Surviving winter in France.

[Logan]

Can you recognize your own view of French rural winters?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2007/11/22/living-in-france22.xml&CMP=ILC-mostviewedbox

[Russethouse]

Hey - we get a mention ![:)]

[woolybanana]

I live no distance from Jon but can't say I altogether recognise his description. Our village has more than enough do's and there is plenty of entertainment elsewhere if one wants it. Winter is a creative time too when one can get on with projects without the pressure from an overlarge garden to maintain. But he is right that it is the best time to go to the beaches and into the marshes as there are no grockles about (by the way, anyone know the French word for grockle, must find out?). Those who suffer most are I guess the incomers who do not have resources which can be developed, or who do not want to develop them, people who are in need of being entertained rather than making it themselves. I knew one couple who did not last who ate out every day, never prepared a meal at home. Needless to say they soon ran out of restaurants, even with a restaurant rich town like La Rochelle relatively close by.

[raindog]

I can't understand this stuff. Why should the French countryside be any more "boring" than the English countryside in winter?

Where we live, we always heave a sigh of relief at the end of the summer. At last, we seem to have the place to ourselves again and can even find a parking slot at the supermarket, and drive into town without sitting in a slow moving line of traffic and we can take bracing sunday walks along the nearly deserted beach. Winter's great here.

[Colonel Mustard]

I read the article, which amounts to "my village is quieter in winter than in summer", and wondered why he bothered to get out of bed to write it.

Round here, the French for "grockle"  is "Parisien". 

[Alan Zoff]

To be fair, the article begins by asking if your children would enjoy Winter in rural France (or words to that effect).

When almost 20 years ago we moved to a hamlet 5 miles from a busy UK town, our children (then 5 - 10 years old) thought we had gone to the end of the earth. Summer was bearable but not "fun", whilst Winter, apart from one day when there was enough snow to get sleds out, was just dead as far as they were concerned. This was the main reason we moved again - effectively to a suburb of the town - before they got to their teens. They certainly would not have thanked us for carting them off to rural France at that age, and such a move is only possible now that they have flown the coop. On the whole, kids like being with other kids, and preferably surrounded by noise and bright lights.