French Life-expat France

I recently heard a story from another gite owner about someone who visits them each year from the UK, and pays excess baggage charges on their flight so that they can bring a few tins of baked beans and tinned tomatoes with them. Since this excess baggage costs eight euros a kilo, that would mean [...]

I saw an interesting news feature about French cooking - at the opening of the Paris Agriculture Fair, Nicolas Sarkozy called on UNESCO to list French cuisine as ‘World heritage’ and needing protection.
As far as I knew, the UNESCO world heritage list is usually for monuments, places and buildings - to ensure they aren’t ravaged [...]

Today, the 6th of January, is the day of epiphany. The epiphany celebrates various events from the life of the young Christ, notably the day when the Three Kings presented their gifts, and his baptism by John the Baptist.
The main reason the French look forward to epiphany is, of course, because it is the day [...]

Last year we had capon for christmas dinner instead of turkey. Capon is extremely common and popular in France, and in fact was also much tastier than most turkey. So we have bought another one this year, as do many French families.
Being unclear what capon is, apart from vague references to ‘male chicken’ I looked [...]

When I started the francethisway site I intended it to be a hobby to keep me entertained during the winter evenings. Unfortunately I am an obsessive workaholic, and it rapidly became a full-time job, and more recently a registered enterprise.
This is good, I’m pleased how popular the site has become, but does have its downsides. [...]

On their visit to Barcelona the children were pleased to find that there were long queues to enter many of the highlights (yes, in October). They were pleased, of course, because it was easier to convince Mrs B to forget about art and architecture and go shopping instead when faced with the prospect of two [...]

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 [...]

I had an enjoyable bike ride with one of my cycling friends yesterday, and as so often learned something that I didn’t want to learn.
The south-west of France has a long tradition of good food and wine and healthy hearty living, and the area is positively overflowing with tasty mushrooms, fine cheese and great wine. [...]

Our first Christmas for many years without any family visiting is rapidly approaching, so it’ll be interesting to see how that goes. Will we all enjoy endless rounds of monopoly and card games, christmas crackers and turkey? Hmm I wouldn’t bet on it yet but we’ll find out soon enough.
I expect in reality the children [...]

My birthday came and went, as they do, with a quiet fanfare and a great big cake. Due to confusion over numbers, a result of advancing years I imagine, I had passed most of last year thinking I was 43, so it was a nice surprise on my birthday to realise I had ‘only’ been [...]

We had ‘un repas bien arrossé’ yesterday - great phrase, don’t you think, arrosser is ‘to water’ (as in ‘watering the garden’) but ‘un repas bien arrossé’ is a meal washed down with plenty of wine etc.
Anyway, one of the local communes were having their annual village ‘moules frites‘ evening and some friends invited us [...]

Not only do I not have to go to an office or commute (although I work long hours at home when I can wrench the computer away from the rest of the family) but I can take long luchtimes whenever I want. So yesterday we went out for lunch to a very nice restaurant. Nothing [...]

OK first things first, what do you reckon to the new look for the blog? Sleek and sophisticated. I can’t decide whether I changed it for the better or simply for the sake of change. I like it, I’m just not sure whether the bubbly orange across the top will stay or go. I have [...]