Anyone living in France?

[Poddington Pea]

Hello!
It's been a really long time since I've posted on here! I trust you're all well and happy!
I remember there being a few people writing on here who lived in France. I would love for you to get in touch and tell me about your experiences!
We're considering (perhaps) making the move as we just can't get as much land as we would like here in the UK.
I have LOADS of questions and would really like to know all about your life in France! I guess we could start with;
Where are you?
How old are you?
Do you have family/children there?
What do you do for a living?
Did you find the local people welcoming?
Do you have many friends there?
- Are they ex-pats too?
Did you speak French when you arrived?
Many thanks for any help with this! x

[bearded bloke]

France is huge,it might help folk to reply if they knew the area you are thinking of moving to

[scarey55]

Well now, that is a very good question!

I am going to send a PM with specifics in but here is a link which has some very good information in it.

I would also say, take a look at the Living in France forums. There is a lot of good information on there.

[Jardiniere]

hello
i live in france but i am retired so might not be of much help to you.
I also have a small house in South Somerset interestingly.It has no garden to speak of.
Answers: Where are you?- Departement de Lot. SW France.
How old are you? - as old as my tongue but a little older than my teeth. retired.
Do you have family/children there? Only the old man.
What do you do for a living? Reap the benefits of many years sitting in an office.
Did you find the local people welcoming? with open arms - no problems at all.
Do you have many friends there?
Loads of friends - english and french and the odd belgian /dutch.
Did you speak French when you arrived? A bit but its fairly lousy.
any use?

[PyreneesPlot]

Hello!
It's been a really long time since I've posted on here! I trust you're all well and happy!
I remember there being a few people writing on here who lived in France. I would love for you to get in touch and tell me about your experiences!
We're considering (perhaps) making the move as we just can't get as much land as we would like here in the UK.
I have LOADS of questions and would really like to know all about your life in France! I guess we could start with;
Where are you?
How old are you?
Do you have family/children there?
What do you do for a living?
Did you find the local people welcoming?
Do you have many friends there?
- Are they ex-pats too?
Did you speak French when you arrived?
Many thanks for any help with this! x

Hello.

We are in the Hautes Pyrenees, mid way between Lannemezan and Bagneres de Bigorre.
We are both mid forties, no children.
Mr PP is a gardener and odd job man (Auto Entrepreneur) and we have some investments in the UK. It generates enough to live on if we do nothing, spend nothing and go nowhere, which is fine for us, but would not suit most, I suspect.
The local people are very, very welcoming, despite living in a tiny commune of mostly retired peasant farmers (their term) - it is a poor area.
We don't have many friends and most are expats, sadly. See note above about tiny commune and lack of funds!!
We have been here 3 and a half years. Mr PP speaks French well enough to chat, I can get by. We both have improved massively since being here, despite the lack of contact. We watched French tv everynight for three years before moving, and still do.

Very happy to expand the answers if you would like.

[datz]

Hi
We are in the Auvergne, in the south north of Le Puy and south of Clermont. we are in a hamlet of three houses, quite remote, with only ourselves and neighbours 500 metres away as permanent residents. They are artists with a small holding.
I'm retired ( early thank you UK recession) and my wife is an Auto Entrepreneur jewellery maker.
The lifestyle we wanted was totally beyond our means in the UK. We don't live the high life, but our move was all about a simpler life. And we don't have much spare money!
The local people in the village in the valley below are very welcoming and as there are so few expats here we are a bit of a novelty! They are incredibly interested in how we are creating a garden high in the local Forest. They keep asking us has it stopped snowing yet!
We have a couple of French friends and some English ( though not local, friends via France Forum)
My French is poor, my wife's is pretty good.
We moved over last September and our first winter here was a bit of a eye opener. Continental winters are very cold and at our altitude we have a lot of snow. But we prefer that to rain and having invested in a wood fired Rayburn we were warm but used a frightening amount of wood.
Hope that's all some help for you.

