True, and it depends what you put into it to a large extent. If you are willing to learn and integrate and enjoy the differences then things will usually go well.
Definitely the ‘keeping it real’ group, even though we quit working the local & artisan markets 2 years ago, after 6 years of hard work in all weathers’ It was a baptism of fire, but helped us cope with everything else thrown at us. It helped us greatly with the language as well, as you can’t sell much if you don’t speak to your customers.
There’s as much ‘good & bad’ as anywhere else - why wouldn’t there be? We wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, though.
Bloke’s a complete plonker and obviouslt belongs squarly in your “I have been here a few years so I know all about the French”. Fêtes are all that does happen in July and August in France, the whole country closes for its fêtes!
Thank God (or someone else for that matter as I’m agnostic) I haven’t got UK TV and haven’t had for years if that’s what I’m missing…
Damn I missed it again. Must try and remember to watch it next week to find out what I’m missing in France 
Little Britain, ITV1 8pm Monday evening
our village has so many fetes it’s hard to keep up! What’s the name of the program?
You’d say so, wouldn’t you?
Well, as they say in Outer-Mongolian: He don’t know nuffink!
Yesterday we went to the préfecture for our French nationality ceremony - in his speech the young guy representing the préfet said ‘don’t forget who you are or where you’ve come from, but strive to put into practise the values of the Republic; many of the people on the monuments & plaques in this building made Picardie what it is - & now it’s your turn.’
We moved here 16 years ago for OH’s job. He works for the WHO in Lyon. We intended to stay for a couple of years then go back !!!
Then we had a couple of kids and thought we’d go back before they started school!!!
They went to the local maternelle and it was OK and we knew this was only until they were 5/6.
Still plently of time.
Luckily they both got into the CSI Lyon in CP and we thought, well it’s OK we’ll go back before they learn about Napoleon and that he’s the bad guy.
This year the youngest went into 6e and now we don’t want to move them as we feel that it would be unfair on them to go to a new school system as nearly teenagers.
So here we are with another 7 years of school ahead of us and then uni.
I would say that we are firmly in the ‘keeping it real’ group. Just with a few different nationaliy friends added in.
I came to France on Holiday in 1982. The prospect of returning to a bleak, rainy and troubled Northern Ireland was enough to keep me here. The language was a barrier, as was not being suitable for any employment. Help from French friends gave me a room and a chance. After 2 months of perseverance and a chance meeting I stood in for a bar employee on sick leave. Then more luck, I did my first winter season as a ski photographer. Well they are all quite long stories. Nowadays you can find me at my pub in the Alpes.
Ironically as I am currently traveling in Romania, which incidentally is a much-underestimated destination, a chance meeting in a restaurant brought me into contact with the French Association here. I have just spent a wonderful weekend in Transylvania as a guest of some of its members. Does this make me a double ex pat?
I used to yearn for Jelly babies and cheddar, now I am more likely to hanker after Haribo and Camembert.
I submitted my citizenship application just 2 weeks ago; I should receive an answer in about a year.
I’d like to think I don’t belong to any group … why pigeonhole myself ?
I love both sides of the channel and I look for what’s best in both cultures but I am conscious that “the grass is never greener” and dreams are far from reality !
Settling in France has not been a piece of cake even with the best will in the world, you cannot control every outcome and cannot be totally prepared for what life has in store !
Nevertheless,moving to France was an exciting adventure, often hard work and also traumatic .
I’m working on keeping an open mind, learning to enjoy the present more, build on it for the future, and of course learn from past mistakes !
As many of you have pointed out,we have to take responsibility for our decisions, the choice was ours to come to France and we might as well make the most of it for now!
Yes, very well. have friends in and around st affrique, other half’s from sauveterre de rouergue but we live in decazeville. Have worked in rodez and in companies in villefranche, bozouls, decazeville, capdenac… to name just a few. We love millau and the sud aveyron, other half used to work in st aff and we’d like to go back there but life’s pretty good in the west too. Go over or under the viaduct fairly often when we take the kids down to the sea. I guess you prefer les landes, I love the sea/ocean but prefer the dryer winters here and the hills (I’m a cyclist).
à +
andrew
Definitely! Pipi-caca-zizi jokes galore. Sompe of them truly hilarious.
In Millau, Andrew. We lived opposite the famous (and absolutely gorgeous, UK designed) viaduct. Saw the construction of it. Fascinating.
Do you know Millau?
where were you in the aveyron Ruth ?
Home is … where is home? I have lived just about all over the world and in France for the past nearly 20 years (first Aveyron, now les Landes). I feel at home here, don’t feel like a foreigner, enjoy many things and get pi**ed off about others, just as I would anywhere else. I will stay here until I zonk, will NEVER go back to Holland (where I was born), but do get terribly homesick every once in a while for New York and London.
My group? Good question. Maybe ‘The Settled In Nicely And Realistically’ group?
Stinker of a question, by the way, but a nice one with lovely reactions.
Hi! I’m Ruth Deborah Rey (blahblahblah)
This is all getting really complicated 
How about a ’ Keeping it real but still in a trance ’ group? That is all of the above but still being fascinated by the quirks that are the norm here but so very different from our past Brit life .
Ha ha …so true!!!
you can spot most brits a mile off but not all…!