Over the autumn and winter months we were organising our lives out here, applying for our 'cartes de sejour', registering with the taxman, CPAM (caisse primaire assurance maladie) for health cover, getting to know our bank manager, neighbours and neighbourhood. And also getting to grips with the language.
We both had a knowledge of the French language. J had been attending night classes in French for a good few months and had quite a good knowledge although he denied it. I still remembered most of my 'schoolgirl' French as I had had around three years of strict lessons. It is strange how quickly the words came back... There they were filed away in the darkest recesses of my brain ready to be hauled out into the light again! I was surprised at how much was there!
We decided to wait for around six months before deciding what to do with the house, and whether to stay here or not. If we could survive a winter then it would be OK! (soooo very optimistic!).
There were a couple of English families in the village but we did not impose on them, our home was about 5k from the village and we only went there to see the mairie or go to the boulangerie, post office or pharmacy. We did not register with the doctor straight away as we had no health problems.
We met another English couple in a local supermarche. They had been here about three months longer than us and we found that we had a lot in common. They had retired out here and just enjoying the whole French 'thing'. The wife attended French classes one evening a week and we went along with her for a few months. We found that it did not help as much as the organisers thought it would. We decided that we would fare better with French television, local radio and also the newspapers - we were right!
We went back to the UK in the January of '02 to meet our 1st grand-daughter. She was born just before Christmas '01 around 3 weeks early. We had arranged to go back in the January and couldn't change our travel arrangements. Whilst we were there we approached an estate agent and put our house on the market. We reached the decision that we would need to sell in order to update the property we had bought. We had consulted with a local builder (French) and had plans drawn up to change the interior of the house. It also needed completely re-plumbing and re-wiring and the artisan we had chosen could do the whole job for us using sub-contractors. We had the devis and it was affordable.
Now we just had to wait for the start date.............
We both had a knowledge of the French language. J had been attending night classes in French for a good few months and had quite a good knowledge although he denied it. I still remembered most of my 'schoolgirl' French as I had had around three years of strict lessons. It is strange how quickly the words came back... There they were filed away in the darkest recesses of my brain ready to be hauled out into the light again! I was surprised at how much was there!
We decided to wait for around six months before deciding what to do with the house, and whether to stay here or not. If we could survive a winter then it would be OK! (soooo very optimistic!).
There were a couple of English families in the village but we did not impose on them, our home was about 5k from the village and we only went there to see the mairie or go to the boulangerie, post office or pharmacy. We did not register with the doctor straight away as we had no health problems.
We met another English couple in a local supermarche. They had been here about three months longer than us and we found that we had a lot in common. They had retired out here and just enjoying the whole French 'thing'. The wife attended French classes one evening a week and we went along with her for a few months. We found that it did not help as much as the organisers thought it would. We decided that we would fare better with French television, local radio and also the newspapers - we were right!
We went back to the UK in the January of '02 to meet our 1st grand-daughter. She was born just before Christmas '01 around 3 weeks early. We had arranged to go back in the January and couldn't change our travel arrangements. Whilst we were there we approached an estate agent and put our house on the market. We reached the decision that we would need to sell in order to update the property we had bought. We had consulted with a local builder (French) and had plans drawn up to change the interior of the house. It also needed completely re-plumbing and re-wiring and the artisan we had chosen could do the whole job for us using sub-contractors. We had the devis and it was affordable.
Now we just had to wait for the start date.............
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