French Life-expat France

Well, Easter has come and gone, and with it our trip to the seaside. Or was it a trip to the shops? Or perhaps a walking holiday? In the Boris family there are just four of us - me, Mrs B, teenager and pre-teenager so it should be easy to arrange a little holiday that we will all enjoy, right? I’d suggested a day-trip to Sarlat, a mere 30 minutes in the car, so that we could be home for tea but Mrs B thought I was joking.

Wrong.

A holiday is the one time in the year (well OK not the only time, but a big one) when we realise just how much we all enjoy different things. And how much we each dislike the things that the others like. So the problem is, how to please everyone.

I am not a very adventurous traveller, so despite the pleas of Mrs B that we pass a fortnight trekking through ruins in Vietnam or the pleas of teenager that we go to New York for some serious shopping, we ended up in France. Yes I am aware that we live in France, so it doesn’t sound too impressive, but France is big and it is the preferred destination of many French people, as well as being one of the world’s most popular international destinations.

Trouble is, it seems we all set off on holiday with a different understanding of what we will do when we get there, which makes things a bit more complicated than they should be.

Myself, I like seeing history - castles, old towns, local architecture, and also doing a bit of cycling. I hate shops and I hate sitting still. Teenager and pre-teen don’t understand why someone would go on holiday just to see more old-stuff, and Mrs B takes her history in moderation.

Mrs B likes walking in the countryside admiring the flowers and butterflies, and then sitting in a cafe for hours watching the world go by. Although in reality I find that the world doesn’t go by - more probably an old lady with a loaf of bread, and a lad on a moped - but apparently that still counts. The rest of us aren’t very good at this ’sitting quietly’ idea, unless MTV is blaring away in the corner. The children finish their drinks in 10 seconds and go off and harass some local youth into playing ball with them, leaving me with Mrs B, looking at my watch and twitchy to go on to the next Classified Monument on my agenda.

Teenager likes shops, and pretty much nothing else. As she points out very often, the town where we live is old - not ‘old’ as in ‘quaint and interesting’ but ‘old’ as in ‘full of old people and nothing to do’. Shops means action, fashion, and seeing other young folk. Crowds of people bustling about with bags crammed with the latest accessories. More than anything in the world I hate shopping. That is why the internet was invented - for people like me to avoid shopping - and, as Mrs B would tell you, to also avoid all forms of social interaction.

Pre-teen likes making snowmen and and paddling in the sea. Snowmen are not easy in the south of France, so paddling gets the vote.
As for holiday food - Mrs B rules our eating habits with a rod of iron to stop us all turning into roly-poly folk, so this also leads to conflict, although there is on occasional and slight relaxing of the rules on holiday.

So what do we do? We try to find a compromise. We look around a beautiful village, stopping at a cafe for a drink and an ice cream while Mrs B rushes to the local Tourist Office to check whether there is a marked path up a nearby hillside where we can walk off our excesses. Usually there is, but since the rest of us have little enthusiasm for walking, teenager will put her bag in front of the first marker of the walk, pre-teen will sit on it, and I will scratch my head enthusiastically and say what a shame it is we can’t find it, and should we go back to the car.

The afternoon will then perhaps include a trip to the beach, which I am exempted from so I can go on a cycle ride. Really I am exempted for two reasons. First, because teenager wants to chat-up the lads on the beach, and she can’t do that so well if I am there keeping an eye on her. Second, after about 10 seconds on a beach, I start talking about the bad effects of too much sunshine, and the possibility of exploring rock pools, none of which interest the others.

Towards evening Mrs B sometimes starts to talk about walking again, but the rest of us have a pre-agreed list of problems ready - headache from too much sun, walk too close to a cliff edge, can’t walk in flip-flops etc - so we usually see the idea off quite quickly.

Likewise, the idea of shopping usually turns up sooner or later, but even teenager can’t bear my miserable face as I trudge around behind them, and sooner or later I get sent off to look at a castle. With a last dire warning about spending too much money on clothes and accessories I set off, happy at last.

So, for all this conflict, do we come away from a holiday happy and relaxed? Well, I do, because you will have noticed that I have ended up doing exactly what I wanted. Mrs B is happy because, although she hasn’t done any walking, she has at least spent some time away from home and with the family, and seen a new part of the world, albeit not exactly hiking in Bolivia or trekking through a swamp in Botswana. Teenager is happy because she has at least seen a glimpse of a bigger, better world, and has exchanged email addresses with a gang of youth that she met on the beach. As for pre-teen, she has paddled in the sea, had more ice-creams and chocolate than usual, and did less schoolwork, so she is reasonably happy as well.

So all in all, a good time was had by all, and we look forward to doing it again soon. Incidentally, I enjoyed myself so much I wrote all about the destination, St-Jean-de-Luz, at francethisway, so if you are hoping to have a break with your own family (or away from your own family) you might like to check it out.