French Life-expat France

Given that summer is here at last…I thought I’d take a look at the best ways of heating your house in France. Better late than never, and it might just help reduce the cost of fuel / oil next year - which I’d guess won’t be any less than it is now. There are now [...]

The region around us in the valley of the Dropt River was little developed during centuries gone by, which helps explain its natural beauty. This lack of development was in part because of the natural character of the soil - there is typically a 30 centimetre layer of soil on top of a dense thick [...]

I’m in the attic of the house this week, treating about a zillion beams with wood protection and treatment. This involves wearing a protective mask and goggles, handling noxious chemicals and generally looking silly, but seems preferable to waiting for the roof to fall down.
Funny thing is, the attic of the house is probably the [...]

A week ago we had a big wood delivery - eight stères (cubic metres) of oak - to burn in our wood-burning stove. Given the price of oil for the central heating this is a good thing.
Woodburning stove heating works very well for us, especially because the converted barn where we live is more or [...]

We’ve been living in the barn for almost three years now, and very pleasant it is too. By way of keeping warm we have oil central-heating, installed whan we did the renovation, and a woodburning stove added a little later, in an effort to save the world and spend less money.
The principle is straightforward. We [...]

When we first arrived here in France, the house had no connection to mains water - all the water for the house and farm came from a spring that we have in the ‘garden’ (read ‘field’). We paid up for a connection to the mains water and now only use the spring for watering the [...]

When we bought our house in south-west France about six years ago (actually come to think about it, almost exactly six years ago to the day) there was a suggestion that property prices in the region had been inflated by rick-kid foreigners like us coming in and buying up properties at inflated prices.
It was never [...]

A couple of words in praise of French expats today! That’s not like me, I know, but even I can try and be pleasant sometimes.
First in the queue of honour is a newspaper called Connexion, produced in English for the expat community. This gets delivered to our door - free and unrequested - from time [...]

Our tobacco barn has troubled us since we arrived. It is big, at 20 metres by 12 metres, and quite close to the house and barn. It is useful for parking and storage, and sometimes these old wooden barns are renovated into gites. So we have spent five years trying to decide whether to smarten [...]

At one end of our property we have a field, about a hectare (2 1/2 acres) in size, with good views, easy access to the road, in a beautiful setting and not overlooked by anyone else. Apart from the farmer who cuts the grass as hay for his cattle, no one has been in the [...]

As part of my life here in France, I have had to renovate some old buildings - a barn, a cottage and an old farmhouse. Sometimes I have got in the professionals - more often than not, in truth - and other times I have had a go myself. Sometimes, by watching a professional on [...]

A topic that almost never arises in the overcrowded countries of northern Europe, but dominates our every waking moment in rural France, is septic tanks. Happy memories of simply using a toilet, or cleaning a sink, and thinking no more about it are distant memories.
France have introduced new and exciting regulations to help guide us [...]

It has not been a fun packed week here in the grim north of France. The weather has been cold and miserable, and so have I. Work on on of our little projects to re-roof an old stable, so that we can rent it out next summer to smiling happy holidaymakers, has been going more [...]