If you were here Monday and Tuesday then Thank You for coming back ... if you weren't then I should explain that we are in the middle of my French Settler week, during which myself and four delightful blogging guests are telling our respective stories of how we came to live in France. Monday's and Tuesday's tales have been dominated by l'amour - what will Wednesday hold??
My guest today is Dash from French Sampler. If you interested in good books, history, cinema, then French Sampler is a blog for you. Dash announces her point of view loud and clear:
"CULTURE IS NOT A LUXURY BUT A NECESSITY"
and there's always something to be learned from her posts. One day it's the complete biography of an artist, the next a collection of stills from our best loved films.
So Dash, tell us, how come you're living in the South West of France?
living the high life
My half English, half French partner; MG, Monsieur Grognon, (which is the verb for grumpy, in French, not his real name) and I had been together for a couple of years living in Paris, we both had good jobs and lived the high life whenever possible, unfortunately somewhere amongst all the gaiety, the bottom of the market fell out of MG's industry and he was made redundant, without two substantial incomes coming in we could no longer afford the vast rent on our swanky apartment just off the Champs-Élysées, I was not entirely happy with my job so we made the decision to move back to England to buy a house and settle down in the Yorkshire Countryside.
Big mistake, we rented a poky little flat in my home town of Harrogate, rents and property prices had gone through the roof, we should have bought in Paris at the time it was cheaper ( hindsight is a wonderful thing!) MG was glued to the internet looking for work and I managed to secure a series of dull and unchallenging temping jobs in my industry, event management.
Eventually MG got a consultant position with a company, ironically based in Paris! So he was off to Paris every week returning to England at weekends. We took the decision to buy in France, but where? we thought about les Yvelines, a lovely area just outside Paris, but too expensive we had missed the boat, I was making noises about Provence, again too expensive, MG went to visit some friends in the Pyrenees, Bingo! Perfect area, beautiful, geographically wonderful, lot's of airports for MG's weekly commute to Paris, perfect, we started the house hunt, well MG did, I was too busy working weekends.
MG rang me up one evening, after looking at many properties he had found the perfect house, big, five bedrooms, with a large garden and stunning views, tons of potential and a Medieval Chateau just up the road. He had made an offer, we lost it apparently some Belgium's had bought the property, we forgot about it and went on holiday to Barbados, when we got back there was a message on the answer phone, from the estate agent, the sale had fallen through, were we still interested, after a lot of wrangling, turned out there had never been any Belgium’s, the estate agent was completely unscrupulous and did not even have a mandate to sell the property (beware of French estate agents, they make huge commissions and can get very nasty in their fight to sell a property) We got in touch directly with the owners, they told us the name of the true estate agent who was dealing with it and eventually we managed to secure the property, I had still not seen it!
It was a bit of a shock when I first saw the house, not because it was terrible or even that run down, just because by this time we owned it, the next step was to move in and start turning it into our home, MG was away all week so I moved in alone, with the bats and the voles! and started working; filling, sanding, painting, varnishing, cutting back, MG came back at weekends to do plumbing, tiling, building etc. we had experts into re wire but other than that we have done most of the work ourselves, now eight years later it is a home and a fairly lovely one at that, although it is still a work in progress I think old houses are, still a few projects we would like to do, we would like to convert the garage, which was an old barn into another sitting room, then we need to build a separate garage and a swimming pool is high on the agenda!
We have created an idyll, to be honest sometimes I do find it difficult, the area we are in though totally unspoilt and incredibly beautiful is very rural, I have always been an edge of town girl, enjoying the best of both worlds, now it is complete countryside and a forty five minute drive to any sort of town culture, but one always thinks the grass is greener, it just takes friends visiting and me getting out of the house to actually appreciate what a stunning area this is and how much there is to do here, we are an hour and a half away from the Atlantic coast, three hours away from the Mediterranean, an hour away from Spain, great walking, cycling, horse riding, hang gliding, river pursuits are on the doorstep and in the winter great skiing is only half an hour away.
We are blessed, would I ever return to England? I love to go back, when you return to your homeland you do start to see it through rose tinted glasses, I adore London, it's such a contrast to my life here and I always have a fabulous time visiting friends and family but that has now become a holiday, I know the reality of living in England is very different to dipping in and out for a week or two. Would I ever move? Yes my work here is almost done, I am still hankering after a house to renovate in Provence, as close to the sea as possible, a new chapter and a new adventure.
Well thank you Dash for a different take on settling in France. I hope your lawyers have been warned about the phone calls you'll be getting from French estate agents! In any case the wait was worthwhile because the house looks fantastic now.
Tomorrow my guest will be Ange of Signed by Ange. A different story no doubt, a different lifestyle and a different part of France. I hope you'll come back for more. If you'd like to spread the word about our French Settler week, please feel free to grab this button and link it up to any of the posts. Merci beaucoup!
