who else is leaving France?

[Dago]

I once went beyond the pail and 'she who must be obeyed' went crazy and told me to adjust my aim....[;-)]

best regards

[IMG]http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g130/dago49/Dago3.jpg[/IMG]

[Dick Smith]

Made me cough...[:)]

[5-element]

[quote user="Dick Smith"][quote user="Teamedup"]

my Dad calls it a quick snooze.

[/quote]

Julie calls it 'resting her eyes'...
[/quote]

My father used to call it "aller reflechir 5 minutes" ("to go and think for 5 mins" for  English-only speakers)...

Having said that, an afternoon nap is very civilised. Many people older than myself who do not see it that way though, so I am not sure it is a question of age only.

In fact, it only took me a few days to shed the English trait which consists in getting up late, and go and climb a mountain or something, 11 am start at the earliest, just taking a tiny water bottle and a peanut butter sandwich, even during the canicule. Mad dogs and Englishmen...  siesta definitely has no place in the collective English psyche. But I am digressing...

[verviale]

If I could move to France and  live like the french woman in our village, I would move tommorrow and never come back,the men do all the back breaking jobs,the woman get fresh veg just picked and dropped off at the kitchen door about 10.30.am a nice fresh plucked chicken brought ready for the oven shortly after, then its time for the logs to be replaced, the bread  and cheese van turn up, so far madam has not left the house,Then they all sit down to a hearty lunch with wine at 12.30. and chuckle at the mad english woman opposite strimming her 6 foot long grass in th mid day sun incase it rains later,thinking who in their right minds ,would drive 500 miles to do that and then call it a holiday.I know the younger generation of french perhaps do not live this way,but the older ones do,I think they have it about right myself, no wonder they live to great ages. out of interest has anyone ever seen a french woman ,digging strimming or on a ride on lawn mower,because I have not.

[dreamcommuter]

John is absolutely right.  It's an individual thing.  It seems the Brits are always moving houses (unlike most French) whether it is in the UK or now in France.  We know an English couple who are retired in France that have already moved twice in the last 4 years.  They moved to be half an hour from their old property!   Are we Brits always on the move?

[cooperlola]

32 years in my last home in the UK.  I'm hoping I last long enough to do the same in this one!

[Cerise]

vervialle - I would much rather dig, strim, build walls - in fact ANYTHING rather than stay in the house doing housework.  I hate housework.  If I had to live like the Fench women here I'd be first in the queue to jump of the Millau bridge!!  Even this week where i've had to stay in a lot because of the rain has been horrendous for me.

[Teamedup]

Come Cerise, staying in has got nothing to do with doing housework. Come on here. Read a book, do a sudoku, even go shopping, although I have to say that is my second least favourite thing but it is still better than doing housework.

The paysannes around here seem to do enough hard labour plus the housework. Can't say that the men don't work, but they can often be seen on tractors, or stood having a very serious discussion with other like-dressed men.

[Cerise]

Yeah OK TU reading a book is good, but I feel guilty when there is so much housework to do.  When I was a little girl my mum used to say she thought I would live in a tent when I was older as I had no interest in homemaking activities.  I guess I'm still a bit of a nomad and cabin fever sets in quickly for me.  I watch my neighbours who often don't seem to go further than the boulangerie for months on end and wonder how they can bear it.     Have to say they do seem to work pretty hard though.  They in their turn think I'm mad as I'm always off somewhere.  Horses for courses ..

 

[Logan]

I am afraid my feeble attempt at irony failed but eventually if you live in rural France long enough you do become somewhat 'native'. On my infrequent returns to Britain I now feel like an alien specie. Memories of the seventies still  stuck in my brain. I did try going back for a while last year but that plan lasted only weeks. It's not that I particulary dislike Britain but France for me really is a civilised place to live.

[oglefakes]

[quote user="Logan"] France for me really is a civilised place to live.[/quote]

Why? 

Seriously.

[Teamedup]

Logan, I know someone who moved back and couldn't hack it. They always spoke about Britain like it was when they were a kid, ie 50 years earlier. Wouldn't have it that it had changed, and their memory of their childhood was faulty to boot, just to add to the mix.

They lived there for three years and moved back. I wasn't surprised.

We have lots of friends there and just glisse into everything when we are back. We accept the changes, as we accept the changes we live with in France too. We spent a few months back there just over a year ago and nothing was other than we expected. We'll be fine.

