Bye, bye, France, it's been great

[Wicce]

After 8 years we have decided to return permanently to the U.K.  It's been a real adventure living in France, and we have enjoyed every moment of it - it's been a pleasure and a privilege - but it's time to return to our own culture.  I would just like to thank everyone on the Forum for their interesting postings and the general air of support - particularly over the Health crisis!  

So, it's bye bye from us - have a great time to the rest of you.

[woolybanana]

Which culture would you be returning to?

[Thebiga]

Probably the one where your not bombarded with paperwork from every direction, which seems to happen on a weekly basis. It can take the shine of things.

All the best 'Wicce' and we are not far behind you. The country is great here but expensive and the red tape & Paperwork has just worn us down. Sad to go, but another chapter awaits.

[Tony F Dordogne]

Best of luck when you go back to the UK.  I don't know this French culture where you get bombarded by paperwork, perhaps it's a different life style that we live here but apart from a bit of official stuff and political flyers from the Consiel General and Assemblee National, we only deal with the day to day utilities and our personal post - and nobody's chasing us for anything so we must be doing something right - or nothing wrong. 

[Thebiga]

The French seem to know all about the paperwork! Anyone I talk to says about it. I didn't mention anything about anyone chasing us for anything so it must have been a different thread. We must be doing something right or perhaps its just going slow post.

[LEO]

[quote user="Tony F Dordogne"]Best of luck when you go back to the UK.  I don't know this French culture where you get bombarded by paperwork, perhaps it's a different life style that we live here but apart from a bit of official stuff and political flyers from the Consiel General and Assemblee National, we only deal with the day to day utilities and our personal post - and nobody's chasing us for anything so we must be doing something right - or nothing wrong. [/quote]

Tony,the words you wrote in the above ,reads to me and others I suspect that , your best wishes message, reads insincere /patronising

[devilsadvocate]

I've been here 6 years and I know where I'd rather be, HERE!!

Not too much paperwork ("it's all in French!" is a common moan), and the people are far more polite than back in UK.

Oh, and I'm not trying to be sincere or patronising, just truthful.

You'd have to drag me back in chains.

DA

[Tony F Dordogne]

Sorry Leo, badly written, should have put a paragraph spacing between the first sentence and the rest of the message.  People on here who actually know me will tell you I'm neither patronising or insincere and I do wish the OP all the very best when they return to the UK.  Like DA, personally, I wouldn't go back there to live, I much prefer the life I have here but if people want to move back to the UK, it's their decision and I do - sincerely - wish them well.

[Iceni]

I agree with TFD, I don't care what other people do unless it adversely affects me and mine.

Usually patronising and insincere but not this time, John

[Panda]

Hello

I know the feeling having been in the same position this time last year and leaving after 6 years.  I am back in the UK now, settled and enjoying it, it's not for everyone but it's right for me and mine right now.  My son is 100% more confident and doing really well in school, that's all that matters to me right now and sadly France was not able to offer that. 

I still love France,  I'll be over for my holidays in a few weeks time and cant wait.  As I've said many times, I will likely retire to France but when you need to work and  have kids to educate it's a different matter entirley and for me not a risk worth taking.

Good luck to the OP, hope it works out well for you.

Panda

[Patf]

I hope your move goes smoothly, Wicce.

We expect to return "home " at some point too. We've always intended to, and after 8 years still feel the same way. Although we are very content here, love living in the peaceful countryside etc, still we will never feel we belong here.

I dread the actual move though [:(]

[MrCanary]

Interesting reading the different viewpoints...

We have owned our French house for six years and would dearly love to move to France permanently. When (and if) we do, it will be for retirement, no kids to educate and no jobs to find.

We already know our French village very well. We know the locals from the out-of-work families to the farmers and the Maire. We are made to feel welcome by everybody without exception.

In England (Norwich), the same thing applies, all the locals and councillors know us, but not everybody makes us feel welcome. We live in a quiet, good-quality residential area, but suffer motorbikes ripping along the footpaths, screws in our car tyres overnight (13 of us have suffered up-to-date), we suffer the drunks staggering home at any time up until about 2.30am, bangs on our doors and windows, dog crap on our grass and the sound of sirens at any time during the night. The roads are full of potholes, traffic is unbearable and, wherever we go, the English 'culture' has become one of extreme selfishness.

Perhaps I am turning into Victor Meldrew when in the UK, but I long to move to our village in France!

[Polly]

Really Mel, it's time you took off those rose-tinted glasses!

Potholes: all over France, even in the south, especially since last winter, and discussed in the papers here just like they are in the EDP & EEN in Norwich.

Motorbikes & quads ripping up footpaths: of course we have them here too! Plus la chasse can make country walks 'challenging' in winter.

In villages all over France people can wake up to find tyres slashed and cars scratched along the sides, but that's nothing compared to the spates of vehicles torched in the big cities.  Car fires are a particular hobby amongst the young of Toulouse & Strasbourg.

Drunkenness amongst the young in the villages of Aquitaine was headline news last year, and is a matter of serious concern at all levels of government. Drugs are probably the biggest problem in rural areas throughout France, you can buy anything easily if you know who to ask (and finding out isn't difficult). There's been a big crackdown on production & dealing in the Lot only last week, for example.

