Contrary to what Daily Mail readers might think, most ‘good life in France’ expats below retirement age still need to work and are busy doing a whole variety of things in an attempt to make a living – spending all day sipping wine and gazing at sunflowers is unfortunately not usually an option and I don’t know anyone here of our age (40′s) who is just sitting round ‘living the good life’.
Here’s a snapshot of a typical day chez nous to give you a clue what it is really like…
Mowing, painting, mending, pool cleaning, garden: 2 hours. This is more in April than, say, December because we re-open the gites from the beginning of May and there is always a lot to be done beforehand. Today I setup a new flatscreen TV and DVD in the gite, cleaned the newly-re-opened swimming pool and started painting a bedroom.
Helping the children: 2 minutes. I was asked for help twice today. The first time was regarding what to buy for an 18 year old ‘goth’ for his birthday – a conversation rapidly ended when I suggested a set of spanners might be useful. Second time was with homework, question: ‘What do American women aspire to?’. I tried a couple of suggestions but they were also apparently no use at all. Another conversation ended.
Handy hint: giving rubbish answers is less time consuming than thinking of good ones.
Eating and drinking: 1 hour, mostly as a family but the children never quite make it to breakfast. Before being expats we never managed to eat together very often, now we usually do. Lucky us. There are three women watching their weight in the family, and me – so junk food is very rare and chips are an endangered species. Think salad and white fish, with occasional outbursts of Nutella.
Cycling: 2 hours. I try to get out on the bike every day, although it’s not always possible. Sometimes just for an hour sometimes for longer. Very often the techie work problems I can’t solve when I’m staring at the computer get solved when I’m cycling along thinking of something else. But very often they don’t.
Paperwork and accounts: these should be allocated about an hour a day but really only get about two minutes a day. Except for year end when its 24 hours a day for a week as we desperately try to work out if we made any money – and if so, where it went (answer: Orange, for several mobile telephone contracts and assorted internet charges).
Driving children to far off destinations: 1 hour. In truth Mrs B does much more of this than I do but I like to claim credit all the same. Unavoidable when you make them live in the middle of nowhere with school friends living up to 30 km away.
Watching TV: 2 hours. Often I’m asleep in front of the TV rather than watching, but in principle I do no work after 8.00 in the evening – I watch the news and then whichever rubbish French channel happens to be slightly less rubbish than the other rubbish French channels. Dr House is the highlight, better in French dubbed version because you don’t hear Hugh Laurie’s curious American accent.
Website related work: every remaining minute / hour, usually starting at 6am when everyone else is still snoring. Want to catch my attention? Send an email in the middle of the night, I might just answer when I get up. Time is spent dealing with everything from contributing authors to spam emails, while also implementing system improvements (such as my shiny new Dordogne gites listing site); dealing with gazillions of queries; and even writing the occasional blog entry.
It always amuses me when I get emails for ‘the systems department’ or ‘the marketing manager’ since there is of course just me and Mrs B beavering away, and she’s usually outside trying to stop the garden from invading the house.
Drinking and living it up: bottle of lager every evening at 6pm (usually while still working). Highlight of the day.
Are you an active expat? Want your 15 minutes of fame? It would be great if a few other French expats could send in their ‘day in the life of’ stories so readers can get a better picture of what real life is like out here in expat land. Leave a comment or send me an email if you would like to be a victim!
We moved from Britain to Norfolk 5 years ago. It is like another country where a form of English is spoken. It reminds us of the England we were brought up in.The attraction of France to me is the space and life style. If you do not take these things up then what is the point.The one thing we learned from France was Lunch. You must have 2 hours with wine and water or move back.
The problem with a two hour lunch with wine is that very little gets done in the rest of the day so we save that pleasure for birthdays and special occasions. Many French workers would disagree of course. Lunch for us is now about 30 minutes, maybe not ideal but still much better than a sandwich eaten at an office desk with no break in work at all. Although Pret-a-Manger sandwiches are one of the very few things I miss about Britain!
That’s a good idea, I don’t know where some days the time goes – I feel a schedule listing coming on.
I’m quite a new ex-pat but it strikes me that French people (as opposed to ex-pats) seem rather stressed and uptight despite the long lunches and the high quality of life.
I put it down to: smoking (guiltily)
not eating carbs (because smoking dulls appetite)
not letting themselves go (in chavvy English manner ie drinking too much/slobbing out)
feeling they have to keep up “standards”.
I live in a wealthy and very desirable place where everyone looks drawn and highly strung. When I was coming home recently I noticed how cheerful and relaxed English people look despite being fatter and more unhealthy. Odd thing.
Hi Susi, you might be on to something there, I wouldn’t like to say whether the French as a whole are more stressed than Brits and it’s an interesting question. If it is a wealthy part of Paris you live in perhaps that is not representative of the rest of France but more like other high stress city environments – Parisians are a breed apart from other French people – but I think you might well be right that English are happier and more chilled out as a whole. A thought provoking comment, thanks.
“When I was coming home recently I noticed how cheerful and relaxed English people look despite being fatter and more unhealthy. Odd thing”
I do not recall meeting you Susi but your description of me is so correct we must have. Sorry.
An excellent idea. My day is very similar to yours, except I don’t do the cycling and have more building work to carry out.
I love it here.
