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This is how it happened … an English family move to France, part 13. Before-and-after photos.

  A few before-and-after photos … www.seasidefrance.com    The entire top floor was full of old rubbish – mostly mattresses and those French sausage-pillows, thick with dust and bird droppings.  The property, although classified as a “Chateau” was a working farm and a wine-producer, so there were lots of working implements stored up here, usually […]

Posted 11 years ago

French history in a nutshell: Part 4: Papillon, Henri Charriere, criminal, 1906 – 1973.

Papillon was the nickname given to Henri Charriere, a Frenchman and a criminal, convicted of murder in 1931.  To his dying day, Charriere denied the murder, and it is likely that he was innocent of it.  However, he was a criminal and admitted to many other crimes, mainly safe-breaking and including violence. The nickname Papillon […]

Posted 11 years ago

It happened like this … an English family move to France. Part 12. A Great Dane.

 Jake and George on the beach at Marennes We got a dog. Well, you do, don’t you ?  When you need to set up a new business and you’ve got three children, no income of any note and a huge house to restore, you do tend to get a dog, n’est-ce pas?  All the best […]

Posted 11 years ago

It happened like this … an English family move to France. Part 11.

Bruce bleaching the exterior of the house.  Industrial bleach is vicious stuff and you can burn yourself quite badly.  At the top of the photo you can see where the bleach has worked, and it was such a transformation.  From grotty dirty grey to a lovely off-white.  The surface area of the outside walls is […]

Posted 11 years ago

It happened like this … an English family move to France. Part 10. School in France.

The road through the little town of Pont l’Abbe d’Arnoult.  That basket shop is no longer there, but I used to pop in regularly after school as it sold all sorts of odds and sods.  Opposite was a small supermarket.  The post office was at the other end of the place, boasting the most unfriendly and po-faced […]

Posted 11 years ago

It happened like this … an English family move to France. Part 9. Homesick.

Although we found a buyer for our house relatively quickly, Completion dragged on for over a year.  He was buying, he wasn’t, he was buying, he wasn’t … I packed things and unpacked them, phoned the notaire, faxed him, stared at the telephone, stared at the fax, stared at the sky.  We heard that the […]

Posted 11 years ago

It happened like this … an English family move to France. Part 8. Life in France.

William in his home-made go-cart.  Although he was only 11, he wrote an article about it which got published in an engineering magazine. The land tax office The letter stated, quite simply, that we owed this huge sum of money and that it should have been paid at the time of the purchase. I phoned […]

Posted 11 years ago

It happened like this … an English family move to France. Part 7. Stress and the French system.

 Most years we skied in Andorra, though we did also go to the Alps and, later, Bulgaria, Austria and Italy.  One Christams in the Alps we couldn’t get in to a restaurant because everything was booked out; the waitress explained to me (but in French, of course) with all seriousness: “we are full, because here […]

Posted 11 years ago

Mother (in memory of Armand 1983-2013)

  Grief is the colour of the sky Just before the rain. My friends, your silent tears, Your faces full of pain. And I know I cannot comfort you Nor even see you again.   Loss is the colour of a rainbow Aching, arching, teary-eyed. All the things that were, now gone, So much love […]

Posted 11 years ago

It happened like this … an English family move to France. Part 6. Red tape in France.

Main picture: back in England celebrating my father’s birthday at Cliveden; me sitting  (in white) with my lovely old daddy, one of my sisters, and my brother-in-law, Brian Eno. It was a cruel irony that during the summer months, when I was terribly busy, friends and family would pour out to see us.  I am […]

Posted 11 years ago

Books now available on Amazon:

A Call From France
French Sand
Kefani: An African Childhood
The Man With Green Fingers
Saying Nothing