Does anyone live in Lorraine, France?

[Nancy54]

It's a long shot...but i thought i'd be nice to chat with / meet up with some English-speaking mums!

Not in Lorraine, but just over the border in Luxembourg... are you in Nancy then? how do you find it?

I'm not too far away - in Alsace. How long have you been in Lorraine?

We have a holiday house in Lorraine - being renovated at the mo but we will be there this summer.

Hey i can't believe anyone replied!!! v exciting! lol

Yeah, i'm in Nancy, have been here for 7 years already so pretty settled!

I haven't got any kids yet - but pregnant with twins at the mo! I think being pregnant is making me want English-ness more!

What about you lot? How long have you been here?

bluebellmuffin - where's your holiday house? my parents are thinking of buying somewhere out here as a holiday home.

Funny how pregnancy changes some things, isn't it?!

We've been here 3 years - before that we were in Montpellier for 5 years, before that in NZ and before that in Strasbourg for several years, so I feel pretty at home in France. In fact I often feel like I'm living in France rather than Luxembourg as DH is French and we always watch the French news and quite often pop over to France for shopping etc.

Haven't been to Nancy since moving here but I went a couple of times from Strasbourg and loved Place Stanislas :)

Nancy54 - congratulations on your pregnancy.

Our house is in Vosges - 20k south-west of Epinal. We currently live in North-West Germany and drive through Luxembourg and round Nancy to get there! We need to stop at some point and visit Nancy.

There are a lot of holiday homes in our area mostly owned by Dutch and Belgians. Prices are relatively cheap compared to the more popular areas of France, there are still lots of doer-uppers around if your parents are interested - although the problem is all good builders/tradespeople are booked for nearly a year in advance.

Yup, a word of warning about buying a doer-upper - it's true what bluebellmuffin says about artisans. I think most spend the Christmas building trade break planning all their work for the following year. Any decent ones are likely to be unavailable except for a 2-3 day job.

We've had to wait 6 weeks until a tiler can come and do 2 days' work so that a plumber can finish some work.

Mind you, I'm in France profonde (think Hollande country), so it may be different to the north

ha ha yeah we bought a house last year too but my French DP and his father were the ones doing most of the work. We still had months with no kitchen, living room etc....they were all very relaxed about it.....

It looks lovely now though!!!

Just popping in to say Hello, but from another part of France. My DH lived in Lorraine, but a few years ago now. How do you cope with the climate?

I reckon the climate isn't that bad... we moved to Lux from Montpellier and everyone told me I would really struggle - though of course that made me determined to cope :) as long as you have the right combination of clothes it's definitely manageable, and I'm just so relieved to escape those excessively hot summers. Though it has been a bit depressing to still have the winter coats (albeit not the very warmest ones) on in May.

weta, I was thinking specifically of last winter
it was particularly harsh in the East!

I know, this was our third winter here but it was pretty bad all over Europe I think... worst part was hardly being able to go outside for a few weeks yet not even having any snow with it - we are all kitted out with toboggans after the previous two snowy winters :)

to be honest i don't find it that bad!! but then i'm not one for really hot weather! also my family all live on the coast in the north-east of England so compared to the bitter winds and rain, north-east France is pretty pleasant!