You are probably aware that all cars in France have to always carry a bright yellow waistcoat and a warning triangle in case of night time emergencies. But one new rule that has perhaps received less publicity than it could have done is the requirement that drivers in France are now obliged to carry an [...]
Ok it doesn’t sound like a particularly sensible question in the middle of November with a recession setting in (again) but our website statistics show that lots of people are asking that exact question. Perhaps it is winter setting in that reminds people that they quite like the sunshine? Perhaps the recent TV programmes about [...]
It is now only a couple of weeks until the 10 year anniversary of our move to France – perhaps the decision we planned to make after two years about whether to stay in France is slightly overdue! Of course we didn’t really know what to expect out of the move – or at least [...]
Living in France we tend to get so occupied in work, schools and business that we forget why we came here in the first place, so it’s nice occasionally to do something that reminds us why we are here. This week the holidaymakers were still playing happily in the pool when we set off for [...]
Our local town is pretty small, about 1500 people including those of us who live scattered in the surrounding fields. So it is slightly remarkable that in the town we have: three estate agents at least three beauticians and between four and six hairdressers two supermarkets and two diy stores three bakers and two wine [...]
Just in case there wasn’t enough in the world to be miserable about at the moment, the BMC has just released a report on depression levels around the world - and it seems that France is the most depressing country of all!
Last week a couple of my French cycling buddies stopped by to entice me out on an ‘arduous’ ride through the countryside. Their rides are always entertaining even if the main focus isn’t always on hard exercise, so off I went. The ride had its usual little diversions to take attention away from our aching [...]
The weather has been very odd here for the last few days, with spring rain unexpectedly turning up after three months of early summer, in the form of storms and torrential showers. Last Saturday we had 8cm of rain in less than an hour (the most I’ve ever seen) which started about an hour before [...]
There are a couple of things we expats get used to that people in Blighty might not be aware of – and I don’t just mean sunshine and alcohol poisoning. There is a great invention called the BBC iplayer that lets viewers watch programmes on their computer when they want and where they want, or [...]
Mrs B is looking nervously out of the window today – the weather forecast was for possible showers after a very long warm dry spell, and she is hoping the garden will at last get some rain. Can’t say I’m convinced, it looks a bit cloudy, not very lovely for a bike ride, but I [...]
There is one thing that it seems almost everyone agrees on, whether French or otherwise – that French pop music isn’t really very good. But is it true? Despite the personal risks involved – being isolated from friends and society, and ridiculed by pretty much everyone in the western world - I’ve exposed myself to [...]
One of the most surprising things about Miami was the large number of French people in the city. We didn’t hear any Germans, Italians or Spanish, although there were a few English accents to be heard, but everywhere we went there seemed to be people speaking French.
In my previous life as a city worker the annual arrival of Beaujolais Nouveau was always a big event – it is certainly never the greatest wine in the world, but was always a good excuse for an evening out: a triumph of marketing if not of wine production. Such pleasures stopped abruptly when we [...]
Generally our experiences with the French health system have been quite good, despite the tendency of French doctors to prescibe a sackful of pills and potions for the slightest complaint (they also give out three times as many antibiotics as the European average), but my own experiences with French dentists have been slightly less favourable.
I spend a lot of time planning which places to visit, both in France and elsewhere, and like everyone else when I get to somewhere new sooner or later I usually find myself looking in estate agent windows wondering if the place would be a nice one to live in. (I’m off to Cannes next week and I’m [...]