Carol which roof Eymet?
We had a decent roofer very recently.
Get in touch with me if you are interested.
Frances, just to echo Brian and Carol - Paris is definitely not France, and most French hate Paris and the Parisians! I hope things work out for you though ;-)
And on the idea of dreams and nightmares - "Paradise is only Paradise until you get there", rather like the grass is always greener and all that! No country's perfect, France works for some, not for others, that's life, just get what you can out of it as Carol says, bonne chance ;-)
A dream in a breath away from a nightmare...all you can do is to try to get the most out of what you are doing now...if it becomes too awful then moving back is maybe an option, or moving somewhere else?...at least you will be able to say you gave it a shot....making friends and having good experiences on your time off will help...a good social life will often rescue a miserable working life...chin up..wishing you all the luck in the world...!
Carol, I agree, I am probably not in the place i want to be, in France. I'm not fond of the Parisian region but my existence depends on working here. Sad tradeoff for the privilege of being here. I hope something will change for the better and I can find a way to stay in France but live a real life with lovely French people. That's the hope that must sustain me every day I inch closer to the right to stay ( just a few years left to go).
I'm tired because it's an emotional struggle every day and not just with the French. Each day we decide to do with the next year. Time will tell but I'm giving it my all, my best effort. Something's gotta give!
I grew up in London and it don't get bigger in Europe. Now I try to avoid Bergerac which you can drive through in a few minutes. I meant the local towns and villages, not just a handful of farmers and people we know slightly further afield, say a 30 minutes drive away. None of it like Paris, except the Parisians who have opened hotels, restaurants and so on hereabouts that people say are very good, but they won't go again. Wonder why?
I would agree..we live up the road from a large farming family...beef and horticulture combined...(they run a plant nursery next to the farm) they are charming people...always a smile and a wave...but...Frances is living in Paris...and that is a million miles away from the countryside...I read another thread from somewhere the other day about a girl being sent to work in Paris for a year with her job...she didnt like Paris and was in turmoil whether to refuse or not...I can understand why..for a single woman it can be a nightmare...Paris is great for a weeks holiday...but I wouldnt live there if you paid me! maybe the wrong venue Frances? you are not getting the best of France at the moment...
Since my last comment a local farmer arrived to cut our field for his winter feed. He first asked after my shoulder then apologised for being over a month late finishing, to which I responded by saying I know all about his father and how the local hospital (Stalag Bergerac as I say to everybody, including him) nearly killed him. We exchanged health anecdotes for two minutes, I asked if I could have a trailer of manure this year and he promised that when he has all the hay in he'll bring some. My OH turned up at the moment I said he had to make sure to call in for a coffee and she threw in saying warn us and she'll put something tasty on the table. My point, that is how it is here. Down the road a ways it might just be hell on earth, but I've lived in rural places most of the time since the late 60s and I have never met farmers as rude and grumpy as the East Anglian ones who seem to have contempt for life itself. I prefer the warmth, the manners and the sociability here.
Brian knows my views...probably too well! but I do tend to over emphasis the negative sometimes and generalise...we had a bad time when we first moved to France..and were living in the Languedoc...had so many bad experiences...all the shrugs..bad or non existent services...left me very angry..I think that was when I lost my pink specs..! moving here we have had another load of rubbish...notaire problems when buying our house.. guarantees for a massive roof...not worth the paper etc...but...our day to day experience with the. French people here...quite different. They are friendly...the shop keepers lovely...I think for those of us who have become used to working in a service industry..or in my case charities..but on the employment end..so thus..I was the one interviewing people hoping to get work...and I know what I expected...in terms of good standard of politeness, helpfulness and friendliness...tend to get the short end of the stick when dealing with public offices and large companies..such as FT...rarely do I get a shrug in the supermarket or chemist....and I have once seen a customer unhappy with the service in a supermarket ask for the manager who took the part of the cashier and she shouted at the customer too! Frances...its a different world...you either accomodate it....or do what my partner and I are trying to do ..which is return to the UK!!!! Its a case of deciding what works for you and what doesnt...each to his own...good luck with the decision...
Depends where you are and individuals. Here in this bit of the SW much of what you say is not so, where it is the case the people are often incomers from Paris or other big cities.
It's my (limited) impression that the service ethic does not exist in this culture. That consideration and value for potential customerss is foreign to them. We could run rings around them in terms of attention to detail, courtesy, initiative and hard work. They'd never survuve in an anglo-saxon culture. OK this is a latin culture. The French just shrug, complain and put up with it. Apathy leads to stagnation. So many great things about France but even bigger inertia (from MY cultural pont of view). I'm starting to become a little resigned to it myself because otherwise i spend so much emotional energy trying to budge granite. I'm becoming constantly tired from that and starting to want to find my own little hole and cocoon myself from all the hassles. Help! 'm losing what made me ME.
