French life & expat France

Cycling holidays in France: advice for the ladies!

Boris — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 12:57:02 +0000

As soon as spring arrives here in south-west France we start to see the happy sight of young couples taking cycling holidays together, a perfect way to explore the countryside, chat peacefully and to commune with nature – or so you might think. The reality is almost always slightly different…instead of the couple cycling along [...]

Leaving the French countryside behind?

Boris — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 09:35:15 +0000

I should think about 99% of UK expats moving to France end up in the countryside, usually surrounded by lovely views and in beautiful period houses packed full of traditional features – rotten window frames, lead pipes, termites and so on. Not surprising since it is the space and lack of crowding that is a [...]

Settling in a French town

Boris — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 05:43:30 +0000

Well, that’s already four days that we’ve lived in the French town of Bergerac and the number of cardboard boxes surrounding us is starting to recede! Can’t say we’ve spent much time strolling along the river or around the old town quite yet though! The move itself went relatively smoothly although signing on both the [...]

Moving house in France – the downside!

Boris — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 08:37:42 +0000

Only a few days now until d-day (déménagement day – moving day). when we head for the big city – well Bergerac, which is only a big city if you compare it with the field where we live at the moment, but exciting nonetheless. Selling gites and moving to a normal house certainly focusses the [...]

English language bills in France, insurance and builders activities

Boris — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 09:20:44 +0000

Here’s a couple of things for you to think about when you are getting work done on your second home in France… 1 Bills in France should be in French One thing we didn’t realise until we were having a meeting to discuss any ‘plus-value’ (capital gains) tax that might be payable on our property [...]

Furnishing your French home and gites on the cheap!

Boris — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 12:23:44 +0000

As D-Day for our house move gets ever closer, one of the challenges facing us is that we are moving from three houses (our own house plus two gites) to a single house, and we have a large number of things we have accumulated over the years and will no longer need. For example, we [...]

Costs of buying and selling a house in France

Boris — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 15:02:53 +0000

In case you’ve been wondering where I’ve been hiding these last few weeks, I can assure you that I, along with Mrs Boris, have been rushing around like headless chickens with little time for such pleasures as eating, sleeping or blogging. A few weeks ago a local estate agent came knocking on the door and [...]

How time flies when you’re an expat in France!

Boris — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 16:51:56 +0000

This week marks the 11th aniversary of leaving our jobs and lives in the UK and catching the slow boat to France to start a new life*. * It was literally a slow boat, since we took the ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao which took about two days to deposit us in northern Spain. I’m [...]

Finding the perfect French hotel

Boris — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 07:38:42 +0000

Because both myself and Mrs B spend a significant amount of time travelling around France and staying in what would politely be described as ‘budget’ hotels I think we can describe ourselves as familiar with the French travel experience, as carefully avoided by the rich and prosperous. It’s not that we aren’t rich and prosperous [...]

Summer slips quietly away

Boris — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 06:27:20 +0000

You can always tell when summer in southern France is coming to a close – instead of being kept awake late into the night by the distant sound of music at the evening markets and campsites hidden in the woods we get woken at the crack of dawn by hunters shooting at unseen (and usually [...]