French Life-expat France

Grand Designs, France style

Boris — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:26:41 +0000

One downside of getting English TV, apart from the difficulty of choosing what to watch from 100 channels of unwatchable rubbish, is that I have discovered that one channel seems to show a lot of re-runs of Grand Designs. I always was a ‘Grand Designs addict’ and now it seems I have nine years of missed [...]

Last Saturday in August

Boris — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 06:10:09 +0000

The last Saturday in August is a strange day when you live somewhere popular with tourists. It is the day when the towns start to regain their ‘normal’ personalities, the roads become quieter, and the numerous events, fairs, medieval days and street parties that carry on through the summer come to an abrupt end. This [...]

Are you self sufficient?

Boris — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:00:21 +0000

When we moved to France we had big ideas of self-sufficiency – harvesting nature’s natural produce, growing our own vegetables, eating fruit from the orchard… …but I have to admit, many years later, we have failed dismally! Mrs B has very green fingers when it comes to plants and flowers, but she won’t mind me saying her [...]

What time is lunch?

Boris — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:16:28 +0000

Older daughter is working at a local ‘adventure parc’ this summer and has lots of fascinating stories to tell about how people behave on holiday. Most of them I can’t repeat because the people involved might recognise themselves and not be very flattered, but one thing we have learned is that there can never be [...]

English TV in France – the Finale!

Boris — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 07:52:17 +0000

(subtitle: installing Freesat in France without getting hot and bothered…) After eight years eight months and 27 days of living in France we have given in and installed English TV. It would have been a few months sooner but I’m pretty slow at getting on with things, especially when I don’t know what I’m doing. So in [...]

Wanted – intellectual holidaymakers

Boris — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 11:34:17 +0000

During the summer months a lot of towns in France spring into life with festivals, night markets, and various events laid on to amuse both locals and visitors alike. One popular idea both near us and in several other places in France is ‘medieval re-enactments’ where everyone in the town dresses up in ‘olden-days’ costumes, paint [...]

Why do expat children want to go home?

Boris — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 15:52:06 +0000

One curious phenomenon about expats in France, at least the ones we know, is that their children reach a certain age – typically about 13 to 15 years old – and then start talking about ‘going home’. Not all, but a pretty high percentage, seem to like the idea of going to university in the UK [...]

Video of France

Boris — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 04:38:05 +0000

Too much doom and gloom with all this talk of farming in crisis and Brits who can’t afford to go on holiday, or expats who have to drive thousands of miles to buy their croissants in Tesco? We have the antidote! I’ve mostly given up looking at videos of France on the internet because there are [...]

French farming in crisis

Boris — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 16:00:17 +0000

From our property here in south-west France we can see a very wide range of types of agriculture: sunflowers and wheat, nut trees and a vineyard, plum orchards, a field of cows and open meadows among them. This small scale agriculture is a part of what gives France its beauty and part of the reason why [...]

Tour de France 2010

Boris — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:30:57 +0000

I haven’t mentioned cycling for a long time, my own rather poor efforts to cycle short distances at slow speed not being very interesting, but I thought I’d give a special mention to the Tour de France 2010, which is turning out to be one of the best for years and is about to reach [...]