Cerise, there is no way I could sit and relax in  a sort of sinful pleasure with a good book or surf or whatever if I hadn't got other things to do. Where is the fun in that. Truth is that I never enjoy things as much as when I shouldn't be doing them.

[verviale]

I must admit I do wonder what my french neighbours do all day,the woman I mean, there is only so many times you can keep cleaning a house,I suppose they kind of spend all morning doing lunch, they have never had to do school runs as kids are picked up, they just seem to have a more sedate  life . What does suprise me however is that they all leave their washing out in the rain even if it is for a few days, until it is dry, the only thing I can think is their rain is clean and it doesn,t make any difference.They all put their quilts out the windows, I never do, incase a mouse or lizard gets inside the cover, can you imagine that.Well I still think the woman don,t have a bad life.

[Beryl]

[quote user="Logan"]I am afraid my feeble attempt at irony failed but eventually if you live in rural France long enough you do become somewhat 'native'. On my infrequent returns to Britain I now feel like an alien specie. Memories of the seventies still  stuck in my brain. I did try going back for a while last year but that plan lasted only weeks. It's not that I particulary dislike Britain but France for me really is a civilised place to live.[/quote]

 

I remember last year ? you really seemed to have had enough of France... I thought you were still in the process of moving back, I didn't realise that you had gone and come back again.  I am not criticising either decision but would like to hear more [geek] if you don't mind sharing.

[Logan]

[quote user="oglefakes"][quote user="Logan"] France for me really is a civilised place to live.[/quote]

Why? 

Seriously.


[/quote]

I will try an answer but it’s deeply personal to your aims and aspirations in life. Mine will be very different to yours and the next.

Here is a list. I cannot think of a better way to answer.

Personal space. Folks do not live on top of each other except in the cities and I would not live in a city. I like living without the clutter of others.

There is an art to life and living in France. It does not depend on materialism but how you do things with integrity. I like the effort which goes into making something special rather than ordinary. Value for its own sake.

Good food, not just in restaurants but markets and small farmers who aspire to produce a really wonderful cooked ham. Conversation in a bar about the best way to make a sauce instead of last night’s telly. Philosophy. The French enjoy conversation and ideas which push the boundaries of human experience.  Climate. The weather is actually better in France than UK depending where you live. Health care is excellent, not ageist and equal. The rights of man. I like that expression it is not lip service in France. There is still in the countryside a sense of community and a feeling of individual respect. In general France is a very fair country. There is a lot wrong with the system and I could give you an equally negative list. However I am looking to Sarko to make it better soon!! 

[Logan]

Beryl.

I have sent you a PM.

[oglefakes]

Logan, thanks for that, I can sense the sincerity and balance in your comments.

[Wendy]

Well, they gave it a go at least. But, unfortunately in some respects, France is not all it's cracked up to be. Neither is Australia, Spain or New Zealand for many Brits.

Look at that George East who writes for F P News. How many times has he moved house here?. Many from what he has said. And why?. Why has he never stayed where he was settled?. Why has he felt the need to constantly move?.

Maybe there are more important things to some people other than wine, cheese, sausages, dead boring sundays, cute villages and speaking french.

Good on them for making an unpopular decision - to go 'home' - and going through with it.

Life is too short to be unhappy. Even it it is in France.

 

 

 

 

[oglefakes]

[quote user="wen"]

Well, they gave it a go at least. But, unfortunately in some respects, France is not all it's cracked up to be. Neither is Australia, Spain or New Zealand for many Brits.

[/quote]

I think you (sort of) hit the nail on the head. I don't think its the country, but the people's expectations.

IMHO some people like the idea of relocating, more that the relocation all itself.  About 10 years ago I was told about some Scots who were emigrating to Australia - to work with his brother in a very successful building company - and about an hour into the flight to oz, decided that they were making a mistake. They landed in perth on the Thursday and were on their way home on the saturday afternoon. Most of their family ostracized them for loooong time. 

Look at all the countries that were part of the empire, because the gene was in people to experience new things, (steal land etc [:)] ), then look at people who take walkers crisps with them when they go away for two weeks to Faro.

[PossumGirl]

I go back to what someone said earlier on this thread: you can't move away from yourself.

There is no place on earth that is "perfect," you just have to find the balance that is right for your needs.  We lived in a very nice community in Los Angeles for 20 years. We knew all our neighbors, got on well with everyone, lived comfortably in a cozy house and garden.  We had lots of friends and acquaintances, good shopping, plenty of cultural activities available, good (if expensive) medical care, etc.

