Are we mad, regarding a move to france

[floodybuck]

I don?t know if we have totally lost the plot. My OH is having to work from home due to a new company taking over. He is on a very good wage. He has suggested a move to France. I can give up the job I hate, and he will work from home in France. We have no children yet and only 2 dogs and a cat. neither of us speak French to any use, but are very willing to learn. Are we totally mad to be planning a move? We will rent out our property over here. OH will need to come back to uk now and again to see customers. I am very excited, and cant wait.

are there any things we should be aware of? etc

Where are you thinking of moving to? You might be very lonely if there aren't a lot of English speakers nearby.

What Bonsoir says - unless you go somewhere with a huge Brit community I think this could be a recipe for disaster. Think very carefully about the move and where you are going to live. Bouteilles St Sebastien and the villages around there, in the Dordogne, are stuffed with Brits and it's like Surrey. If you are the only Brits around, then I think you are going to get very lonely. I don't mean to rain on your parade, but I've seen quite a few people do this, and they don't bank on the isolation, and go a bit loopy. You might be better in a town than a village/countryside. My French is quite reasonable (assessed recently as C1) and I am not sure I would do this. You cannot underestimate French bureaucracy and the difficulty in dealing with it as a non-French speaker!

To my mind alot depends on the answer to the question "Why France?"

If you could speak the language it might be understandable. Is it the countryside you like? The food? The weather? The cost of living?

Many of the things you may be looking for as a change of life could well be found within the UK without the language barrier (which believe me is a BIG barrier). Cost of living in France is the same if not higher than the UK, The weather may be lovely during the summer months but winters can be awful, etc.

Are you running away from something or towards something?

Oh sod the English speaking community!

Steer clear from the British ex-pats and get stuck in there, the best way to speak French is to immerse yourself in it. Trust me, you won't be too far from the odd ex-pat anyway, you never are in France.

We lived there for a while too. Had the BEST French neighbours and loved everything about France. But as your mind will be preoccupied with the best bits, here is what you really need to know:

Renting or buying a house is full of red tape, very confusing and a bloody nightmare. You will need a translator to interpret the documents for you and to need to make sure you know exactly what you are letting yourselves in for.

Getting registered in France for benefits/tax/whatever is also a very long and protracted road and unlike the UK, translators are not provided on tap.

However you will meet many very helpful French people who speak English. On the whole the French are exceedingly helpful and will go out of their way for a neighbour.

If you intend to have kids, your pregnancy and birth will be under the hospital's control, down to the very date you give birth. You don't really get to have a say. This is a country which thinks that home births should be prosecuted.

They love their dogs.

Food is quite expensive now. You can get more or less everything you need from the supermarket but French markets are better, however they are also more expensive.

I would recommend you take a crash course in French before you go and then learn whilst you are out there. It will take time and you'll have days when you feel like just giving in, but don't. It may well be the best move you ever made!

We are looking to buy a farmhouse/small holding type place. We area fairly unsociable anyways and enjoy our own company.
We are going to look at a farmhouse, with cottage ( rent out as holiday home??) in the crocq area.
I think france because it is not too far to come back to england, from work and to visit. I like the french language. And also i think because we can afford a lovely big old style farm house with lots of land for not very much at all!
We are heading (hopefully) slowly toward a peaceful, simple way of life. We want some animals and veggie patch etc.

And if it all goes tits up, we at least have our place here?

Sound's great especially as you don't mind being a bit "lonely" in the countryside. Ditto advice to integrate and learn French. I'm trying to decide on a similar move except I have 3 DCs and they are holding me back. Go for it!

TheRhubarb : that is excatly what i wanted to hear! haha! i do think it is easier to learn when you are hearing it all the time (and pretty much have to learn it!)
I have a friend who is a translator, she is french, so hopefully she will help!
We are looking to have kids, but perhaps come home to do that!
I love dogs, we would be bringing our 2 dogs and cat, and perhaps adding a dog (if we have enough room)
We are thinking of it as a big adventure, and if it doesnt work out then we will just come home.
But i cant wait, i think i will love it!! learning a new language, annoying my animals all day! not to mention OH home all day!

I think MrsS and I are a bit more worldly and better travelled than Rhubarb...

Don't buy!

If you want to throw money away I'll send you my bank account details.

Now is not the time to be buying a farm from brits selling up.

castles - im sure the DC will LOVE IT!! as you said GO for it!

Woah, back up. This is a repeat isn't it? I'm sure I've read this story before in the daily mail.

possibly Bonsoir, but i think you are a long time dead. i very much appreciate the advise! but i do think we all need an adventure once in a while!

