Why choose to live in France?

France and the French departments

What made us choose France?

Why not?

We were both becoming disillusioned with England and the fact that the quality of life seemed to be missing. It all seemed to be a mad dash to get money and then more money, yet still never have enough. Housing is more expensive than ever – whether rented or bought and the work situation had become untenable over the years as despite having over fifteen years experience in my chosen field of expertise and having glowing references, it was never enough or I was offered less money than I had been earning ten years ago.

We’d been on a holiday with friends in '92 and fell in love with the place. Since then, we’d been back and forth on countless occasions, usually just day trips for cheap baccy etc, but we didn’t give the idea of living there serious consideration until about ten years ago. We knew house prices were much cheaper than in England and that the way of life agreed with us, but it was what we were going to do to earn money that prevented us from taking the plunge right there and then.

Normandy.
We're just above the 'A' in Alençon

Then one night about ten years ago, I was returning a drum kit I had borrowed to play in the band I was in and Channel 4’s ‘A Place In The Sun’ was on telly, featuring a bloody great place with acres of land and stables in Normandy that was less than half the price of a modest two bed terrace over here. We decided there and then that our idea for living in France was worth looking into further. That night was when we really decided that it was something we wanted to pursue. However, we couldn’t afford a huge house with acreage and stables, but perhaps we’d be able to afford something more our size …

Several hundred internet searches later, we discovered that yes, there were places out there that we could afford, provided we could sell our house and as for what we would do for a living, well, I had been to college and learned how to work computers (to put it simply) and we had both learned lots of other skills. So finding jobs would be a lot easier than when the idea first came to us all those years before.

In ’98, we took a trip to Bagnoles de l’Orne – strangely enough, only half an hour from where we are now – and looked at some houses. Sadly, that was when the property boom in France was at its height and the houses available were at silly money for what amounted to piles of stones.

This is not the house we saw, but just a picture to
show a columbage. It's probably in better condition than the
one we saw ...

One place we’d seen on the web was a columbage, which is similar in makeup to an old English Tudor house. It looked perfect, but what we didn’t know until we were there in the flesh, was that the nice white paint in between the wooden beams wasn’t paint at all, but Formica. Yes, the enterprising seller had nailed bits of Formica to the outside of the house! Besides that, getting to the kitchen required leaving the house and entering through another door. There was nothing in the way of a bedroom, nor a bathroom and the toilet was a hole in the ground at the bottom of the garden surmounted by a plank of wood with a hole in. There were even squares of newspaper for wiping, which was somewhat worrisome.

Another was supposedly a detached property, but the last ten feet had been taken by the original owners – who owned the house next door – for their tool shed. It was vastly overpriced, sat at the top of a very long and very steep pathway and needed the roof replacing and doubtless the electrics and plumbing together with shitloads of other stuff.

The last house was my favourite from its description on the web, and its picture made it look very inviting. When we got there, it was blowing a gale, pissing down with rain and since the picture had been taken, someone had backed a tractor into it, collapsed half the roof and put several fist-sized cracks that ran from floor to roof in other rather important walls. Plus it was at the end of a mud track which would have proved impossible to negotiate without a tractor or a 4X4 once winter arrived.

Our hopes were dashed.

We had our house on the market at the time, but because the house was ex-council, there was a rule that meant we had to sell to someone that was either from Dorset or Somerset. We had one woman who was moving into the area and was going to be doing voluntary work and would have been happy to pay the asking price, but the council twats weren’t happy with that. The sale fell through and it was about two years before we found someone to buy at well under our original asking price. By this time, our debts had risen and the profit we made on the house was much less than we needed to move.

Abrieres les Vallees, a picturesque place
near where we live

Pen’s mum passing away gave us a windfall and rekindled our desire to move to France. We began looking in the cheaper areas when searching for property in the hopes of finding something with a nice big garden and plenty of space. I had been out of work for what felt like a lifetime and it didn’t look like I was going to get anything any time soon, so I was very disappointed with my lot – as you can imagine. I wanted out and fortunately, Pen was as eager as I to make a move.

We began with the Limousin which is in Central France and whilst the property there was reasonably

priced, we discovered that the reason it’s so verdant, was it rarely stopped raining. It wasn’t unusual for there to be snow in winter measured in metres and that dampened our spirits for that area. The Auvergne was another area we’d seen on the television. Nice and green, but further south than the Limousin with less rainfall. It however, turned out to be Limousin’s expensive neighbour, so that too was out.

