France This Way...the blog!!

It’s always interesting to look back on a year of change, so here is our personal summary – a Queen’s Speech from France if you like, but without the Queen. Or the speech.

The year has been hectic for us – and as it turned out pretty hectic for most expats in France, along with the rest of the world. But it’s Christmas so we won’t be all downbeat, we’ll look at the positive things.

We had lots of help from contributors – both with articles and photos – that have helped improve francethisway to the point that it is now a household name. Unfortunately only in our house, but that’s a start. A big thank you to all concerned. Keep them coming!

Our own hectic life this year consisted in part of travelling around France doing research. You call it an extended holiday, we call it unpaid overtime. I had the onerous task of visiting La Rochelle, Poitou-Charentes, Languedoc and Provence (twice – that needed more research!). Mrs B had to make do with Normandy, the Loire Valley and the Atlantic Coast around Biarritz.

Next year I’m in charge of mountains and Alsace and she is exploring Brittany. It will of course be a coincidence and a necessary business trip if I find myself at the top of Mont Ventoux the day that the Tour de France passes.

We’ve also been kept busy by URSSAF (the organisation that collects social security contributions in France), who occupy as much of our time as possible by sending unnecessary bills at least once a week. We then question the bill, have a couple of long phone calls with them, after which they agree the bill was sent by mistake and we can ignore it.

For some curious reason they like to repeat this process each and every week, and still we never can speak to the same person in their office twice in succession, to put an end to the matter once and for all.

For Christmas Mrs B kindly bought me a book called ‘Wicked Cool PHP’ (PHP being a website programming language) so you can expect all kind of exciting innovations during 2009. If you think that doesn’t sound very exciting as a present, I can confirm that it’s better than the one I got her. OK I wanted a PlayStation 3 and a carbon fibre bike but a computer book is almost as much fun.

I understand that in the UK the sales started before Christmas and it was possible to buy anything you wanted, from a home cinema to a Land Rover, with a handful of loose change. Unfortunately the French aren’t keen on reducing prices even in the face of impending catastrophe and would prefer to go bankrupt than sell a flat screen TV for 10 euros less than its recommended sale price.

Apart from Peugeot perhaps, who are currently running a TV ad that shows the staff too afraid to open the showroom doors because of the enormous crowds pressing against the windows, waiting to rush in and buy a new car. Well, there’s nothing like being optimistic.

Anyway, hope you all had a good one and a very Happy Christmas to all from francethisway.com

Mr B.