Our Move to France is Over!

I've suddenly realised that the summer is just about over, the kids are getting ready for La Rentrée, Bill is heading back to Liberia and ......

.....I haven't written this blog for more than 2 months.

I've been writing 'A Family Move to France' for nearly 2 years and I am more than happy to say we are now 'A Family Living in France'.

We have had moments of panic and uncertainty and of frustration and fatique but we have had even more moments of satisfaction, encouragement and fun and that great sense of achievement.



We set out to move our lives to France and I really feel we have achieved it.

Looking back, I kind of wrote this blog as a diary and also as a way of reassuring myself that things were progressing and that we were learning and discovering. And also that we were being supported by people who read this blog, friends we have made along the way and family and friends around the world.

Now our move is over, I think I can stop writing it. Either that or I need to change the title.

Actually we do have a new project on the horizon - Building a House in France.

We originally planned to self build when we first arrived here in Limoux but we ended up buying a house with a building plot instead. Well that building plot is begging us to put a small gîte or maison d'amis on it.

So.......keep your eyes peeled as the new blog is on its way.

A bientôt ~

Let's Go Shopping

"Let's go shopping!"…. (Remember the film 'White Chicks'?)

I love shopping whether it's for me or someone else but best of all, I like browsing. Ask someone to research the best X, then I'm the one to check it out.

Everyone talks about the 'Market Experience' in France and I was really looking forward to that when we first arrived. And I wasn't disappointed.


There is a certain buzz you get wandering around the fresh produce market seeing the locals (who know what they're doing and where the best stuff is) haggling and bargaining but most of all just chatting and gossiping.

Market day is the day to catch up on the latest local who, what, where and when.

Then we have shop shopping which is somewhat different....

Limoux where we live is considered a small town of 10,000 people and so as you can imagine we need to have our fair share of butchers, bakers and wine makers (and maybe candlestick makers).

I was terrified of going to the local butcher at first as experience has taught me that knowing the vocab first really helps. Receiving lambs brains instead of lamb chops somehow puts you off your dinner.

Experience has also taught me that you don't do these things in a rush. Each customer takes 10 minutes to choose and buy their produce and 10 minutes to chat and gossip. Imagine there are 3 or 4 people ahead of you in the queue......

Clothes shopping is not much different. Chat, choose, chat. Being oh so British that is something that really takes getting used to.

I like to sneak into a shop and browse (on my own) and try on things (on my own). So when the shop assistant announces with a big flourish 'BONJOUR MADAME" as you enter, pops up over the rails with a "Can I help you?" and then is continually popping her heard around your cubicle curtain as you're half naked with a "Can I get you a bigger, wider...", it sort of makes you feel uncomfortably British.

Worse still is when you leave the shop without buying anything and the shop assistant says with an even louder boom, "AU REVOIR MADAME" and I feel so guilty that I didn't buy one of those very (very, very) expensive tops.

Maybe I'm just a cheap skate but I do find France expensive for many things especially things that aren't food related. One good thing thought is that it's forced me not to buy too much and it's also taught me that as a seller on eBay France you can do really well.

You'd be amazed at the 'Nearly new' item which looks 'Nearly ready for the bin' and how the price asked for is the price paid for as new. So what if it's second or third hand.

The other thing that takes getting used to is the loooong lunch break. There is no such thing as shopping in your lunch break as everyone is lying horizontal taking that ever so important siesta. That or they're eating a 3 course meal washed down with a nice glass of something red, white or rose.

So on that note, as I see it is nearly lunch time, perhaps I should join them or maybe I'll see what I've got lurking in the garage that I can flog on eBay.

The French BAC - what the kids think?

Can you believe it, is the 9th March and we are snowed in here in the South of France.

What happened to the 300 days of sunshine per year that we are meant to have?

Here when it snows, school buses are considered hazardous and so the kids don't go to school. "Yippee" my kids are ecstatic. I less so as much as there are some pretty spectacular photos to be taken, I have a morbid fear of ice skating in our car and so consequently we become housebound.

So it seems like there will be no school for at least the next 4 days (snow is 35cm deep) and on top of that there is a teacher's strike at the end of the week so the kids will be staying home then too.

Teachers strikes are the norm here and it seems quite normal for there to be at least a week of no school per year because the teachers are upset about something. I am sure there must be a better way of sorting out the grumbles but Sarkowsy doesn't seem to have worked it out yet.