[Patchninja]

Hello from Brittany - Binic in the Côtes d'Armor. I've been here for 23 years and haven't regretted a minute of it. I teach English at the Chamber of Commerce. My husband is French so different circumstances to you. I've also worked as a secretary and a commercial assistant.
I spoke a little french when I came but my children were 6 and 9 and I had to get a job so I had a lot of incentive to get on and learn. Thankfully, computers can correct a lot of grammatical mistakes hahaha. Seriously, there are many expats who never learn the language and I think that's a bit lonely and frustrating. It's natural to want to have a chat and a laugh with friends and neighbours so I would suggest having serious lessons before you come.
I would say that life here is very good. I love Brittany - the rest of the country too. it's great to go on holiday without forking out for the ferry!
I have seen some people come and go - those that don't make it seem to be the people who need to work but think that they will get a job without speaking the language. They won't. You need to be self-employed or speak french. We have the same bills to pay. Some people seem to think they'll be on holiday all the time........ and then the ugly reality kicks in.
If you'll need to work then think about practical things like not buying a house in the middle of nowhere where there isn't any work and consider the petrol prices if you're going to be doing huge N°s of kms.
But, where there's a will there's a way. Just give yourselves every chance of it working.

[Poddington Pea]

Hello! Thank you so much for all of your replies and private messages, they are very much appreciated.
We are simply looking at wherever we can afford without a mortgage. I'm aware with a teeny budget that the areas I'm looking at are probably very poor and my main concern is that whilst we crave isolation here, we may not like it once it is enforced!
Our main reason for considering France is that we don't want neighbours! We have a comfortable home here with a large garden but we are end of terrace, with another terrace beginning just a few feet away. Everyone has yappy dogs here! On one side they bark all day when left alone and on the other they let them out throughout the night then close the door and let them bark to be let in. Ideally we would stay in the UK and have a house sat in the middle of an acre or 2 but they don't exist for the money we have :-( We are a young family with 2 children aged 3 and 1 and I know that if we were to move, we wouldn't be able to come back - very scary! The areas I have found suitable homes are all within an hour of Limoges, although there have been a few come up in my searches, in Normandy and Brittany. Is anyone in the Limousin region?
I'm rambling a bit! Thank you again for all your advice and info.

[Jardiniere]

DONT DONT DONT buy somewhere really remote. All the people who I know who have gone back or are attempting to go back have bought houses that are out in the wilds.Buy near a village ....and one with a school! You need to know people ...you need friends close by ...you need services close by....the department I am in used to be very poor but people having been coming back to retire mainly (a lot of my french friends are in this category - born and bought up locally ..moved away to work now back again) so prices have gone up - its also a tourist area which means there is the possibility of summer work - running a b&b for instance.
Have you tried the Aveyron?

[PyreneesPlot]

Absolutley what Jardiniere says about not being remote.
When we were first looking Deux Sevres was well within our budget.
We eventually bought a 3000sq m plot and self built here in Hautes Pyrenees which has cost about the same as a studio flat in a less than lovely bit of Oxford.

[Patchninja]

I have a friend that lives near Gueret - very close to Limoges.
It's stunningly beautiful but there is NOTHING to do. Limoges is nice to visit but...... Gueret is a one horse town and deeply depressing in the winter. There is lots of unemployment..........
I agree with Jardinière. Your children will need schools and friends. You will need jobs and friends and who wants to be stuck in a snowdrift with no food in the house in the winter and no pals to have a giggle with? My friend is desperate to sell her house and move back here.
There are lots of houses with land for sale. If you're interested in Brittany, let me know and I'll go and visit some agencies.
mail me at islayDOTcorbelATgmailDOTcom

[scarey55]

Yep, I completely agree. Remote sounds wonderful and idyllic but, as Patch said, the reality is very different. We live quite near Geuret and it is lovely but it gets very cold here :eek Some days we can't get out to the main road to go shopping.
If you want to be remote, make sure that you are of the edge of a village. It is one of the things that we would do differently had we our time again.

[Poddington Pea]

Thank you everyone! Yes, I agree remote is not good, all those that I have seen (online) are on the edges of villages and 10/20 mins to a town with school, shops, bars etc. If we get serious we will need to visit to see exactly what the area is like, we won't rush in and buy somewhere with out a couple of visits at least! Thank you so much for all your advice, it is very much appreciated. I may go and improve my school girl French now....