Why Mimi lives in France - French Settler Week - part 5

So we come to our last lovely guest  in my French Settler week, Mimi from Bonjour Romance.

If you don't know her yet, pop over.  She will talk to you of Paris, and of Romance.  She's also launching an e-magazine called Belle Inspiration an ambitious project, which I'm sure will be a huge success.

So tell us Mimi, what brought you here?

Thank you Sharon for including me along with these 

amazing women and fellow French Settlers!   

A French Settler's Journey

   What started out as a spur of the moment holiday in Paris turned into a life-changing meeting with destiny.   Okay…that sounds rather dramatic, but true.  I was still reeling from the recent loss of two dear loved ones.  I decided to get away for a week or two – that is when the fairy tale began.

   I visited Paris on a regular basis, but the sudden decision to travel alone at this time was very unusual for me.   Little did I know destiny was at work. 

It was Springtime in Paris.   There was still a slight chill in the air, but I barely noticed all the beautiful blooms.

    Five days into the trip I met 'him'.   Out of the blue and totally unexpected.   In fact, meeting anyone was the furthest thing from my mind. 

    What began as an innocent stroll down the Avenue Champs Elysée - (how cliché that sounds) – changed everything!

The sudden need to be together was overpowering, and the old adage “ love will find a way” proved to be true in our case.   After going back and forth across the Atlantic for several months, we knew we had to make a decision.   We planned, plotted and manoeuvred.  The Atlantic between us was no longer an option, nor had it been from the first moment we met. 

    French honey gallantly offered to join me in the States, but it was agreed that I would make the move to France.  Miraculously property sold, details clicked into place, …16 months later I arrived at the airport to begin my new life with the man I loved. 

This is the short version, miniscule version, of how I came to be a French Settler. 

 If you wish you can find more details about the "meeting" here!

Put a Little Ooh La La in Your Life!

Thank you Mimi, and thank you everyone for following this mini-series.  Tomorrow we'll be back to business as usual, with a new post for you to enjoy I hope.

Why Dash lives in France - French Settler Week - Part 3

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.

Le Train Bleu - one of our favourite restaurants

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!

Why Tish lives in France -French Settler Week - Part 2

Thank you so much for coming back to read another tale of a fellow blogger who has chosen France as her home.  We're about to find out why, but first let me tell you a little about Tish Jett (I love that name, it sounds so chic!) and her (also very chic) blog called A Femme d'un Certain Age.

Tish has positioned herself as the last word on French etiquette, fashion and tips for being elegant and beautiful.  Her writing is always amusing,  her photos of everyday French women are a sociology case study in themselves,  I love her conversations with her virtual confidante Cherie.

 So Tish, tell us , why did you move to France.  What tale are you going to tell us, a tale of money, of undiscovered crime, of  bare-teethed ambition or of love??

All of us, the confederate of expats, immigrants, aliens (!) if you will, have been asked that question more times than we can count.

For me, the more interesting question is, “Why did you stay?”    Mine is a classic saga of how best laid plans can turn out to be better than one expects.

Here’s my story – why I came to France and why I stayed:

The job. It was a dream job, Style Editor of the International Herald Tribune. The risky part was that it was on a contractual basis; I was not an employee with benefits and security. At the same time I was a correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and had freelance assignments from the States, particularly during the periods of the couture and ready-to-wear collections.

The decision was made, I quit my job in New York, announced the decision to my eight-year-old daughter (who was clearly too young to absorb the ramifications), had a container packed with some furniture, and commissioned three large crates to be built to transport our very big dogs from the Bedford, New York, SPCA.

Because of the dogs we couldn’t live in Paris. Thankfully, by some miracle, I found a thatched-roofed cottage in the country outside Paris, bought an ancient Renault 4L, drove to the station, took the train into la gare Montparnasse and then the Metro to the paper when we were putting out a style section.

It was a rented house and along with the deal came two ponies and a magnificent horse named Déesse (Goddess) and indeed she was. She, Andrea, I and the dogs became so friendly with her that she often came into the kitchen – or as far in as she could get her body -- to see if there were apples or carrots waiting for her. Her fare was always included on my market lists. The ponies were biters, cute as can be, but we needed to be wary.

This was the plan: Two years, max. In two years I figured I could parlay my experience into a fantastic job in New York, Andrea would speak perfect French, thus giving her an edge for the future and we would be looking at a win-win all around.

Then fate stepped in. At a dinner party – out here in the country -- I was sitting across the table from an extremely attractive bachelor who was invited to the soirée not solely because he was unmarried, but also because he spoke English, a distinct advantage when the American guest spoke, for all practical purposes, not a word of French.

At table he asked for everyone’s telephone numbers, explaining he would like to invite the group chez lui for cocktails. When we left the dinner, he held my hand for just a few seconds too long. I thought, “Oh, no, a French man, how obnoxious. Well, I suppose he’ll be calling in the near future.”

He didn’t call! I couldn’t believe it. (I learned later he was in the middle of extricating himself from a complicated relationship and didn't want to call me before it was over.) Four months later: another dinner party, same routine. At this point my resolve to keep to my two-year deadline was firmer than ever.

He hadn’t lost my telephone number because he called the next day and every-single-day thereafter – often several times a day – until we married.

Between the beginning and the culmination, Andrea learned to speak decent French in three months and perfectly in six. She attended the village school where we lived and every afternoon was tutored by a former French teacher who had a dog named Dog.

 Andrea asked me if she could please have a cat. I thought, “What’s one more animal at this point?” Enter Mimi one of the most exquisite creatures to ever walk upon this earth and completely bi-lingual. He (yes he) quickly trained the dogs to obey him and all was well.