We have 3 kids aged 14, 16 and 18 and all three are in the French school system here in France.

Douglas the youngest is at 'College'- secondary school from ages 11 to 16 roughly. Sam and Ellie are at Lycee - secondary school from ages 16 - 18.

Up until a year and a half ago we lived overseas in Africa and Asia and the kids started going to French schools from the age of 3. This means they speak pretty good French - shame about the parents :(

Rather than me write all about French school life I asked my kids to write what they thought and here is what they said.....

Sam (aged 18) at a Lycee in Carcassonne and studying for a science engineering BAC

Out of all the French schools I've been to (Africa, Vietnam, Thailand), the French school in France was the only one where I didn't know what to expect.

Having lived overseas my whole life it was easy to fit in at school as they knew how it felt to be emerged in a new world with no understanding of unofficial social laws or friends. Everyone was in the same boat as we all moved countries and schools every few years. Basically there was no effort needed to make a great bunch a friends.

When you go to your first day of your new school you always ask yourself "Will I make any friends?". I did. it was actually easy. I always thought that it would be difficult in France because arriving at this stage in school (for me I arrived in 2nd, which is 10th grade in England) everybody knows each other and they have been friends for ages and you'll be the "new guy". Actually I needn't have worried as they are actually quite welcoming, you just have to make the first step.

Now what is the BAC? It's short for the Baccalaureate but just remember that it's the 'French BAC' and not the 'International BAC'. This is the most important and last diploma you get a school. The diploma is cut into 2 phases. You've got the French part, which I'll be doing this year (1er/11th grade) and the rest next year (Terminal/12th grade).

Now for the school program itself.

It's much more general than England and you're not allowed to drop subjects. You have to continue with most subjects right until you get your BAC. However after 2nd you are allowed to drop a few subjects depending on what BAC you are taking.

After you get through 2nd the school asks you what orientation you want to choose, and trust me you want to do your research first.

Most people go for the general courses which are L(literature), ES(economics), S(science). Those are the main ones, but don't worry if none of them suits you as there are actually loads more than that (it depends to what school you go to).

I chose an SSI course which means that when I've finished I will have an SSI BAC.

What is SSI? It's a branch of the S BAC with a focus on engineering. It's great because I want to do engineering later on so why wait until university when I can specialize right now?

Be careful though, choosing a certain course may close some doors that you'll regret some day. I wouldn't specialize too much as it may be hard to find a job later on. That's why I stayed in S as I'll have more than just engineering jobs open to me.

The BAC is hard and it's rare that someone gets over 14/20 or 70%. But don't worry as most people if they've studied hard, will get 12/20. Once you've got your respective BAC (depending on what course you took) you're off to go!

Ellie aged 16 at a Lycee in Limoux. Studying for a STSS BAC (Science et Technology du Santé Social)

Bonjour,

This year I have the French BAC. It really scares me because I don't really know what it's going to be like!

We have been doing a lot of work at school to prepare for it. Next week, I will have my mock French BAC, and then in June I will have the real thing! Everyone at school is getting a bit nervous now.

I have to say that we are lucky to have our French teacher because he teaches very well and he has prepared us well for our French BAC. But anyway, I think everything will go well… I hope.

Next year I will have my proper BAC (all the subjects, but no French). Normally you will be tested on your last year, but my course is a bit different, so my BAC will be on the 2 last years. That means I have even more to revise!

School is France is good, I enjoy it. I didn't know what to expect at the beginning because I had never been to school in Europe before, so it scared me a little bit. But there was no need to be scared as in the end, everyone was very nice and I have a great bunch of friends.

I won't say much about my teachers because that all depends on the school you go to. All though I don't know all the teachers, I feel like I do as all of my friends tell me what their teachers are like. And there are some teachers that all the students hate, but that's the same for all schools.

My school is okay, it's not the best school in the world but it's not the worst. What I do like is that when it snows, we don't have school because the Aude is not equipped for snowy weather. This year has been quite snowy so we have missed about a week of school I would say.

Also my school is near a bakery and a café and near the town square so when ever we have an hour of free time, we can go to one of those places.

Au revoir !!

Douglas aged 14 at College in Limoux

Secondary school here is quite good: there are lots of students so it's not hard to make friends.

I think that the education level is probably a bit lower than English schools but it's not too bad. The teachers are OK: some of them are really bad because they don't know how to teach but others are very good because they don't bore you to death, they make the class a bit fun but we still work.

