Whereabouts have you moved to Annette?
With you on all of that Doreen. I came across something recently (can't remember what sorry but it was from the govt.) that referred to James as being the 'head' of the family. Yeah right..!
I was trying to figure out how this conversation re-appeared, and then spotted your comment Annette. A certain venom there perhaps? I would say the same of Paris as I would of London and any big city now (and I was a big city boy for most of my life. Not for me any more.
However I do find the blanket statements you have included things like 'sometimes extreme hostility to foreigners, and insulting attitude to women' something i simply don't recognise, and dare I suggest it, and derived from the tone of your posting, these might have been reactive to you and your attiudes?
Good luck back in the Scandinavia! Two freezing cold years in the Baltics was enough for me, although I enjoyed the time there, I couldn't live with it each and every year.
Rosanne I hope that you make a few really good friends here in France and that you
have some animals to take care of.
Animals create happiness.
Living here is not easy.
But living in UK once more....I am not sure if it would be possible for me.
Thanks, Sandy. me too. It does get me down at times.
I guess we all have different needs and different hurdles to overcome. I was abandoned here by my husband who chose this place and (unbeknown to me)had been living a double life for some years. The French countryside is a lovely place, I grant you, but it's no fun being stuck all by yourself in someone else's dream and unable to move forward because they won't sell. I guess I am not the only one to be trapped in an difficult situation.
On the wonder whether, I have never stopped asking myself that one. People often carry something - I've seen spoons, conch shells, lids from tins... However, if that started in the highly populated UK (just imagine Hyde Park!) then the expression 'bog standard' could mean something else entirely!
In many places I have visited, people dig a little hole, squat over it, refill it after and then, having said that, what on earth does it have to do with going back from whence one came? Nothing, so perhaps we move on ;-D
The pigs used to eat the soil when I was in India although I'm not sure where this is going.
Chris
Brian always a good one from you! However I can say that in India (small village called Junia in the desert) after one had observed the matinal function a fellah used to collect the product from under the bungalow to be sun dried for fuel purposes! Great ecology! No doubt you can regale us with une histoire of your time on some other frontier of civilisation!
David, unlike you posh folk we had a lead bucket in the back alley and had to use bits of the coal man's sacks. But by golly, we were happy!
T'were no sheets save t'mirror in't frostbound privy.............
Is it all about what we have materially, what about the lifestyle would you have a better one in the uk given your financial circumstances, i would be living on my pension in the uk the same as i am here in France would it go further i doubt it ok my wife could go back to work i am prety sure i could walk back into my old job but at 66 i wouldnt last long in heavy engineering, the summers would be a lottery winters would drag on for over 6 months fuel bills would kill me, heat or eat, i dont need the pub the chippy or the wailing sirens be they police fire or ambulance attending the latest pub brawl, i will sit in the garden watch my chickens goats and veg where its so quiet i can hear the cuckoos in spring miles away,meet with friends for a coffee once a week nip down and have a beer with the gang and wander around the market on Saturday morning the uk no thanks picked up my musket and done my bit for queen and country plus trained a few good apprentices who thought like me after a few years whats it all for and cleared off to the far corners of the world some even to France
We would go to live in the UK tomorrow if we could have there what we have here, (a house in the countryside with land), somewhere in the southern half of England.
Chris
Having whiled away an hour reading through all the posts of my fellow ex-pats, I'm amazed at some comments and in total agreement with others. All appear to agree that 'home' in the UK is an idyllic cottage with a rose garden to help with the tint of your specs.
My US husband loves the UK, all parts of it (having experienced life in much of it before we met) and would not have left given the choice. But loving me, he put up little objection and we duly arrived here in 2004 – neither of us had day jobs as such, we both worked from home and thought to continue doing so here in the south east. There was the first naivety, being self employed in France is not at all the same as in the UK and the taxes and SS payments are strangling us. Sorry, but I prefer to work and actually need to as we are both on basic UK pensions. On the other hand, I seem to be able to acquire jobs here that I would not be accepted for in an overcrowded UK market at my age, a return would be a downturn in that respect.
Why don't we go back? For all the reasons already voiced here. I LOVE my life here, love the views, love the creatures (well, not the wasps), and I do feel at home. I find the locals bursting with friendliness especially in Winter when they're not being annoyed by some often rather rude tourists. My husband however is lonely. He misses his family and now grandchildren, misses being able to chat with anyone and everyone he encounters as despite all efforts he simply cannot speak French. When he tries, and he always does, they ask him to speak English as it's easier for them to understand!
Old and poor in UK or old and poor here? It's a no-brainer for me.
Luxury! We lived in hole in t' road.
WHAT 2 BAR FIRE sheer heaven we had t'sit rarned me dad wheel a suked on Polo mint bludy el it were ard in them days an shoe box way lived in kept leakin whun i eet raind it were only rain that kept box from seting light from candles way had for lights
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Luxury! ....
T'were '66, Chorlton cum Hardy, life were hard, t'two bar fire in t'bedsit were t'only thing kept me from frozen, and chippy were t'only food out. Up't Oldham clogs rattled o'er cobbled streets 'n'd faggy headscarved'n'rollered toothless crones drunk't'pubs wi no wine save British. Thank heavens I now live in France!!!!! (Real story)
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