As you know I am incurably nosy and this week I am also 'flu ridden, stuck at home and bored. So please take pity on a poor invalid & indulge my curiosity again!
We had a small terraced house in St. Valery Sur Somme, for 10 years, as a well used holiday home(at least 6 times a year). In 1990,we bought a piece of land in Mauritius, where my beloved hails from,with the intention of building a house there,to retire to. We then exchanged the French house for an old farmhouse in the Vienne. After we'd built our place in Mauritius, we realised that we would never be able to settle there(here..I'm writing this from Mauritius),full time. It's too stressful! So, 5 years ago, we upped sticks and moved to France. We will still keep coming for 3 months to the sun, but will eventually flog up and spend our dotage in France.
We are neither fish nor fowl. For years I wanted to leave the UK, for many of them had my nose pointed south. The closest to the UK was Portugal, but a couple of countries south of the Equator attracted me, poor ones at that. I revised my view when I found myself with a Swiss partner and a couple of daughters. Anyway, she got a job in Wales. In fact just west of Swansea is actually quite nice, if either wet or foggy. However, her employer closed down the institute she was a senior member of and she shocked them all by accepting voluntary severance. If she had stayed we may well have still been there and I might have been doing other part-time teaching again.
We had money from one place already, plus her pay off, I was earning good fees with my work and we made a quick stab at Bretagne that we already knew. However, it would have been exchanging SW Wales wet for wet plus cold winters. So we nosed further south. I was very determined to avoid Dordogneshire on the basis of its reputation as a magnet for Anglais but at the time I could get cheap flights from Cardiff to Bergerac, so off I toddled. I found a place well in our budget, we packed and moved.