But in the 20 years we were there, we never actually socialized with any of those neighbors (except for one couple who then moved away), all of our conversations were on the same level as what one finds in most conversations in France, America or anywhere else: weather, current shocking events, the other neighbors, weather, what's the city doing wrong and how does it affect us, weather, etc.

The friends we had were all busy with their families and careers, especially their careers.  No one had a lot of time to get together for socializing, so contact tended to be one or if we were lucky, two dinners a year.  All those nice shops and cultural events were very expensive, especially for self-employed writers.  The good medical care was getting to be so expensive that we would no longer have been able to afford it by now had we stayed.

Even if we'd been wealthier, the general quality of life in a large metropolis like Los Angeles was becoming such that staying there was less and less appealing: traffic, pollution, stress, helicopters flying overhead during the night, vast distances to travel for most things in that traffic.

So, what do we like about livinng in rural France?  We've socialized more with several of our neighbors here in 2 years than in 20 years in our last home.  The conversations can vary from the surface when one is running errands, to more in depth social and political discussions depending on the person with whom we're speaking.  We didn't avail ourselves of most of the cultural activities in L.A. anyway, so I don't miss those and it's plenty easy to go to Carcassonne, Toulouse or even Paris if I really want to.  I no longer fear losing our house if one of us gets ill.  I never hear a helicopter flying overhead unless there has been a bad accident or someone is seriously ill and needs immediate medical transport.

I have clean air, country walks, fresh vegetables from friends and neighbors.  I know that if I need help, I only have to ask and it will be there.

No.  France isn't perfect.  It's full of warts the same as everywhere else.  But I didn't move here to find happiness, I always felt that had to be inside me to exist. I just wanted a place where it could flourish in a slightly better environment.

PG

[Lassie]

I am amazed that this topic has run to 9 pages.  Has it hit a nerve? When we decided to leave the UK, we met quite a lot of , ..well, derision really. It was taken as being a betrayal of British life.  Now , if you mention going back to the UK, you get that reaction from fellow expats. Seriously how many British people are installed in  Maisons de Retraite in France? No-one is likely to still be here in their 90s are they? Heaven knows there are a lot of unrealistic postings on this site from the dreamers who think its all going to be cheap wine, sunshine and an easy life, without those who realise life here has run its course, and its time for a change, not owning up. You read it here first - we will be going back in a few years' time.  There - outed!

[chessfou]

[quote]No-one is likely to still be here in their 90s are they?[/quote]

This raises an awkward question that I think is impossible to answer. For a start, it depends which one of us pops our sabots first (aside from our two "internationally inclined" children, i.e. they could easily be settled in other countries by then, only my wife has any close-ish family in the UK) and probably also depends upon when said event occurs (I suspect the resulting decision could be very different if it occurs either earlier or later than the statistically expected late 70s).

However, my (very) limited experience of Maisons de Retraite suggest to me that I would opt for one of those ahead of any of the Nursing Homes / Homes for Retired Gentlefolk (some of them distinctly upmarket) that I visited in the UK. I think there still exists some respect for the aged (and preservation of their dignity) here (even though it may be slip-sliding away) that has vanished in the UK.

[Val_2]

Be here in our 90's?    Of course we will if we live that long. Where else would we go to if our children are living here and there will certainly be no relatives to speak of living in the UK that are able to take care of us as they would be either dead or the same age. Most folks in France try and keep their elderly relatives living with them as long as they can because they have to foot the bills for most of the retirement home costs. I think you will find that the generation who, like us, came here for good with young children are here to stay and die here - we certainly are.

[Teamedup]

Val2 you moved and your kids might too. Most people I know from the UK who have lived here a long time have at least one child who has left France.

I must say that I would not like to have to look after ageing parents, and I can't say that I relish the thought that my kids should care for me in my my old age. 

 

 

[PossumGirl]

My mother is 83, I'll probably outlive my sister (and we don't get along anyway), I don't have any other close family in the U.S. so I don't see any real value in going back there.  Our village has a lovely, brand new retirement hospital.  Most of us think we should reserve our rooms now!

Seriously, I used to work in the nursing home industry in Southern California.  It was NOT a pretty site.  I don't think you could pay me to go back to one of those.

PG