Proper planning prevents p**s poor performance!

We often get asked why we moved to live in France and the French are as interested in the answer as anyone.  Everyone has their own reasons for chasing the dream and for us it was about living a more fulfilling and less stressful life with the opportunity to have some peaceful, open space around us and breathe some clean air. It was not a rash decision after a bottle of French wine whilst watching one of the many UK TV programmes about Brits moving to the sun; it was something we had thought about for at least five years before finally making it happen. 

But for a move like this to be successful I think planning is key and every now and then I come across a document on the computer that was related to what we termed “Project Cinquante” (I’d just turned 50 you see!). Lists of tasks that had to be completed before we could move, lists of organisations that needed to be informed and, most importantly, the budget sheet detailing every conceivable expense. We even had a sheet showing who (between Nikki and I) was responsible for each element of Project Cinquante – removals, healthcare, finance, rental in France, the dogs etc.

A friend recently asked me if I’d be happy to have a chat to someone who was thinking of moving to France and this made me come up with the following things to consider.  Please note that this is by no means an exhaustive list, just my opinion based on our own experience.

Start your research by checking out some of the online expat sites that are a mine of very useful information and have very active forums where you can find the answer to just about any question you can think of. Two of the best I have found are the “Survive France Network” (http://www.survivefrance.com/) and “AngloInfo” (http://dordogne.angloinfo.com/ for the Dordogne version).

Where do you really want to live? In the countryside or a town, village or hamlet, totally isolated or with near neighbours for that ‘cup of sugar’ moment? We met a chap some months ago who told us that when he and his wife moved over to France they moved from London suburbia and fulfilled their dream of being totally isolated on a quiet Dordogne hillside. After two years they were going stir crazy and were fed up with only each other for company – they sold up and bought a house in the local town!

Think about transport links back to the UK - lots of flights from the regional airports in France are either summer only or they have a restricted winter schedule. If you expect to have to return on a regular basis look into the alternatives – rail can be a good option using the excellent high-speed rail network in France; alternatively you can always drive but consider the length of such a journey.

Learn the language; it still amazes me how many people we meet who have lived here for many years and still speak very little French. It can be done if you want to limit your experience to only meeting other expats and ordering your food from Tesco. Nothing wrong with either of these but what a lot you miss out on and how incredibly rude and arrogant not be able to engage with the local people in their own language. Children will pick up the language fairly quickly, but it will be very difficult for them to begin with and can take up to 18 months before they are totally happy in school; the older they are the more difficult it can be for them to settle in.

Think carefully about what your living costs will be in France; wine may be cheap (hurrah!) but food can be pricey. It does get cold here in winter and unless you have your own wood and a chainsaw, heating costs are likely to be as high or even higher than in the UK. 

If you need income beyond your pension or your lottery winnings, think carefully about how you are going to earn money to live. In rural France there is already high unemployment and if your language skills are limited it will be very difficult for you to find even a part time job.  Setting up a business is not as simple as it is in the UK and you need to think carefully about what you are going to do. Just because you were a bit handy at DIY does not mean you can call yourself a builder in France! Tourism related businesses are very popular (gites, chambres D’hotes etc.) but remember that the season is limited to only four, possibly five months of the year. Also look into the taxes that apply to businesses as they can be very…….well, taxing.

Healthcare in France is excellent but the healthcare system is very different to the UK, even once you are ‘in’ the system you have to pay for each appointment before being reimbursed and you may want to consider having a ‘top up’ health insurance policy since not all costs are covered.  It can take many months to get yourself registered in the French healthcare system, even longer if you go about it the wrong way! Again, do your research carefully about how to go about it properly

We love France, even if some of her ways can be frustrating at times and living here is certainly not one long holiday, but then nothing in life is perfect. We have, just about, achieved some of our goals in that we are able to spend more time together and are both less stressed by work; we are living mortgage free in a house that is economical to run; we have a two acre garden around us and the peace and privacy we yearned for; this year we will start to grow our own vegetables and we have an acre of wood to supply logs for the woodburner. Our monthly living costs are low but then at this stage so is our monthly income!  But, whatever happens in the future, we followed our dream and gave it our best shot. I would never discourage anyone from making the move, but I would urge them to plan it well.

