB]

And, harking back to the days of the Great British Brexit (the one where everyone who could do so went to live abroad in the first place), who remembers the folk who announced so proudly that "If we hear Brits speaking to one another in English in Leclerc, we immediately start conversing in French so nobody tars us with the same brush" ?

Maybe those people will continue with this farcical behaviour when they return, to avoid being mistaken for locals in their own country? ???

[Cendrillon]

Wah d u mean Betty? We also do this in French supermarkets! LOL??

[Cendrillon]

Wah d u mean Betty? We also do this in French supermarkets! LOL??

[idun]

.............so do we........... [Www]

[chessie]

I find those who 'spout the Gronad' to be rather odd characters, to be honest.   They, too, don't hold back on their views..... so let's stop having a 'knock' at one of the most widely read newspapers - and stop sneering at the majority of British people please.   Not needed, not necessary, rather nasty.

We came out here not wearing the rose-tinted spex.   There will come a time when we will have to think about 'returning home' - and it is home because that's where our roots are, our parents are buried, our children and grand-children live, and where we have financial ties.

We have always assumed that at some point, because of decline in physical strength, or illness, that it would be easier for us to live in the UK.

Yes, there will be many things we will miss living here in France.  But there are many things I still miss about the UK - the vast choice of theatre, art, museums, leisure activities...etc etc - that really are not so available out here.

When night vision goes;  when it's not easy to lug the logs around... that's the time that reality kicks in and it would be stupid to pretend otherwise.

I don't want to grow old - whether here in France or the UK - in fact, I'm not going to grow old - except disgracefully.     But if we do, then we will return to the UK - and be a nuisance to family by refusing to move into sheltered accom or care home - no way.

France has been an adventure - we wouldn't have missed it.  We will miss the countryside, the wild-life, the lovely warm summers, the friendliness of the locals, all the differences - all make for good memories.   That includes dealing with the bureaucracy and everything else wonderful about France.

France is wonderful if retired;  it's a great challenge if young with family - and if there is a reasonable reliable income.   But it can be very worrying if not financially secure.

For the young French people out in rural France it is not so easy;  would any of us really like, as a teenager, to be away from the hustle and bustle and enjoyment of a big city, stuck out in the rural wilds of France with the nearest town, and employment opportunities - 30 or 40 miles away ?

We've been lucky to have had the chance;  we would have taken the chance whether the UK had 'joined' the eu or not;  it was always possible for UK citizens to live in europe - the eu didn't change that - made it easier yes, but not impossible.  

Maybe some of those who took advantage of the 'ease' and ended up in rotten financial or worrying situations might have avoided a lot of heartache if it had not been quite so easy to move across the channel in the first place.   Maybe being in the eu has made it too easy for those who didn't think through the implications - and we all know there are some who made the move and didn't make a success, or weren't happy.

Do I want to go back - no, not really, and we will defer going back for as along as possible.   But will we go back - highly likely.  To what - hopefully somewhere on the edge of a middle-sized town, with easy access by bus or taxi into town;  maybe not even have a car at all - and certainly not the 'his' 'n 'hers' we have out here - and the costs of the two;  home would be smaller than we have out here - because we won't have guests turning up for holidays.   Wouldn't look forward to proximity of neighbours, shouting teens, noisy roads, air pollution, over-crowded shops and roads.....hmmmm - think we'll put it off as long as possible.

Chessie (can I wear a purple hat with red stockings now ? !!)