(subtitle: installing Freesat in France without getting hot and bothered…) After eight years eight months and 27 days of living in France we have given in and installed English TV. It would have been a few months sooner but I’m pretty slow at getting on with things, especially when I don’t know what I’m doing. [...]
There was a time when the French way of doing things would sometimes get me a bit stressed, what with the paperwork, the bureacracy or the poor customer service. Happily after nine years I seem to have become used to it, and while it gives me amusing tales to tell the ‘different’ way of doing [...]
I’ve heard a couple of stories where expats have been conned recently, so I thought I’d share them here in case someone else can avoid the same fate. The funny thing about these cons is that with hindsight the stories sound implausible – so I guess we can learn that…’if something sounds a bit fishy [...]
A sign that I often pass near our house is marked ‘Accotements dangereux’ and is accompanied by a big orange exclamation mark. The road ahead is perfectly straight and usually completely clear. What, if any, evasive action would you take if you were on the road? The answer of course, for everyone, is ‘none whatsoever’ [...]
Today it’s cold and snowy (shame, I thought winter was over last week) so I can’t be out on the roads – so I thought I’d write about them instead. Last year I mentioned a curious ‘road mending’ program that was underway around here that seemed to involve little more than emptying enormous quantities of [...]
It is true to say that ‘customer relations’ are not the first priority for most French businesses, and very often ‘customers are an irritant we have to deal with’ seems closer to the mark. Ever tried taking back a faulty product in France? Or perhaps tried to discuss your phone contract or ring a helpline? [...]
During my temporary absence this week Peter Driscoll of ET Brokers (www.etbrokers-removals.com) has kindly provided a guest entry that takes us through some of the trials and tribulations of moving house within France, and offers some handy tips: A Moving Story So you have made the move to France, have been renting for several months [...]
One of the most curious features of the French health system is that French doctors can’t bear for you to leave your appointment without a prescription, and ideally they like to prescribe as many pills and potions as they can fit on a piece of A4 paper. I’m not quite sure why. Perhaps it gives [...]
Until a couple of years ago all the talk on expat blogs and forums was of people moving to France from the UK, and a large number of people followed the so-called ‘dream’. Many came, many left, but pretty much all the UK expats that I know of here in France now are those that [...]
A new report from ‘international living’ shows that, for the fifth year in succession, France is rated as the country with the highest quality of life in the world. This startingly impressive result is out of the 194 countries included in the survey, in which the US came third and the UK came about 20th. [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]