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The Brits are back....to the Dordogne !!!!


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Now, I have noticed on forums that it is sport scoring if you claim to live in a in a French village that does not have any Brits.

Why is that then ? What's wrong with the British ? Do they smell ? Of chip fat ? LOL.

There are thousands of British around here apparently....out in the sticks. Never met any mind you. Apparently, the boulangerie down the road has a Scottish bloke working there/owns it ????. His boulangerie is to far to walk to so I go to the other one. It is not that I don't like the Scottish it is just that I'm lazy.
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Guess what, I feel like a change of scene so I am off next weekend, walking with French friends and staying in a gite.  So, where do you think I might be going to?

Why another part of the Dordogne, of course!  Good weather forecast and I haven't walked for any distance on account of illness so I am raring to go!  Don't know if it's near Eymet though, ALBF.  Will go and look at a map............[:D]

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.Chancer wrote:

As an (un)genuine person I can honestly say that where I live is not the best!

Someone has to live in these places though.

I agree with your comment Chancer. but your choice of where to live was a commercial one, not a lifestyle choice.
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[quote user="NickP"].Chancer wrote: As an (un)genuine person I can honestly say that where I live is not the best! Someone has to live in these places though. I agree with your comment Chancer. but your choice of where to live was a commercial one, not a lifestyle choice.[/quote]

 

If only I could claim credit for having made a shrewd commercial choice Nick, it was a lifestyle choice in that I wanted to get away from my previous consumerist life and also to get away from where I was living/socialising, had I remained I may have ended up in prison, I virtually gave away a successfull business in order to leave, the commercial choice would have been to remain. I was setting off travelling and had I not found my destiny during that time I was going to return to this part of France to try my luck, I knew someone here and I had a vague promise of a job offer as a welder/fabricator in a factory, I had percieved a lifestyle here through my rose tinted lenses that could not be further than the actuality.

 

Just before leaving I happened apon my place by chance (or destiny), it was very cheap and I love a challenge so I snapped it up without even thinking, within 15 minutes we were with the Notaire signing away my future, on returning some 15 months later I had no idea of how to eventually exploit the building, the besta dvice then was to do long term unfurnished rentals to local people as there was a drastic shortage, I met someone doing just that with an identical place and he had never had a day without rent, whenever an appart was vacated he had 40 people vying for it, the only sensible thaing that I did was to keep an open mind and my options open, the rest has been sheer fluke.

 

And yes, to do what I currently do and remain sane has to be a lifestyle choice, shame it wasn't mine [:(] there are plenty of easier ways of making a commercial success.

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@ Nicky P

Why do the majority of Brits/British/Expats/immigrants...call them what you like....move to France for a lifestyle choice/change ? In that respect, what are they looking for. Most threads on French expats forums are about the doom and gloom in France. Have they made a mistake in their lifestyle choice ???

Still don't get the Dordogne thing. I don't get the whole British moving to SW France thing.

I just don't get it. !!!!! I JUST DON'T GET IT !!!!

WHY ? What is wrong with the East of France ? Oh hang on, not many British live there !!! Do the British just waht to live with the British in France ???

Sorry for my little rant. I JUST don't bloody get the SW and Dordogne thing.

It does bug me to be fair.

P.S...sorry Mint. We just need to get to the bottom of this bizarre British behaviour.
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[quote user="alittlebitfrench"]@ Nicky P

Why do the majority of Brits/British/Expats/immigrants...call them what you like....move to France for a lifestyle choice/change ? In that respect, what are they looking for. Most threads on French expats forums are about the doom and gloom in France. Have they made a mistake in their lifestyle choice ???

Still don't get the Dordogne thing. I don't get the whole British moving to SW France thing.

I just don't get it. !!!!! I JUST DON'T GET IT !!!!

WHY ? What is wrong with the East of France ? Oh hang on, not many British live there !!! Do the British just waht to live with the British in France ???

Sorry for my little rant. I JUST don't bloody get the SW and Dordogne thing.

It does bug me to be fair.

P.S...sorry Mint. We just need to get to the bottom of this bizarre British behaviour.[/quote]

Bizarre?  Pas du tout!  It's you who is bizarre with your Dordogne fetish[:P]

Us Dordognais just enjoy life and get on packing in all the things we want to do before Father Time comes with his scythe and chops us all down[:D]

PS  I considered southern Burgundy but decided the winters would be too cold for someone like me with asthma.  Ditto Normandy, loved Normandy but couldn't breathe properly during a cold snap.

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ALBF, the reason is for me, rather simple. It starts with the cost of property.

