Expat Life in the South of France

It didn’t take us long to discover that some things do work differently in France. If you wish to catch the French at work, you have to be fiendishly clever and quick. They do not work more than 35 hours a week, two hours over lunch, on the weekend, on Sundays (supermarkets), on Mondays (shops), before 10 a.m., after 5 p.m., during August, during strikes and when they don’t feel like it. That said, when they do, they are unfailingly polite, charming and efficient.  Amazingly, they also have almost the highest output in the world, per man hour worked.

We accept that the legendary French bureaucracy  needs to be negotiated with patience, tact and politeness,  that the French health service beats the NHS hands down, that you can’t go to the supermarket on a Sunday, and that when you order a ‘café’  it never comes with milk on the side!

Vive la difference!

I have often been asked why I, an Indian, married to an Englishman, would choose to retire in the south of France, when the rest of our family lives elsewhere.  The answer is, that having lived mainly in Asia and Egypt for over 35 years in the case of Mike, my husband, and almost all my own life, warmth and sunshine were a necessity, not just a luxury.  We had a two year spell in the U.K. at one stage, and I suffered from what has now become known as SAD  due to the lack of sunlight.  My cold weather threshold also tends to be very low! Even living here, we  try and get away for long spells in the winter.   Being within easy distance of the U.K. where our daughters live, was the other factor.

So here we are and loving every minute of it. Undoubtedly we would love it more if the trajectory of the pound against the euro changed direction somewhat!

Retirement loomed. After 35years of living in the pressure-cooker of Hong Kong, it was time to ride off into the sunset. Our daughters had left home, and we decided that if we had to retire, we might as well do it in style. So the French Riviera it was.

“Can we afford it?” I asked my husband.

“Probably not,” he replied, and proceeded to trace a circle of 20kms from Nice airport on the map. Since one-half of the circle was in the Mediterranean, our choice of area was considerably restricted. And so we moved to Vence, 30 minutes from both Nice and Cannes. I, especially, needed to be near a major city, for my occasional fix of noise and pollution. After life in Bombay, Cairo and Hong Kong, withdrawal symptoms were a distinct possibility!

Forty houses and six weeks later we found the house we eventually bought,  lovingly described in estate agent speak as “a charming bastide on three levels.” The majestic palm tree which greeted us as we drove in already began working its magic. The eye-popping view tipped the balance a little further .

To buy or not to buy? It wasn’t an easy decision. Would it be worth the time and expense involved for the major renovation work required? Would our eclectic (some would say mish-mash)collection of Oriental and Egyptian ornaments fit into this very ‘olde worlde’ French setting? Could we really combine eastern elements in a western setting to give it a cohesive look? Several visits later, with the view still continuing to beckon us, we took the plunge.

The formalities for transfer of title were achingly slow. The surveyor advised us that the swimming pool was illegal being too close to the boundary of our property. This entailed an exchange of land with our neighbour. Also the arched dining room extension with the spectacular view was illegal too, because planning permission had not been obtained by the previous owners! This too was regularised in the final contract.

After four months of obligatory screw-ups by absent vendors, present tenants, agents and lawyers, while we hapless foreigners, speaking fractured French, stood helplessly by, we finally obtained possession.

Wrecking time was here. Walls, doors, bathrooms were torn down, repositioned and gutted and for months we lived with piles of rubble, huge holes in the walls and overhanging clouds of dust. The workmen called it Beirut! (Today they would call it Gaza!)

Seven years on, here we are……