Funny you should say that Catherine...we were talking recently about changing the dream...and like you..my rose tinted specs were removed some time ago...but guess there is nothing wrong with a big of realism! we are still waiting for a roof quote...the French roofer came 2years and 2 months ago...he was recommended....when we told our friends we were not impressed with him...they said..ah..he is very good...thats why the wait. Since that time we have had the roof repaired big time once....and now about to spend another 10k on another go at it...maybe we should have waited!!!! I think if you were given some indication that this would be the case...you would be prepared...but to come and look and not get back to someone for years is stupid!
Sorry Catharine, sometimes I am a little too influenced by my intellectual hero Ludwig Wittgenstein and cannot leave things unfinished or unresolved. But right, perhaps it is best to gracious bow out and move on to other issues. Basta, finito, on verra!
I am retiring too from this thread..enough said..just one more comment..never said Richard Bransom from humble beginnings...said that about Phil Clarke...said RB and PG didnt go to uni....read RBs life story..his dad didnt back him and left him to get on with it...like Lord Sugar, plenty of starters from scratch like my son..no financial backing from ma and pa......okey dokey...nighty night!
already have done, promise ;-)
Will you three please stop!! You are all making excellent points and every time I even think about going to post, someone has got there first. Plus I haven't had time to read through the 30 odd pages to get a more balanced spin other than the first few lines I'm reading on my iphone inbetween students!
Am exhausted just listening to you :)
Branson from a humble background, my ars*, you see that is the kind of myths that make it all alright in the UK, no England, the most class ridden and snobbish society in the world, makes French snobbery look timid, except we hide it by either hiding away from the lower classes or pretending to be from them. I loved every day in Cambridge and its intellectualism and go back as often as I can but I have met some of the most removed from reality individuals I can imagine there too. There are far too many of them. Carol, I think you have generally shown yourself to be far too bright to fall into that trap, so please do not be dragged into it.
Carol and Brian, Sorry I haven't got the time to get dragged into this one this evening, which is why I deleated my previous reply which was far from being complete or balanced enough. Brian you've said it all and I'd like to echo your last line and leave it there. No country is perfect, some just feel more like home than others and suit you better, France in my case but it could easily have been Italy, same for Brian too I believe although Portugal would have suited him very well by all accounts and I think we are all know where your heart is Carol ;-)
I agree with Andrew, there are parallels but no actual comparisons. I was a working class boy who went to Cambridge and back then it was about 5 or 6% of the intake, when I last knew about that, around about 2004, it had gone up to a bit under 15%. 10% more or triple the figure may seem impressive over 40 years to some, but to me it shows the bias is still toward those who are prepared for Oxbridge at Eton, Charterhouse, Cheltenham Ladies' College, Benenden and so on. I taught enough of them, some were unworthy of top university places, but they would get a degree, if the lowest grade at that, then a good job. Sickening privilege. Tuition fees are nothing to those people but only a few rungs down the social ladder and 9K is a terrible burden and only part of what each year means in terms of supporting one's children. Privilege is almost ignored because it is so ingrained in the UK but the 30 or so years I spent within it was an eye opener because the greatest talents now are those who come from modest backgrounds and work hard to achieve. They are the UKs best scientists, academics, etc but the ruling classes are largely from those groomed from school onward as they are here. Granville is a dilletantiste, always has been and always will be who has become so British she shocks me. One of the best fits of pique I have ever seen is when she spoke in Cambridge and a well known Australian woman and colleague of my then wife at Newnham College asked her about French feminism and Granville said it was not necessary because women had equality already. Germaine then tore her apart. The seminar was supposedly on the international politics of male/female relations, it turned into an exposé of what French elitists do not know. Some of it is right but she put it over in terms of what she knows as probably a SciencePo graduate...
Please Carol, do not fall into those traps. Neither country is better or worse than each other on that score.
She was talking about the number of young French people not educated at the right schools unable to get a job in Paris...am sure they can find employment outside...she was directly comparing London and Paris. As far as how many of our top businessmen etc go to Oxbridge...the UK is unusal...we have so many self starters..Richard Branson, Philip Green and many who come from humble backgrounds..Philip Clarke of Tesco...I think its easier in the UK to be a self starter...my youngest didnt choose to go to uni and is now head of accountancy and finance in Dubai at one of the largest employment agencies in the world.....earns 4 times what I ever managed and he is only 30....Oxbridge is being made to increase its kids from state schools and yes...the cost of university in the UK is shocking...will never forgive the labour party for that one...but its payable when the kids are earning a reasonable amount...not upfront. I still think that the UK wins hands down on this one...and I assume the French kids do too otherwise they wouldnt be moving to London. We have half a dozen expat friends here...those who moved here as young families...not one of their kids has stayed in France...all of them have moved abroad..not all to the Uk...US, Australia, Canada...but that is somewhere in the region of 10 kids...thats a high head count...and these were kids brought up here...
@ Zoe, They also pay the fines each year for the bloom caused in the sea in Brittany by the run off of nitrates, rather than address the problem of getting their farmers to comply with EU regulations.