 

Price initially seems to be THE THING, and compared to most other parts of France, cheap, at least they were when this particular ball started rolling about 15/20 years ago.

Then it became where people found it logical to look..... Like the french and germans and russians and brits going to the costas in Spain, and Spain is a huge country!

And you ALBF have mentioned some places, where I would never want to live either. So it boils down to each to their own nez pah!

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cajal wrote:

Since when was being a réparateur or a hôtelier not a lifestyle choice?

Are you being pedantic or maybe just looking for an argument, I'm not sure? I base what I wrote on the fact that I've read many times from Chancers fair hand, that the business he has built is only a tempory diversion in his life. So it leads me to feel that it is not a long-term lifestyle choice. Whereas a place to settle down and live in surely is?
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Well said Idun.

Price is always an important purchasing factor - unless you have far more than anyone on this board has. I have never bought any house in any country where price has not been an important - often overriding - issue.

It is why we live in Europe and not (for example) the Bahamas - not personally my thing, but you get my drift. It is why we live in 3 bed semis and not 4 bed detached. It is why people live in York and commute to the capitol and do not live in Hampstead or Canary Wharf.

And it is very importantly, why a number of foreigners (not just Brits - I am surrounded by Dutch, Belgian and Germans) decide to move to France to the countryside for their (pre) retirement and, if not final years, then last active years.

Beyond price we will all have our personal individual reasons for choosing a location - and thank goodness for that, otherwise this little mountain village would be overrun and would be a small city. Many, myself included, will be driven when looking for a maison secondaire or even permanent home by accessibility from wherever they live(d) - although relying on a single loco carrier route has proven to be poor choice in some cases. I kept my options open and did not rely on any of the usual suspects for travel - in fact only used them once IIRC.

So like it or not, the Dordogne does fit with many of the desires and requirements and does fit within the price range of many. Not my personal choice but then I had other driving factors.
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Now I get where you are coming from, no it was never a place to settle down permanantly, I doubt the next place will be either, avoiding commitment is a lifestyle choice isn't it? I reckon Nomoss made being nomadic a lifestyle choice.

 

My business was definitely not a lifestyle choice, just the most sensible way in the current climate to exploit the result of my labour to repay my investment (it has already) and to create a value that I can liquidate and use for a lifestyle choice. People that come to this area either to buy or create a CDH are universally doing it as a lifestyle choice, that so many return tells me it was perhaps not a wise one for them.

 

Coming here for 2 years to do up the wreck(which ended up taking over 10) was definitely a short term lifestyle choice, my lifestyle choice as of 2004 was to avoid working for a living.

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Odd that people in the Charente, Haute Vienne, Lot, Lot et G put on the Dordogne border.

People in Deux Serves put on Charente border

I'm yet to see one with on the Deux Serves border.

And people in West France put SW France adding the 2nd sunniest area in France or micro climate as tho it's like the caribbean in winter.

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Now that you mention it, CS, I HAVE seen people put on such and such border, though being somewhat unobservant, I'd not noticed that much myself.

But why would you need to put wherever it is?  We all have departmental numbers to denote our addreses, don't we?  I'm in 24 so no disguising my whereabouts to anybody![:D]

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@ Chez

I don't really understand your post.

Are you saying that people who live on the border of the Dordogne but don't live in it 'plate' their car 24 ??? I thought Brits down that way all just ran around illegally of UK plates ????

As far this 'moving to France for the climate thing' that is big load of old codswallop'...as they say in Eymet. France is hot in the summer and cold in the winter everywhere. Thanks to global warming it is just hot everywhere now. Minus or plus 2 degrees is neither here nor there. And besides, how does anyone who have never lived in France know the climate ????

@ Mint

I am not sure Southern Burgundy (I am guessing around Cluny) would have worked for you to be fair. The landscape is very different in the winter than the summer.
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[quote user="alittlebitfrench"] As far this 'moving to France for the climate thing' that is big load of old codswallop'...as they say in Eymet. France is hot in the summer and cold in the winter everywhere. Thanks to global warming it is just hot everywhere now. Minus or plus 2 degrees is neither here nor there. [/quote]

 

An old customer and now friend returned on Sunday, he travelled from Marseilles and took a photo of the temperature to prove to me, he left 32°c to arrive to 12°, did you drop a zero ALBOF?

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I suspect your right but the 12° I quoted for my place must be correct because I have only just made it up [:P]

 

Whenever I use that phrase I smile and think of my mentor, the chairman of our group of companies that would use it to cut through bull***t being reported to him!

 

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