Alpinepony- why is now not the time?

and no i have never been in the daily mail.

ps. should you admit to reading that?

I would say 'go for it' but with caution.

You sound like your life is flexible at the moment - that's great as if you do find that things aren't the way you plan you can easily relocate again. Sometimes if things don't go right it can be in a way you hadn't forseen. Most people who have emigrated here have stayed, some have found it not for them.

I don't necessarily agree with the emersion part of things (from my experience) as although I find the French where I live nice, it can be very difficult to break into the society unless something bonds you together. I know that can happen anywhere, but this is what I found, that the other immigrants (and where I live it's like the UN!) are easier to get to know by far. I must say that knowing a few Brits/Irish is like a drop of comfort sometimes. But then there are only 3 here!

My best advice? Straight away sort out college with French lessons in France. My french was a little rubbish and it can be isolating not being able to chat even on a basic level with the grocer. At college, it's a laugh and you learn quickly. Not many people who have busy day to day lives have the time to fumble through a conversation with an absolute beginner. (honestly - when's the last time you would have the time to chat to someone for a prolonged period of time to help their English!) so college is a really good way. That's what I did. Unfortunately, all my friends now are not french, (they are colombian, russian, moroccan etc) but we chat in french as it's the language in common.

Don't you think you need to learn a little about buying expensive "stuff" in a foreign country? Or, do you have more money than sense?

Ah fuck it, do it. I could use the laugh.

am jealous.

I want to do this, but to Spain. Am going to wait until dc leave school (another 4 years only) and learn spanish!

AlpinePony, yes we are very fortunate in that sense. You do sound like a typical 'horsey' person.
Did your mother never teach you, that if you haev nothing nice to say, then to say nothing at all?

I am an unsociable creature, and there is a big difference between enjoying each other's company when you want to, and enjoying each other's company because you have to. Of course you should learn French - that is a given. I've always learned the language of the country I've lived in and speak French, German, Romanian, Dutch and Polish with varying degrees of fluency. But I have to say that France is the most "foreign" country I've lived in. And it boils down all the time to the bureaucracy. Something simple like going to the dentist - dentists who treat adults don't treat children. Most dentists won't extract teeth - you need to go to another person for that, and the orthodontist is someone completely separate, they're not all cosily housed in the same place as in the UK. It's the utter faff and time consumingness of the system - having the wrong form (which someone else told you was the right one), having to seek out the right one etc etc.

I speak French and DH doesn't - so all of this admin and faff falls to me. And I have commented several times, that I don't see how you would cope here without one of you speaking French. The Parisians are actively unhelpful - I've had the phone put down on me several times "I don't understand your accent". It can be better outside Paris, but you only need one episode of this to set you back several paces. If you are going to do anything before you go, I would take a course and get your French up to a good standard. And pick your course carefully. You don't want one that discusses the feathers on Mme Varin's hat, or the virtues of M Hollande, you need someone who can teach you to live here.

You feel you're "fortunate" to have more money than sense? Oh my! ;)

BTw - I definitely would rent for the first bit, but just to see where the best part is for you to live and to adapt to the French first. We have rented for a year and finally know the area properly and 'know' where we want to live. We would have totally chosen the wrong place had we just bought straight away, even with advice. Again, could happen anywhere, but in a foreign country it's even more important to be comfortable where you are.

thanks toutou, that is helpful advise.
thank you most of you for your helpful advise.
thank you alpine for taking me back to my childhood!

And also i think because we can afford a lovely big old style farm house with lots of land for not very much at all!

It sounds to me like this is the real reason - and that rings alarm bells.

Houses are not really that cheap in France. The cheap areas are cheap because no one wants to live there. Most cheap houses need alot of work done to them, new roofs, windows insulation. They do not have the mod cons and it is expensive to put them in. Lots of land means lots of problems. Unless you have run a small holding before you really cannot appreciate the amount of hard work, and money, that goes into making it work.

I'm not suggesting you don't do it, but simply answering the question "Are we mad?"

Your husband may be working from home, but he will still be working (same shit different location) and so all the work for the large farmhouse and land will fall to you. Add to that communicating with workmen, estate agents, EDF etc and it isn't a barrel of laughs.

I like my home and I have no intention of moving, but if I had to answer the question were we mad?- then I have to say Yes we were.

Bonne chance!!! Le !

lived there for a year, it was hard, bureaucracy especially, and I am tertiary educated in the language

but you sound like you know it all anyhow, and want to go, so why ask MN?

just do it, enjoy it, and don't regret not doing it?