Blackladder

Hi Novo again!

Same here, very mild and no snow where we are, but we are in the south and close to the Baltic, so climate here is more coastal than, say, your enormous central Canadian prairies - the coldest we have ever had here is minus 24. That's 30 degrees WARMER than the coldest in Sweden!

Here's a few animal shots, d'you get these where you are?

http://s284.photobucket.com/albums/ll40/Fureys/

Blackie

Novocastrian

Your mention of record lows sent me off to research the data for my location. I found that the extreme low for this date was -32.8C in 1994, which was our first winter back in Canada after 8 years in Germany. I remember it now.

Those are fantastic photos! Here in our medium sized community (pop ~115,000 and 35 km north of Lake Ontario) we don't see much exotic stuff. Lots of raccoons, a few deer, foxes, the very occasional coyote.

For bear, wolves, moose, bobcat etc you need to go further north.

You might be interested in this story though,

http://www.thestar.com/article/11147...kingsville-ont

Vive la France!

Blackladder

Thanks NC!

Nice one with the GGO! One I bird I have never seen, and we do have plenty of owls here in Sweden. Did you get to see it yourself (this is getting off topic!)
Take care
Blackie

Novocastrian

<Blackie and I had a nice chat on PM earlier today>

The thread is again on it's original topic.

loy loy

We chose to live in France because we thought out children would grow up into more respectful adults than those teenagers we saw in England. Probably wont. We holiday'd here a lot and noticed how polite all the children were. We had never been to this region of France before but a friend of a friend was renting their place. We love the area and have bought a place down the road.
I am struggling with it all to be honest, I stay in my office all day so my French has not progressed at all, my wife and children are doing really well. I joined the golf club to try and integrate but it's a bad time of year for golf and no competitions at the moment.
But Sunday to Friday I rarely leave the house.

dennerlymum

Gosh I am sorry you are finding it so hard to settle. Have you looked for expat groups that, while not enhancing your french my give you a sense of belonging and also might give you some ideas as to how to integrate. You could try asking on your local anglo info

Apart from golf do you have other interests?? Whilst not top on our lists of exciting things to do, my hubby and I joined the village committee de fêtes (the group that organises the evening 'do's and village fête each year...) In this way we have made french friends locally.

I do sympathise; it can be very difficult to integrate! Hope you feel happier soon

loy loy

Well, we go along to all the fetes, and the locals are really nice to us all. But I am frustrated that I can't talk back. It's even worse now I see the family are able to get by.
I don't think I can join any of the groups yet because we just wont be able to understand each other.
I don't regret coming, the people are so much nicer and just the atmosphere of the place, no sense of impending danger. We used to live in a very nice village in Surrey but there was still quite a high level of crime there. As far as I can tell there is zero here. And the children spend so much more time playing, indoors and out, without the TV going on.

When we move our outgoings will go down so I think I might take lessons. I listen to podcasts while I'm working but I don't take much in. I also panic in the converstaion situation, even the things that are easy I forget.

Ka Ora!

I know how you feel conversationally I find it a bit of a brick wall, Im finding the thousand-yard stare setting in.

jonkemp

loy Loy, at least you have an excuse for not having any friends, I live in England and don't have any. My French isn't brilliant, but when we are at our holiday home I just grit my teeth and go for it. It doesn't matter if you get it wrong. The fact that your family are getting by is great. Don't let it get you down.

panner

Following many years of holidaying around many parts of France, we were drawn back to the Loire area. Architecture, history, weather, Rural, lowish population. Reasonable distance back to UK, though not to close.
We bought a property 10 years ago and moved here permanently in 2009 to live a quite country life growing our own produce. We have found what we were looking for, Slower pace of life, a culture of respect (in the local area) and good outdoor living (although it was -2.5 this morning and the log burner has held us captive most of the day!).

Geoff

cyrian

Glad you eventually found the forum - Welcome.
I agree with your reasons but I would add good and reliable transport links back to the UK.

dennerlymum

Sometimes the pole emploi will give you free lessons, if they think you are looking for work...
You could also try a language share; you teach some english in return for them teaching you french

Glad to be home.

Hi there, A good way to pick up the language is to get ROSETTA STONE language learning. You can probably get it from Amazon. It is one of the best ways to learn french i think, and believe me i tried lots of cds and dvds!!! It is a hard language to pick up with all the grammer but you will get there. We could only speak classroom french when we first arrived and i had lots of words pinned up on the kitchen cabinets in order to try and converse on the phone, that helped too. Depending on the area, some people can speak a little english and they like it that you are trying to speak the lingo. Also its just like in the uk, they have their own area accent and way of speaking like a geordie or a scottish, a welsh person has. You don't realise because you are too busy just trying to understand what they are saying. Don't give up , you'll be having a full conversation before you even know it. Remember they don't pronounce the end of the word. Its good to go through the french alphabet as well because that helps you too. We say A, they say ahh, we say B, they say bay, Y - eegreck, W - doobla vay.

dmu

Without wishing to hi-jack the thread, can you give examples, as this is a new one on me! It's the English that swallow the ends of words! The final "e" is always pronouced, especially in the Midi.

Glad to be home.

Yes i get what you are saying , they do pronounce the i as eeee. ie lundi mardi mercredi etc but they dont pronounce the s for paris or the n for pain or the n for maison etc etc do they .