One day while we were tranquilly living in our thatched-roofed cottage a gendarmerie van drove up, three gendarmes jumped out and explained – Andrea translated – that they were terribly sorry, but they had to deport us.

We were illegal aliens. It’s true. Since I didn’t speak French and all that paperwork was so complicated, I never bothered.   Fortunately, we were saved by the fast-talking silver tongue of my future Reason-For-Living-In-France. 


While we were at the police station, the gendarme said to him: “Wait a minute! Let me get this straight. You speak three languages, French, English and American?"     MRFLIF said, “Oui.” I said, “Let me get this straight; he’s allowed to carry a gun?” Whereupon my future husband said something like, “I think you should probably be quiet.”

My two-year plan has now grown into more than 20 and we’ve all lived happily ever after.

Thank you Tish. -  I'm so glad to know I'm not the only one allergic to French administration and paperwork!

Maybe I should point out that neither my guests nor myself are usually given to baring details of our private lives for all to read on our blogs.  That is why I'm particularly grateful to Tish and the other guests to come this week for writing so generously.

Talking of which .... tomorrow .... my guest is Dash of French Sampler
I hope you'll drop by again!

Why we live in France - French Settler week

If there's one question I'm asked more than any other it has to be "What brought you to live in France?"

I thought maybe I'd tell you  my story,  then I invited some other bloggers who could also tell their tale of settling in France, and that is how we have got to where we are today.

Welcome to French Settler week!!

At last, we will discover what is the true driving force that makes this planet spin - is it ambition, is it money or is it just l'amour that can make a girl pack her bags and move to another country?

I get to start today and be the first to tell my story, but each day this week a wonderful and charming guest blogger will step onto centre stage right here and tell their tale.

So make yourself  a coffee, open a packet of popcorn, pour yourself a glass of wine - whatever.   Here we go.

As a small child  in England I think I always knew I was going to live elsewhere.  Not that I don't like the UK, I love it,  but I was fascinated by anything 'foreign'.

While at university in London, I found a loophole which allowed me to study two extra years abroad, first in Germany then in France.  I was paying my own way anyway, so I didn't need to ask permission, off I went.

I loved my year in Germany, in the pretty town of Tubingen.  Here I was the model student, to be found in the library, organising the students' union, performing theatre, you name it - I was up for it.

Financing your own studies at home is one thing, in a foreign country it becomes more complicated.  I realised I was going to need help for the second year abroad, and amazingly won a generous bursary award that would fund my year in France.  One condition attached, they got to choose the town I'd go to.

They chose Nice!  ....  What can I say?  It was a tough call, but someone had to go so I packed my bags and headed off for the sunshine on the Promenade des Anglais ... for a whole year!

I bought a bike, found a flat on avenue Shakespeare (I promise that's true!), and signed up for  classes. Unfortunately  the French university system and I didn't quite see eye to eye, and after a few weeks I wrote a letter to my tutors in London explaining that I wasn't going  to lectures any more but I would come back from France for my final year speaking excellent French.  Weirdly they agreed.

Free from the student routine, I set about exploring Nice and the Cote d'Azur.  I read all of Balzac, bought a bike, visited museums, discovered Raoul Dufy, learnt more about Matisse, sampled French food from the markets, got a part time job and made a lot of friends.

As a carefree young Anglaise alone in Nice it wasn't difficult to meet people.  One evening while out in Villefranche sur Mer with  friends, I found myself chatting to a charming French boy  He worked for fun at a local radio station, he said he liked my accent  - he asked if I'd like to do a jingle for them? 

O f course I said yes, but  I  dragged an  English girlfriend along for moral support!   The next morning at 8am we turned up on our bicycles at the radio station beside the old port.  

Some things can only happen when you're 21 years old.   By the time we left the radio station we had got ourselves our own weekly show, on Radio Nice! ... and the fun began.

You can guess what's coming next.  

The spring sped by, and with our new found friends at the radio station we were busy all the time.  I don't know if it was inevitable, in any case it seems it was meant to be. I fell in love!    A boy at the radio station who ran the news programme, plus a pretty cool jazz show.  A Corsican no less.  

Spring merged into summer,  back in the UK my parents were growing restless, end of the academic year and I didn't return.   I stayed in Nice all summer - well who wouldn't?

Come September I dragged myself back to London to dutifully finish my university studies.  My heart was still on the Cote d'Azur though and I found it hard to concentrate.  My parents were amazingly generous, and they never tried to put pressure on me to follow one path more than another. 

Letters flew back and forth from the South of France to the South of England.  New Year saw us meeting up half way in Paris.

Final exams for university were in June.  I put down my pen after the last paper and jumped on a plane.  Off to St Tropez where mon cheri had got a job worked out for me and found us the dearest little house.

And so began my life in France, since then I have never actually moved back to the UK.  We have lived on the Cote d'Azur, in Paris, and in India.  After a few years we married , then had our four lovely children and thirty (did I just say thirty?!) years on here we are in Normandy.

Alors?   Beware of letting your teenage daughters travel abroad?  You do not know where it will lead to!  But that's just what I'm encouraging mine to do!    I have no regrets, I am happy with my life and all we have created here.  As I said recently to a blogging friend, there is no such thing as the perfect place to live.  There's a lot to be said to packing your bags and going off on an adventure, but there's also a lot that's good about staying home, marrying the boy next door and staying close enough to family to share Sunday lunch.

I hope you enjoyed my little tale.   L'amour toujours l'amour ....  by the end of the week we'll know just how true this is!

Tomorrow my guest will be Tish from A Femme d'un Certain Age.  I'm really 

looking  forward to her story, hope to see you there.