Looking at recent posts on this blog I can see I have been grumbling a bit too much, and not talking about the great reasons for being an expat in France.
So to stop readers thinking I’m a miserable old fool or that France must be a terrible place to live I thought I’d be a [...]

There have been various times in the last couple of years when I’ve complained about customer service in France.
One time it was Europiscine, who fitted a new swimming pool liner for us with an expensive ten year guarantee and then refused to put it right when it immediately developed big wrinkles. Another was Dell, who [...]

Everyone tells me that discussion forums are nothing but trouble – forum members are rude to each other; spammers sign up just to tell of the delights of via*ra;  everyone thinks they know better than everyone else; and worst of all – there is no possibility of ever making a penny from a forum despite [...]

Eymet is a very pleasant bastide town near Bergerac, worth a visit if you are in the region to explore the 13th century arcaded houses around the main square and to amble along the river.
It’s not exceptional compared with other similar towns in the Dordogne department, which has many stunning medieval towns and villages, but [...]

We get a lot of ‘farmers protest’ type billboards along the sides of the road near us, mostly to do with the fact that supermarkets sell the farm produce for a price that is way in excess of the price the farmers receive. OK so French farmers aren’t top of the list for the public [...]

It is true that French farmers aren’t always held in the highest regard, especially by people in countries such as the UK that don’t benefit from the large farming subsidies that France receives. But for the farmers themselves life isn’t always sunshine and champagne.
I was talking to a local farmer who predominantly makes his living [...]

Contrary to what you might sometimes think from this blog I am very happy being an expat and living here in south-west France, and there is nowhere I’d rather be. I thought I’d turn the tables a bit today and remind myself (and anyone else) why I like it here:
Cycling
Apart from occasional weeks in winter [...]

This week we celebrate the 200,000 kilometres of our 8 year old Renault Megane Scenic, with the real and imminent prospect that we do actually need to replace it, and soon.
It’s had a good run – including a rather dramatic leap across a ditch about 5 years ago when Mrs B drove too fast around [...]

I’ve always disliked going for a haircut – it’s been the same ever since I was a five year old in Bromley and a barber lopped a lump off my ear.
I did escape going to get my haircut when we first came to France – we had a couple of years where Mrs B would [...]

We’ve just spent three days recovering from a very bad storm that hit south-west France on Friday night – saturday morning (along with Spain, Portugal and parts of Italy).
Along with more than 1,000,000 households in the region we were without electricity, telephone, internet or mobile phone communications while bits of roof and fencing fluttered around [...]

During the last few years we have seen the full cycle for expats moving to France.
When we first arrived, little did we know it but many others were to follow soon after. Within a couple of years there was a bit of a tidal wave of expat families arriving in France – along with lots [...]

The weather is a bit cooler this week so my training for the Tour de France 2009 has been a bit inadequate, although the number of logs I’ve been throwing in the wood stove has been keeping me fit.
There is a danger that the tumbling price of fuel means it will soon be cheaper to [...]

I expect I’ve given my opinions on French television before – generally I find it to be no better or worse than UK television. Very often it is probably exactly the same programme (eg dubbed American detective series) or a copy (French versions of reality shows and talent shows). There are a couple of differences [...]

Before we came to France, seven years ago, I read many of the ‘real life stories about setting up home in France‘ books, in a (completely fruitless) attempt to see what surprises might be in store for us.
Like many expats moving to France I toyed with the idea of writing a book myself. I even [...]

Get ready for a long afternoon, you’ve got a lot of reading ahead of you.
France this way can’t cover all aspects of France and French life from all angles, so to give you a bit of variety I thought I’d list some other French sites that I like to think complement our own. Their owners [...]