Very well put Brian and I love your photo, I'd love to have photo of me sleeping but as a working mum of 2 young children I'm always the last one to sleep!
All comments and replies apearing as one single repeated letter: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! P'raps not.
Seconded, idem!
Very good point, I am very happily settled here, fluent in French and lucky enough to work in the French system. I don't tend to go on sites like this usually, with a French husband I am lucky enough too to have most of the help I need. I think the British communicate with gripes sometimes, we are (not always so please don't take this too much as a generalisation) often a culture of people who don't like to show off, so we interact with those little problems. When I had my first child I hung around with new mums and we discussed gripes, until I had had enough of that and moved on to other people. It is human nature to edge towards people with have something in common with. If someone is nervous about their French skills, of course they will feel more comfortable talking to someone they can talk to naturally without compromising their ability to communicate effectively. So who are we to judge them? Yes, of course to respect the people whose country we have chosen to live in we should make an effort to integrate, but it doesn't mean we need to lose our identity, I will never be able to lose my accent, just improve my pronunciation, so I will always be immediately be recognised as "etranger", that straight away creates a separateness. Vive la difference!
That's very soothing - think all members should change their profile pics to one of them asleep!
idem !
I've never been to one, but snide remarks such as your own is my idea of what goes on with these "covens"
Kendal; with respect, half my ancestors were brits in Ireland. My Grandfather married an Irishwoman, and settled in just fine, they did not need to hang out with anyone in particular to feel a sense of belonging.
I don't have other Irish people living near me, that I know of, LUCKILY. My partner is French, after living in Australia, New Zealand, and Vanuatu, all without needing to set up Irish/French ghettos, we settled here, in France.
I keep my culture, I celebrate St Patrick's day in a big way, cook a few dishes that remind me of home, and when I meet with old friends, I sort of "go back" to being who I used to be, before I left.( drunk, and giggly) I don't need to meet up with 17 other Irish people to remind me of where I come from, nor do I need to go in one of those tacky "irish pubs" they have here.
Ifpeople don't have the freedom to get up and leave,; they should either try harder to accept that they are in another country, with another culture. Slamming every French person one meets, just out of cultural intolerance is a sour way to conduct everyday life.
Cuckoo's egg Kendal, gives him something like an MA Trollology!
So, one of me sleeping which I do too little, so perhaps to also remind me to catch up!
Two and a half years and this time I want to stay somewhere - i.e. here - to give my children a chance to grow up happt and stable and for me to grow gracefully old (errrr!!)
Slowly but surely this topic is becoming one Graham Greene would have treasured and written an expat novel out of. Diversity is shown, but so too narrowness - which is after all only one end of the diversity spectrum but also stands alone - and also proves the old adage that people agree to disagree very well. For fear of us all becoming intolerably repetitive I personally think it is time to let it dwindle and all of us to reflect on a) the diversity of views, b) look at ourselves and ask if we really are who we say we are on here, c) remember that whilst English is the language used this is not an ENGLISH theme although I feel a few people are pushing that way and d) Corson Bremer gave 'life' to a cuckoo's egg and has cleverly flown like that bird, do we all not wonder why?
Ohhh dear Corson,you really are a sad sad man.
I am a retired ENGLISHMAN, (not British), and I have lived here now for just over five years. I suppose being ENGLISH and basically living just across the road from France, which perhaps gives me the edge over an American counterpart, them being, as it were, based further afield.
I would have thought anyone moving her for financial reasons has had VERY bad information given to them, I am sure there are other countries where the rewards and the the returns on invested money would be far greater than here .
A lot of people, ( me included) came here because the way of life is far calmer and easier than that in the U.K. for a retired man, at least, in my opinion it is.We did NOT come here to lose our English identity, we did NOT come here to form, or to join, Brit Groups, we did NOT come here to be and live all things French, we came here, and I would suggest many others have as well is simply because we feel the French way of life more in keeping with thee way we want to spend our retirement.
An American couple moved not too far from us tried their hardest to integrate with the French local people, they threw a large ----- AMERICAN --- style Bar-B-Q- , the aim was to invite an equal number of English and French people and for EVERYONE to happily integrate, the truth of the matter was, those that knew each other tended to herd to together, the people in the "group" I joined were French and ENGLISH from around the village I lived in, we spoke quite happily to each other in pigdin English and in French, we knew each other, we were comfortable in each others company. The ONLY people left basically in the cold were the couple who organised the event, I had the impression they expected the French to throw themselves at their feet and graciously thank them.
I met this couple some six or so months later and they were most upset that NO-ONE has invited THEM to a party -- event or whatever, I tried to explainto them that with the French, in general, it's a case of --see and be seen --- gradually let THEM come to you, they ARE NOT an --"in your face" type of people, at least not here in the Charente they aren't. I also asked how their language skills were, they said, they'd given up trying to learn because it was too hard, when I said did they not think the average French person finds English equally as hard to learn?
I wouldn't have thought with the attitude you exude in your posting that you are particurly popular with anyone as you appear to have formed a ---"group"--- all of your own. From the way you bang on it seems to me as if if you HAVEN'T lost your AMERICANISM, because , as i said earlier, most people, British --American --- Dutch ---etc etc etc. come here to live to enjoy their life, integration, if you want it, will come to you, you can't force it , whether some that do come here can't--or don't --- bother to learn the language, no matter how it is learned, ( me for example have learned by listening), I am by no means perfect but I get by, from my experience those that DON'T WANT to learn are the one that form their own "ex-pat" groups.
To say they gang together in order to resist the culture etc is simply ----stupid, and then to refer to other cultures being, and I quote ----"Questionable cultures" --- is an open insult to ANYONE living here, and as far as your final statement, --I wonder just how many fellow Americans think that >>>>>>>>>>>>> OF YOU>
Thank you :)
I agree, perhaps I am prejudiced by my own past and profession that makes me a perpetual outsider in one sense and an observer of the inside on the other. Expat ghettoes appear to exist everywhere and the only attraction for me is that as a social researcher I could answer my own question why they are as they are by researching them. I am not sure I want to though because it where I am not sure I would enjoy my work. The bashing of ideas on here is disturbing and that in turn disturbs me.
Different strokes for different folks! I love France but will never be french. I have only returned to the UK once since my arrival in 2003 and that was in 2003. I like all people but think that when you choose to live in another country you must take on their ways and accept that it is their country sometimes frustrating I know but that's life! Embrace friendship from wherever it is offered and enjoy life - you're a long time dead.
It is really interesting how closed-minded many expat's are when living abroad - my experiences (Italy, Bolivia and now France) have all taught me so many things - the biggest thing...tolerance and understanding (as I have been excepted in all these places by many of the locals)! This should be only an interesting discussion, but somehow it seems to have turned into a bashing of individual ideas and feelings - sad ;-(
They were also called "Souties", Stephen :-) Do you remember this? One foot in England, another foot in South Africa, and another part of the male anatomy dangling in the sea. (Sout=salt in Afrikaans)
Is that a for real name and any relation of Adrian?
Now what is the name of that appropriate one of the seven dwarves from Snow White? His name could be adopted for that group...