Nobody has called me yet to ask if I would like to contribute my share of the next 100 billion euro bailout fund, must be a problem with the answering machine perhaps. Still, just in case M. Sarkozy et Mme Merkel are reading this in a tea break at the ‘Hey, lets save the euro again’ conference the answer is no thanks.
I don’t remember ever gaining a single cent in benefit from dodgy loans by banks to countries that couldn’t afford to borrow the money – so I’m not keen on half my taxes going in payments to bail out the banks and bankers that did benefit.
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October 23rd, 2011 | Posted in Money matters | 5 Comments
We get plenty of scam enquiries for our gites, although I’m pleased to say we have never yet been caught out. But we have come close so I thought I’d post details of a recent scam in case it helps someone else avoid being tricked.
The general idea of these scams is that the person booking sends too much money, then asks for the overpayment to be forwarded to someone else or returned. It is only after the second payment has been made that the original transfer of money into your account gets cancelled, and the victim is left out of pocket. Be warned: even after your bank shows the funds as cleared on your statement it is still possible for the payment to be cancelled.
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October 15th, 2011 | Posted in Gite business | 5 Comments
Each summer week when people arrive in the gites we have a few things we try and remember to point out to them – where to park the car, how to use the pool alarm, where we have hidden the towels and so on.
We also have a piece of paper which answers lots of questions in the gites but reading a page of small print isn’t usually someone’s first priority when they arrive – stopping the children from jumping fully clothed into the pool after 12 hours in a hot car seems to take precedent.
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October 14th, 2011 | Posted in Travel and Holidays | 3 Comments
I just managed to squeeze in a few days of exploring before the summer ended – just in time as it turned out, because after endless months of sunshine today has been a wee bit chilly. One of the great things about exploring France is that it is big enough that there is always something new and unexpected to discover. Take this for example:
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October 8th, 2011 | Posted in Travel and Holidays | 2 Comments
I was pleased to come across two articles in French newspapers this week that touched on the relationship between France and England, and the French and the English.
The first was celebrating the fact that the ‘entente-cordiale’ between the two countries, already long-established, had developed in recent times in an ‘indestructible fashion’.
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October 2nd, 2011 | Posted in History | 7 Comments
It’s always nice when our site visitors share their travel photos and comments with us, like the person a couple of days ago who reported that their holiday in Rochefort-en-Terre (Brittany) was ‘The best holiday of my life. More like a dream now.’
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September 27th, 2011 | Posted in Travel and Holidays | 2 Comments
Has anyone been watching ‘Little England’, the TV programme about being an expat in the Dordogne? It’s quite interesting as a reminder that we all have very different ‘expat experiences’ – and that for most people there is more to being an expat than integrating in the community.
The first thing that is clear, both from our own lives and people we know and from those in the programme, is that the ‘expat experience’ is not usually the same as the ‘local experience’. I can’t think of a single expat that we know that leads a life in France that is very similar to the lives led by the locals.
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September 20th, 2011 | Posted in Expats in France | 20 Comments
…will often go awry!
This week should have been straightforward. Daughter 1 had to show up at her apartment then go to some meetings at the University before term starts, and Mrs B was going to spend a week visiting Annecy and region before coming home. How complicated can that be?
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September 13th, 2011 | Posted in Personal trivia | 7 Comments
Good news for anyone who has a second home in France and is worried they aren’t doing enough to help the French economy – you’re about to start!
As part of the proposed budget changes in France it is planned that capital gains tax will be payable on any gain you make when you come to sell up. (The rules have not yet been signed off so they might change.)
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September 7th, 2011 | Posted in Money matters | 10 Comments
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 the local food market for an evening of music, dancing and wine. Perfect!
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September 1st, 2011 | Posted in Living in France | 7 Comments
Daughter 1 sets off for university in Lyon in less than two weeks, how time flies, it only seems a moment since we were dropping her off at the infant school every morning…but it has made me realise how cunning parents in the UK are.
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August 28th, 2011 | Posted in Children in France | 7 Comments
We have been having a mini-canicule (heatwave) these last few days with temperatures pretty close to 40° c (just over 100 fahrenheit if you prefer) which is great for a while but rapidly becomes a bit too tiring, so we’ve been looking for ways to cope.
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August 23rd, 2011 | Posted in Personal trivia | 4 Comments
Occasionally people ask me if I could review a book or film here, and usually I make excuses so I can avoid the need to be rude if I don’t like it. This week I made an exception and agreed to watch and write a review of a film called Little White Lies, a French film that will be released shortly on DVD in the UK having been very successful in France last year.
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August 18th, 2011 | Posted in Shopping | No Comments
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 shops
- three bars and at least five restaurants
- an awesome cake shop
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August 13th, 2011 | Posted in Living in France | 9 Comments
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!
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August 9th, 2011 | Posted in Living in France | 5 Comments