The Goldilocks Decision

Having made the momentous decision that 2012 was going to be the year in which we would to turn our dreams into reality, the next big question was to decide in which of France’s many and varied regions we wanted to make our new home?

I guess like so many who have made the move before us we were inevitably attracted to the French regions where we had previously enjoyed our holidays. For us this included Normandy, Provence, Limousin, Aquitaine, Burgundy and Ile de France (Paris to be precise).

Each of these areas had left their impact on us: cruising along the gentle River Saone on a family boating holiday; sipping red wine on a summer’s evening in the gite garden whilst watching the mellow Limousin cattle munching grass; gazing at Isabelle’s long, tanned limbs as she lay by the pool (did I mention that before?); watching our daughter run naked through the fountains of the Parc Citroen (not a drunken student prank this one, she was only 7 at the time to be fair!); having our car broken into and our passports stolen whilst we visited a war cemetery near Caen (I'm afraid that memory put Normandy out of the running - unfair I know but the emotions of that day still linger).

We had also been subscribing to magazines like Living France and French Property News for several years and we had read countless articles describing life in every area of France. The problem of course is that everywhere sounded wonderful; no one was going to write about their chosen home in anything but glowing terms.

So we started with the Goldilocks decision making process.

Provence in the South – way too hot for us.

Brittany and Normandy in the North – an Atlantic climate too much like the UK.

The ‘middle bit’ around Limoges – just right.

Paris – great for a visit but much too busy and clogged up for us, not to mention way too expensive. The Creuse and Correze departments of the Limousin offered some of the cheapest property in France but their remoteness perhaps didn’t offer us the best opportunity to implement our business ideas (more of which in a later post!). The departments to the south and west of Limoges (Dordogne, Haute Vienne and Charente) – just right.

Of course, these three departments cover a huge area so we started to narrow it down using transport links as a guide – we marked on a map all the airports within two hours of the region which offered flights to the UK and we took note of where the TGV stopped off as it raced south. What started to emerge as a target area for us was the Parc Naturel Regional Perigord Limousin with Limoges Airport close by and the airports of Bergerac, Poitiers and even Bordeaux within striking distance. The excellent TGV service allowed Paris to be reached in less than three hours from Angouleme to the west.

The Parc Naturel Regional Perigord Limousin covers a large area but as we read more about the region it became clear that the section of countryside known as the Perigord Vert would suit us very nicely.

Lush, green countryside dotted with little hamlets and bustling market towns. Lots of beautiful deciduous woodland interspersed with meadows grazed by gentle herds of cattle. And above all, we knew from previous trips that it offered us the peace and tranquility that we so desperately sought.

The Perigord Vert is primarily encapsulated within the Dordogne department. Whilst it has unfortunately developed something of a ‘Dordogneshire’ reputation because of the number of English people living in the area, we knew that this rural area was still quintessentially French and conservative in its outlook and we had only ever encountered extremely welcoming and hospitable natives. Beside which, we were not looking to get drawn in to the “Expat Community” who still get their groceries delivered by Asda, play cricket at the weekend and go in search of fish and chips on a Friday night - we wanted to move to France because we saw a more fulfilling was to live life and we wanted to make friendships with the French, to learn from them and to immerse ourselves in the local culture.

With property prices well below the French national average we realized we might achieve our dream to live mortgage free in a tranquil cottage on the edge of a village with space around us to breathe and an acre or two of land for the dogs to roam free on. We also knew we would have to find a way to make a living and it appeared that this was an area that would suit what we had in mind as a business (not telling you more yet, you’re going to have to wait!).

On my wall at home in the UK, I pinned a map of the area we had now decided to focus on (see below) and started to absorb the detail of the towns, the topography, the main routes and the places of interest. I started to turn the dream into a clearer vision of where we were going to make our new life – then I started to plan in detail how we were going to make this happen. I’ll tell you about that next time though!