The scenery in the  Ardèche was absolutely stunning, but generally, the houses were perched on the side of a mountain with terraced gardens dropping into breathtaking canyons. Great in the summer, but worse than Limousin in the winter, since the roads were just a combination of hairpin bends that followed one another in rapid succession and thanks to the fact that I have acrophobia, it was not a good combination!

We heard about the Charente, which had been described as the Dordogne’s inexpensive neighbour, sharing similar weather to the vastly overpriced Dordogne, but would have been much more affordable for us. We found a bunch of houses down there and even went up as far as the Vendée  We did a camping trip in 2010 to Ruffec to go check them out.

It took seven hours to drive from Cherbourg to Ruffec and when we got there, we discovered that the houses were no better than those we’d seen in Normandy, so that was that idea out of the window too. We did go back for a second look at one house, but couldn’t find it, despite driving round for what felt like several hours. It was probably a good thing too as in retrospect, the house’s garden had been used by the neighbours for drying their washing, barbecues and the like and once we came in and reclaimed it – as we were perfectly at liberty to do, it probably would have caused unnecessary angst. It had plenty of nice big rooms and a garden shed across the road – not unusual in France – you could have parked a jumbo jet in. Nevertheless, it wasn’t the right house.

Lassay les Chateax. With scenery like this on your doorstep
who wouldn't love it here?

Once again, our hopes were dashed.

We continued to talk about the idea and were even more resolute about finding somewhere. Now it was not a case of ‘if’, but when. The atmosphere, the food and the general way of life just seemed to gel with us and what was more, people over there seemed to like us.  A good combination, but we were at odds with what we were likely to find as far as houses was concerned and the cost involved for putting it right. It wasn’t just the cost of the house, but the cost of bringing it up to a habitable standard – not to mention what we’d do when we got there to earn money as once again, neither of us felt confident enough to just say, “fuck it!” and bugger off over there anyway.

In March of 2011, I landed my first job in two and a half years and the week before I was due to start my six month contract, I was at a loose end. I decided to have a look at some Normandy properties again and was stunned to find that prices had dropped as the English weren’t buying in the numbers they had been buying in. I found three properties that were not only within budget, but were also habitable – which was something we’d never seen before. I mailed pictures of them across to Pen and she agreed that we should make enquiries.

An hour or so later, I was phoned by a lady from one of the immobiliers with reference to three that I had enquired about.

She asked what we were looking for and I told her.

“Would you be interested in a four bedroom ex-butcher’s shop on three floors with a small courtyard garden, a detached garage with a small apartment over?” she asked. “It’s got a cellar, it’s own wells, water and electric connected and it’s on mains drainage.”

I laughed. “Perhaps if we had the money!” I quipped, thinking she was going to try selling us something that was way over budget.

“It’s within your budget,” she assured me.

She sent us pictures over, which I immediately forwarded to Pen, then phoned her at work to tell her we needed to move quickly. She agreed – with reservations. It wasn’t the kind of house we’d been looking for. The garden was far smaller than we wanted and that in itself was enough to make her think twice. However, by the time she got home, we were making plans to go over the following weekend to see it. Of course, I was going to have six months of good money coming in, which would have bolstered our capital no end and make repairs and DIY affordable.

We came, we saw and put in an offer. Half an hour later, the offer had been accepted and we’d bought it lock, stock and two smoking barrels!

Oh sure, we’d been to see the other houses we’d made enquiries about, but nothing compared to the ex-butcher’s shop. It wasn’t what we were looking for, but once we saw the potential, we realised that there was plenty we could do with it. Plus, it was already habitable and at the price we had offered, we were unlikely to get anything anywhere close.

That was two and a half years ago now and whilst we are still wading through the treacle which is French bureaucracy, we have made a lot of friends, met some really fantastic people and really feel comfortable here. We’re still a little apprehensive about work and earning a living, but unlike England, we don’t have to earn shed-loads. We can earn enough to comfortably make ends meet, which is enough. The quality of life is what matters and that doesn’t seem to be dependent upon how much money you have.

We have rediscovered our love for this country and I’m even proficient enough in the language to hold a simple conversation. Pen meanwhile is streets ahead, but I’m happy enough to bumble along at this pace learning one or two words a day and getting more confused by the fact that so many words have more than one meaning. Still, little by little as the French people say.

We have also discovered Calvados, which is a dangerous apple distillation that could probably strip stove enamelling from cast iron at a hundred paces, stuff cooked ‘au pot’, which seems to be our most common form of cooking at the moment. We have converted our Volvo to a French car – well, alright, we have reregistered it over here. Nevertheless, it seems happy enough and passed all its tests first time, which it never did in England. Mind you, it cost us enough.

So why France?

We fit, that’s why.