Expat Life in the South of France

It’s just ended.  It may not be Rio (not enough scantily clad women) but it was terrific just the same. Here are some pictures.

I’m on a roll now!  Some time ago, we had an attempted break-in at about 4 am., however by the time my husband went into the garden armed with a hockey stick, the perp had fled leaving only his footprints and a mangled window frame behind. The police duly appeared, because the neighbours were also burgled, and we were told to report to the gendarmerie the next morning, which we did.

20 minutes later, the gendarme typing with 2 fingers managed to  finally get our name and address down. Now came the interesting part.

G to my husband: ”What is your mother’s maiden name?” 

Mike:  “Brooks.”

G:  “Her maiden name please.”

Mike, who decided to be difficult because he didn’t see the point of this question, deadpanned: “Brooks.”

G - taking both his hands of f the keyboard - to me: “Madame, would you please translate for your husband I need his mother’s maiden name.”

Me: “Brooks!” Then seeing his exasperation and not wanting to spend half the day arguing about my mother-in-law’s maiden name, I explained that his mother had the same name before marriage as after, at which he shook his head as if to say “I always knew the Brits were weird.”

The main question of course, and the one that never got asked, was what had my mother-in-law’s maiden name got to do with an attempted break-in at our home?  If any of you French residents has an answer, please let me know.

Much as I love living in France, the fonctionnaires really freak me out sometimes.  When we first arrived here, cartes de sejour were compulsory for all resident foreigners, even EU citizens. By the time they expired, 5 years later, they were no longer necessary for EU citizens. However, I found having one really useful for identity purposes and for passport free travel within Schengen. I duly presented myself at the Préfecture in Nice and very politely asked for one even though I knew it was no longer necessary. I couldn’t get past first base, so I gave up.  However, last week I discovered a French Government website which specifically states that permanent resident EU citizens can ask for one, even though it is not obligatory to have one, and that it would be provided.

Being a glutton for punishment I called the préfecture and referred the bureaucrat to the website and restated my demand for a CdeS. The reply was: “We have nothing to do with the government website, and we do not issue cartes de séjour EU citizens any more.”

Me: “But it is a government website, you work for the government don’t you?”

Bureaucrat: “No I work for the Nice Préfecture de Police, and regardless of what the government website says you will not get a CdeS here !”

Round one to the fonctionnaire! I’ll wait awhile before launching round 2 in this battle!

As promised - 5 tips on “doing” Paris without breaking the bank.

• Accommodaion: Instead of spending your hard earned cash on overpriced, postage stamp size hotel rooms, try the excellent value bed and breakfast accommodation from approximately 75€ for a double room. Bookings can be made through Alcoves & Agapes  . For a longer stay, consider renting an apartment. Studios start at about 350€ a week up to about 1,500€ a week for two-bedroom apartments. Paristay have a large selection in all sizes and areas.
• Getting around: Paris has probably the best underground system of any city that I know of. A single ticket costs 1.60€, but a carnet of 10 tickets is only 11.40€. The tickets can also be used on buses, RER the suburban express trains, as well as the two tram lines. One ticket allows for two hours of travel between two Métro stops regardless of the number of transfers. Go ride!
• Scenic Seine: The Batobus river shuttle leaves every 25 minutes from several stops along the river, including the Champs Elysées, the Louvre, Notre Dame, St. Germaine des Prés, the Musée d’Orsay and the Eiffel Tower. A trip down this, the most French of rivers, in the most French of cities, is magical, with monuments, museums and great architecture lining both banks. A one day pass available at all Batobus stops or tourist offices, is 12€ and you can either stay on for a round trip or get on and off to have a closer look at the sights. This is far better value than the exorbitantly priced one hour tourist rip-offs on the Bateaux Mouches or the Vedettes du Pont Neuf.
• Art Anyone?  If several museums are on your list of things to do, then the Paris Museum Pass is your best bet. Covering more than 60 venues in and around Paris, including the Château de Versailles, the Louvre, the Orsay and several others, it costs from 32€ for a 2 day pass.  Most national museums including the Louvre and the Rodin are free on the first Sunday of every month.
• Arias for All: 62 standing room tickets at 5€ are available for all shows at the Opéra Bastille approximately 90 minutes before the show.  

If you have any questions, just shoot me a comment and I’ll be happy to reply.

There you have it. Bon Séjour!

As we shiver in the European winter, I  look forward to spring which is right round the corner.  Spring is probably the best time of year to visit Paris. The city emerges from its grey winter torpor and within just a few weeks its parks are resplendent with a riot of blossoms . The Jardin des Tuileries,  on the right bank of the Seine, and next to the Louvre is one of my favourites.

My husband could never understand why a café au lait was only a breakfast drink and why French waiters looked askance at him whenever he ordered one after a meal.  Just having finished lunch, this waiter, in a small neighbourhood cafe in La Bocca, Cannes did more than just look askance when Michael asked for one.

“Would monsieur like a croissant to go with it?” he asked cheekily. After which he yelled to the bar, “un café espagnol!” Seeing our puzzled look, he whipped a napkin off our table,  using it as a matador’s cape and nimbly did a pass at an imaginary bull. “Olé!” he beamed. “Cafe Olé - get it?”

Well…yes…

We almost didn’t come here. We originally considered Portugal and Spain, but after a couple of holidays in the south of France, we decided this was where we liked best.  Besides, as I said to my husband, I didn’t want to learn a whole new language.

“You speak French?”

“Well..…sort of.” I could still conjugate avoir and être and count from one to ten in French, so I decided I qualified.

That was a mistake. Ávoir  and être proved woefully insufficient at the local tax office when we tried to argue that we had been billed twice for our tax d’habitation for the same house. My tentative “Parlez-vous Anglais?” was met with a snooty “Madame, vous êtes en France!”   Speaking English loudly and slowly was evidently not the answer.

“From tomorrow we will speak only French in the school.” Language boot camp, otherwise known as the Institut de Français  in the beautiful fishing port of Villefranche-sur-Mer, was the next step. Thoughtfully (and some might say, sadistically) recommended by the French consulate in Hong Kong, it was the linguistic and cultural equivalent of the French Foreign Legion. Having broken down our resistance to French to the extent that English was only a faint memory, an exhausting, expensive and absolutely exhilirating four weeks later, we, the students, were all jabbering excitedly in eminently understandable French. If you are interested to read more about the school, my article which appeared in the Expat section of the Daily Telegraph can be found  here . 

Fast forward a year later, to the same tax office and the same officer, I conducted myself entirely, if not always correctly, in French. He beamed and said to me in impeccable English, “Madame, your French is excellent!”

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……