We’ve been here 5 years, still working for a living, still renovating the house, still mostly having a great time and still definitely not regretting the move!
Day in the life? Similar..ish. Too long on front of the computer, more often walking instead of cycling and usually only a half hour down the lane and back. Any spare time spent trying to cajole an ancient farmhouse into some semblance of order. My beer definitely signals the end of the working day though!
Congrats on a great blog.
Hi! Just discovered your blog and have been enjoying reading some of your posts! Look forward to coming back in the future. As a women I can only imagine how difficult it must be to live with 3 women on a diet!
I’m a 29 year old expat living in Lyon and married to a Frenchie. There are lots of ‘invisible’ expats in France, these are the ones that the press don’t see and who spend all day working just like if I was back in the UK! However, occasional long lunches with wine, faire le pont, sometimes les 35h and other typically French things make my life different.
It’s great to hear all these stories, thanks – seems there’s a whole world of us ‘invisible expats’ (good expression) who managed to escape the TV programmes and just get on with living a ‘normal but slightly different’ life out here. I’m still hoping that someone from a ‘Place in the Sun’ type programme will come along and tell us they are still in France and it was all a great success.
Sold up in the UK 6 years ago to come to france for the easy life in the Lot et Garonne and spend some “quality time” with the family. Made all the usual mistakes, bought a house which is too big, cost double the budget and twice as much time to renovate it (still not finished) and left with a garden too big to manage.
UK income then halved, for various reasons, so went to work and set up a small car hire company, gone from 2 cars to over 40 and my days are more hectic than ever.
So now my wife and I spend our days flat out working at keeping all the clients happy. A mixture of the English general public and the French bureaucracy is enough to make anyone stressed. French (not using email) communication skills are poor and continually amazed at their old fashioned business methods. Could go on all day!!
Hope fully Mr Sarcozy will let us keep some of our profits and the kids will just have to go to Grandmas for the summer.
wow Simon, thats amazing. All that in just 6 years – congratulations.
We have just accepted an offer on our victorian terraced north west london house to move full time with our kids 5 and 3 to the haute pyrenees. Bought a holiday home and thought why not make it full time. We are in our early 40′s and will need to work, me teach yoga and my partner to write. Am nervous but excited. Any advice at this stage welcome. Thank you x
Hi Nicky, best advice is to igore other people’s advice – the one thing I have learned is that the expat experience is different for everyone, same as the ‘not-expat’ life experience. All I can suggest is take it easy, learn the language best you can, say bonjour to everyone and don’t get too stressed if things take longer than you think (eg getting your business started, meeting people etc). It all seems much less foreign after a year or two.
Look through the entries in the Living in France category of this blog for posts with general info and other expat comments, then of course feel free to ask any questions you have where we might be able to help.
Good luck with your plans
Nicky, your children will provide an instant entry into a full busy life in France. We are in the Haute Pyrenees, it is a very friendly area, our French neighbours are wonderful. I go to yoga classes (give in French) in the Gers, I’m sure a yoga class wherever you will be living would prove popular. If there are any specific questions I can answer please do email (maybe Boris could pass on my email address?)or if you want to ask about schools etc I can put you in touch with a French/ English friends who have young children. Good luck with the move.
Nicky, just let me know if you want Cathy’s email address and I’ll pass it on (just leave a comment here or email me at francethisway@gmail.com)
i found a great site for Ex Pats http://www.99pshopper.com is a Brtish store that ships to France finally i can do my weekly shopping from the UK
Hi Andrea, is that your site / business? Usually I don’t approve advertising type posts but I took a look and it does look like a good idea. I couldn’t see mention of delivery costs on the site – do you know how much they are?
You are super funny! I laughed really hard when I read your comment about giving your kids rubbish answers and Dr. House on French tv. I’ve been living in France as an English teaching assistant and French TV really does suck.
Best!
Wow! It’s true that the reality of life as an expat is often ignored! I’m planning on making the switch myself but I’m quite anxious, as I’m only very young and have not yet chosen a career path – this seems to be extremely important in France!
What is your set up like over there? What is it exactly that you do? (I gather you lease holiday gites?) If I’ve assumed correctly then that sounds like an amazing lifestyle… How profitable can it be? And did it take you long to set up?
Thanks in advance, apologies for all the questions, loving the blog!
Hi Francophile, everyone’s situation is different, what will work best for you depends on what interests you and what you enjoy doing, whether in France or anywhere else. Focus on working hard at something you love and things usually turn out OK in my experience. Gites are good (not too much work) but I wouldn’t call it a ‘career path’ – I had one of them before moving to France and doing what I do now! Gites can be profitable for people who (a) have the money to get started (b) treat it like any other job, always trying to make their gites and the visitor experience as good as possible. For most people it’s just a small income though, not a way to get rich.
Thanks so much for the prompt reply!
Yeah it seems (from everything I’ve come across on the net) to be more of a sociable and exciting retirement option almost. I’m only just out of school and nowhere near beginning a career so it’s really probably best I quell these dreams for a few decades haha! I wish it was a more viable life path haha… wouldn’t that be great.
Ah well for now I’ll just have to content myself with some mundane petit boulot wherever I can find one, for me it really just suffices to be in France, period.
Anyway props to you for getting where you are, I hope to find myself in your situation one day!