Dog poo: very few people pick up in villages or towns, despite the provision of poo bags on street corners in the bigger towns.

You are right on one point: in rural areas there is less traffic than in Norwich!

[Quillan]

Apart from tyres slashed and cars scratched (not experienced this where we live but that is not to say it does not happen elsewhere) it sounds about right. It's such a shame that not many bother to try and read the French newspapers. If your French is not up to it you can always use Google to translate 'on the fly' and get a reasonable idea of whats going on. Try and start with your regional/local paper first, well worth a read I always find.

[velcorin]

Not sure that's a good idea Quillan! Surely, Ignorance is Bliss in some cases? [Www]

[Will]

You don't even have to translate the local papers (though if you do, you will soon become aware that burglary, drunkenness and drug abuse exist in rural France). One of the English-language forums featured, very recently, a long and heated discussion about French youths noisily riding motorcycles down paths at unsocial hours. That, incidentally, spawned some rather enlightening side issues, such as the view that you should put up with it because you are a foreigner, hence a guest in their country, and an apparently serious suggestion that the correct procedure would be to chuck the bikes in a pond.

On another topic, raised earlier in this thread, I don't doubt that most people's simple retired existence means they manage to steer clear of the rule of bureaucracy and over-zealous officials. But the more you involve yourself in the real life of the community, or legally do any paid work, the risk of unwelcome attention increases exponentially. We have never done anything wrong, either, as proved by the eventual outcome, but that didn't prevent four months of Spanish Inquisition by those who thought we might have. Incidents like that can have an off-putting effect on even an avid francophile.

It all comes down to the fact that France may not be for everybody, or for ever. No shame in that, and it seems smug and selfish to suggest that because France suits you, and you don't want to return to GB, then everybody else should feel the same way.

[Sprogster]

Read an interesting article at the weekend that said most younger Brits who move to France, don't see it as forever, but as a life experience and envisage being there on average six years. With retired couples, most thought following bereavement the surviving spouse would return to the UK.

So the fact that someone leaves France to return to the UK, should not be surprising, as most apparently do eventually.

[cooperlola]

I'm sure if I turn out to be the survivor of our partnership I'll struggle with this question.  I don't think I'd go back but I can't imagine not considering it either as I still love the UK when I go back on holiday and miss some aspects of it.  However, we certainly do plan to move into the city when we get too infirm to cope with a country place (something that may come sooner than we thought since my accident.)  Being in an isolated, rural location can be tough in any country if you are single and can't get about so well.

Good luck in the future, Wicce.

[MrCanary]

Polly said, "Really Mel, it's time you took off those rose-tinted glasses!"

Not sure where in my previous post I gave any indication of wearing those specs?

I only stated the facts that I know and, not being as clever as some on here, I do not have the ability to talk about the things I do not know.

So, just because everything in my post is fact, but I was not aware of the facts subsequently listed by Polly and others, does that make anything I said, wrong?

Perhaps the one thing that ought to put me off moving to France permanently is the desire not to become one of the bored ex-pat vultures who seem to circle this forum waiting for an opportunity to get their claws into somebody who says something different to them!

[cooperlola]

Besides, Mel, I can't personally see anything much wrong with rose tinted specs if they make you see life as enjoyable rather than being a doom and gloom merchant all the time.  Each to his/her own and good luck to them, say I.  Why is looking on the bright side of life supposed to be such a sin?

[mint]

Coops, I agree with your post completely.  Why shouldn't Mel or anyone else see life the way they want to?

After all, one man's meat etc and we all have the ability to concentrate on the positive or the negative.  Sorry, sounds like one of those American self-improvement books..........but then, I do like reading those!

Who was it who said something along the lines of "Life's too serious not to be taken lightly"?  Sounds like Oscar Wilde but I think it was actually Lawrence Durrell.

[5-element]

...and it was Gertrude Stein who said "Everything is so dangerous that nothing is really very frightening..."[:D]

[Polly]

Whoa, Mel, there's no need to get nasty!

I simply informed you that the sort of events you described go on in rural France as well as in Norwich.

[mint]

[quote user="5-element"]...and it was Gertrude Stein who said "Everything is so dangerous that nothing is really very frightening..."[:D][/quote]

I love that, 5-e.  Will remind myself when I next have to take anyone to or from Bordeaux airport! [:D]

[MrCanary]

Sorry, wasn't meaning to get nasty, but it does seem to be a regular occurence on here that whenever I say something good about France or about coming to live here, I am accused of wearing rose-tinted glasses...

I am actually a very positive person. And whilst I am certainly not after the sympathy vote, speaking as somebody who has been making very steady progress since a major cancer operation, I have every right to be positive!

My initial post stated nothing but actual facts about my city of birth, Norwich. None of the problems I have experienced in Norwich exist in any way shape or form in or anywhere near our lovely French home. With all these facts, there are no spectacles of any colour involved. So, I think you will find it was you who raised the bar, Polly!

And I would still prefer to live in France...