I’d be interested in a link to where you have replied as I’ve never seen one and @vero isn’t backwards in coming forwards so I’m sure if you had responded she would have noticed it…
What a load of bilge! @vero and I do not always see eye to eye but she conducts herself - as a team member - with absolute propriety.
Sadly, you do not conduct yourself in the same way.
That said, I’m sure @vero will answer for herself.
Cross your legs and hope she misses your delicate parts 
Yes, but you may not think so the following morning! 
Is that where Barrie keeps his brain? 
Apologies, couldn’t help myself.
The wines you invest in are portfolios that you purchase and are professionally stored so you never see, or god forbid, drink the assets, its purely an investment opportunity.
my idea is much better… 
Did that with a few barrels of Scotch Whiskey some years ago and got ripped off big time in the well recorded scam… never again!
I’m so turned off by this whole thing of treating wine, classic cars, houses etc etc as commodities to make money out of.
I seem to remember something about the sun and your girlfriend and going for bicycle rides (?), your girlfriend would surely live wherever you did - so I am sure that was just a flip answer.
These superficial reasons are hardly justification for putting up with life *in a country you dislike, whose people you dislike too, where you feel like a second-class citizen, where the locals are semi-literate corrupt and rapacious rip-off merchants with no taste-buds and a strong streak of racism and xenophobia, and which is part of a failing organisation you dislike even more.
So I am still wondering why you left the UK, which apart from weather (and even that is changing) has everything you advocate.
Obviously these are your opinions, which you are entirely allowed to express - and with which I am equally allowed to disagree.
@vero I thought it was for cheap property. Wasn’t he one of the camp that firmly believes it’s the extortionate prices they pay at Bricomarché that keeps France afloat? Or maybe that was someone else.
@anon27586881 You may well be right, but surely even rock-bottom property prices don’t make up for the rest, they wouldn’t for me; but perhaps one shouldn’t be a solipsist… anyway, mystère, mystère.
Anna… For us… cars and wines are definitely things to be enjoyed.
In UK OH would tinker with the cars (needed for both of us to go to work), keeping them on the road safely/cheaply.
Since coming to France, he has had a few “classics”… always bought them “dirt cheap” and done all the work himself (apart from paint) and enjoyed that part of it - found it therapeutic . Finally getting to drive a reborn car is a real thrill, like being a Dad all over again he reckons (bless him). When a car has been sold, it has been for various health reasons and we have never made any money… but we have wonderful memories…
I too have felt the lash of Veronique’s keyboard!
I think she means well and is entitled to defend her country.
But perhaps we need to change the name of this Forum. Would ‘Embrace France’ be less provocative?
Yes I’ve sometimes puzzled about the name. I don’t see that France needs survival training/education or is something you have to cope with through gritted teeth.
Embrace France is certainly more Gallic - but only at a distance at the moment.
I’ve had the same passing thought myself. But the forum can be something of a buoyancy aid for those, like me, who underestimated the challenges thrown down, and the fundamental adjustments necessary, for successful transition to life in France.
There have been times when my wife and I have struggled, and might have gone under. This forum was always there, not necessarily to provide a solution (though it can do that heroically), but as an assurance of ready human support and encouragement to all. The need to survive life as well as to make the most of it is all of a bundle.
Keep ‘Survive France’. It is apt, clear, and does no disrespect to our chosen homeland. As a swimming coach you, Mike, will know that buoyance is not all there is to surviving the waters. The hand held out to rescue figures too, at times, even for the strongest swimmer.
Hard to argue with that. Having a French wife has made things easy for me, but it has also made me lazy (lazier!)
It seems that we have fallen into behaving as if this is an entirely British forum and say things that we wouldn’t say to a French person face to face.
But clearly, some people see this as a place to let off steam when they feel alien and lonely. So I hope our French friends will understand that and remember the words of the Good Book, “A soft word turneth away wrath.”
.
I hope (like you) that our French friends will understand that it is only a small proportion of our members who post the anti-French stuff.
As with all nationalities, there are good, bad, indifferent and downright-bigots 
More than anything I wish a lot of threads didn’t end up in discussing a certain country across the water.
And trainer’s 
Every nation has its merits and its faults.
I remember feeling offended when a French lady said that she thought London was dirty, but then looked around and had to agree and there were all those “Sale” signs in the windows just to confirm it. I later heard that she went home and told all her friends what a wonderful time she had in England.
People should be aware of the things that are wrong with their own countries, otherwise nothing would ever improve, But we prefer to say those things ourselves rather than be told by foreigners.
We need to remember that.