Well I’ve had my four days all alone and tomorrow I drive to Toulouse and get the rest of the family. They will be looking forward to seeing me, I’m sure.
At least I know they are alive and spending - I had a ten second phonecall this afternoon to check up on me. Not very [...]
Mrs B and the girls have gone for a shopping trip to Barcelona for a few days, so I am here on my own. Shopping is not my thing. So what do I do to amuse myself?
To say the least it is quiet here, three houses in 16 acres of countryside and just me and [...]
The end of the holiday season has come and gone, and the chances of anyone swimming in the pool again this year are, to say the least, small. The last few nights have dropped to about -3°, although the days are still pleasant and sunny.
Closing the swimming pool (there are a few notes at the [...]
I see that visitors to the site are starting to look at places to visit in France for next year’s holidays, perhaps because the weather has turned a bit cooler over the last couple of days.
Not many are actually booking holidays in France at the moment - I guess that everyone needs a month or [...]
The proposed changes in the French healthcare system applying to expats in France are a source of much discussion at the moment, and it is still not quite clear exactly who will be affected, and to what extent.
Nonetheless the implications could be serious, above all for those expats living in France who are below state [...]
Mrs B couldn’t got on her usual Tuesday morning excursion today - she usually sets off exploring with a friend once a week - which meant I get roped on as a rather poor alternative.
As a result, we set off bright and early to explore a few tiny villages we had never visited before, and [...]
After most of the tourists have left the region, around October, things start to return to normal.
Restaurants don’t need advance booking, and we can park the car more or less where we like without being trapped between two enormous Dutch-owned ‘people-carrier’ type vehicles. Staff in the shops look calm and friendly instead of tired and [...]
Winter is some way off yet, we hope, but there are a few things to be done in advance. The main job to do before it gets cold is to make sure we have a big stock of wood to burn, since it’s the cheapest most environmentally way to heat a house, and also it [...]
Yippee doo dah! Yesterday we broke all records (at least for us) and the francethisway site had 6,400 page views (about 2,600 people total). So almost every 30 seconds, right through the whole 24 hours, someone new came across the site and popped in for a look.
I’m especially happy because the end of September should [...]