They are very strict about attitude here so they've added a new punishment called "observation" which means you lose points in your average score for school work.

When a teacher gives you an observation, they can put a punishment with it if they want to: they can give you stuff to copy or they can give you extra exercises.

The scoring is different here too: instead of giving A's or B+'s, they give a mark out of 20 or 10. So you can get 16/20 or 7/10 for example. A few teachers would give you an observation if you got a mark under 10 or 5/20. Anyway, it's a great school.

So there you have it, our kids view on school here in France....

Next Time: Shopping....:)

Making a Living in Limoux

When we decided to move to France just over a year and a half ago, we didn't stress too much about how we were going to financially make do.

"Hey we'll manage.
Got a bit of savings to last a few months.
Live life to the full.
We're bound to find something.
Learn a bit of French first then find a job teaching English or cleaning gites or whatever.
Let's take each day as it comes and things will sort themselves out....."

Actually thankfully we didn't think like that but there are many who do.

We did in-fact have some vague monetary plans. Bill planned to be a consultant in his field of development work and I planned to work from home with my websites. We had a little nest egg of what we thought was sufficient for a year of 'no work' just in case things didn't go as planned.

Well our nest egg very quickly became a nest without eggs. We were caught in that trap of wanting to do up the house, do up the garden, enjoy the sunshine and our new lifestyle and sample all the local delights and delicacies. And not worry about work.

All very well, but all that costs money. And we have 3 kids and a dog.

Being a bit naive about real costs (having coming from Vietnam where everything was so cheap as most things seem to be made there), we didn't anticipate the real costs of our new lifestyle.

We bought a newish house. Great we thought little work to do.

Wrong.

The French tend to strip their house when they sell it. We never realized that 30 light fittings and lampshades would cost so much or that planting a small hedge would mean a small mortgage.

So to counteract misjudgement, Bill packed his bags and went to work in far off places and i dusted off my desk and chair and sat down to balance the books and write more website pages.

Being a consultant work is never sure. Bill either seems to have too much or hes' stressing about when the next job will be. However recently he has landed a 2 year contract in Liberia which means 2 months on and 2 months off. Not ideal but it's work.

As for me, well I started dabbling with the Internet a few years ago when we were living in Asia. I wanted a job that was mobile and which allowed me to be at home with the kids when i wanted to be. That led to me creating a couple of hobby websites which have been a godsend and which I just love doing.

I soon discovered that I could earn a living from them and they now earn me income though advertising and commissions from sales.

You can read more about it here: www.kids-partycabin.com

Oh and i started this blog - but that's for fun!

A few things we discovered:

• France is not cheap. Many of our visitors from the UK feel it's much more expensive in France.
• If you don't speak good French, your chances of finding a decent paying job are slim unless you have contacts or are in a big town/city.
  
• Many French people work for family or friends. Learn French and make lots of friends and your chances might be higher.
  
• Unemployment in France is higher than in the UK.
• Teenagers finding jobs is like finding a needle in a haystack. Forget newspaper delivery boys, they don't exist. Picking grapes usually happens when the kids are back at school. If they are under 17 year old, they will be highly unlikely to be even considered.
• Working for yourself is much more feasible. However.................you will pay a lot in social security payments and taxes. Much more than if you were employed. We are discovering that and feel shocked at how many cheques we write out each month to various social security departments.

Having said all that, many people arrive here and manage or get by.

At the end of the day you need to think about whether you'd be happy just managing and getting by. If not, then you may well need to find a job that makes life more comfortable.

I so admire a friend whom I met here, who spoke little French when she arrived but was determined to succeed. Within 6 months, she was speaking enough French to get by and had set up a market stall in Limoux selling coffee. Yes coffee to the French. No-one else in Limoux (population 10,000) sold fresh coffee. She had found a great niche.

Here's her website: Le Moulin Noir

Another retired English man whom I also met in the market sells imported curry sauces and spices. His best customers are some old French ladies.

And another English friend spent a couple of years learning French and is now a French teacher to the English and runs a B&B.

So where there's a will there's way.

Don't get anxious reading this if you are thinking of making the move here, but do get realistic and do get creative with your work ideas.

Also be prepared for the social security department to whip you hard earned profits out of your hands from time to time.

Well it's now back to work for me. I'm writing an eBook about kids party games...that's another income stream I hope.

Next Time: The French Bac. What do my kids think?!