French Life-expat France

Language difficulties and expat children

Boris — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:27:31 +0000

Both our daughters would be considered bi-lingual and chatter away or read and write in either French or English with no difficulty – preferring French with each other and English with us old folks who struggle to keep up with their teenage blabberings in French. Eldest daughter is even doing a literary BAC, which involves reading [...]

Your holiday matters

Boris — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 07:15:57 +0000

Way back in the mists of time – well, about four years ago – I was part of a group of holiday rental property owners who created a holiday rentals company and website called Your Holiday Matters. The goal was simple – to try and ensure a quality holiday experience for those booking a holiday rental [...]

Five great reasons to be an expat

Boris — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:01:07 +0000

Looking at recent posts on this blog I can see I have been grumbling a bit too much, and not talking about the great reasons for being an expat in France. So to stop readers thinking I’m a miserable old fool or that France must be a terrible place to live I thought I’d be a [...]

Trek France

Boris — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:22:44 +0000

There have been various times in the last couple of years when I’ve complained about customer service in France. One time it was Europiscine, who fitted a new swimming pool liner for us with an expensive ten year guarantee and then refused to put it right when it immediately developed big wrinkles. Another was Dell, who [...]

Hot bath for the spiders

Boris — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:19:35 +0000

Episode 1 Last year when we closed the (rental) house up for winter I carefully emptied the hot water tank, turned off the electricity, closed the valves on the gas tanks etc so that we were confident that the house could be ignored for a few months. I also left all the taps open so that [...]

Running a SARL in France

Boris — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:03:39 +0000

I’m not an expert on French business structures and setup but I have been through the process of starting and running a SARL for the last 16 months and thought a few comments might be useful to someone. Bear on mind that you will always need legal advice before choosing a business structure in France, these [...]

Blogging for politics and prizes

Boris — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 12:09:26 +0000

I would like to start today’s blog by mentioning my dreams for world peace, an end to hunger and by suggesting it would be nice to all hold hands and solve problems with global warming. Hopefully these good intentions are sufficient for the Nobel Prize committee to send me a nice medal and, more importantly, [...]

Yippee – buy now pay later

Boris — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 06:15:25 +0000

There is an advert running on French televison at the moment that amazes me every time I see it. One of the leading opticians in France, Afflelou, has a scheme called ‘NextYear’ in which you can order a pair of glasses now and pay for them next year. Not very exciting and nothing out of the [...]

Gite maintenance

Boris — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:42:42 +0000

In our gites we have the usual challenge when things go wrong – our window of opportunity to put things right only lasts from 10.00 am to 4.00 pm on a Saturday, and only then if the problem is spotted quickly. Unfortunately people don’t always rush to tell us that the dishwasher is playing up or [...]

Breaking the law – again

Boris — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:28:22 +0000

In our third (when will it end) look at why you might be behaving illegally or at least be uninsured without knowing it, it’s back to drivers again. You know already that your car insurance might be invalid if you are driving illegally, and we have already seen that a UK registered car without UK road [...]