Andrea50

Just a quick update for any interested parties, looks like at last my OH and I will be "en France" from October onwards. So if you see a mad woman in a blue clio screaming "sacre yellow, isn't there a colour you like?" at French people in Citroen Diane's at traffic lights, accompanied by a terrified other half shouting "aidez moi" out the other window, give us a wave.

Andy
xx

Novocastrian

Heehee. You've probably mentioned it elsewhere, but to where in France are you headed (just so I know, like).

Congrats.

val50

don't worry, we're safe, they are heading down south.
Great news for you Andy - good luck (especially to your OH)

Andrea50

lol, not surprised you might want to avoid us - forewarned is forearmed and all that! I'm not half as bad a driver as it sounds - it's everyone else (of course). My other half says always be suspicious of a woman who's motto is "when in doubt, go flat out". He keeps the blindfold and earplugs in the glove box for truly scary moments ..........

Current plan is to get ferry from Plymouth to Roscoff and drive down through France to my friends who live in Degagnac near Gourdon in north west Lot, in order to stay with them and use that as a base to look for our own propery probably within 50 mile radius or so of them. We are quite flexible on area, Lot, parts of Dordogne, Lot-et-Garonne, northern parts of Tarn-et-Garonne (where I lived before) etc - a lot depends on finding the right sort of property in the right area - I personally LOVE the Bouriane, so we will concentrate on that bit to start with and if we don't find anything, widen the search area.

Anyway, thanks for the congrats, and I think I heard Val mentioning another possible "get together" for all us mad ex pats, to include, hopefully ex ex ex pats like myself, so you never know, we might all get together for a big bash one day!

Have a great day
Andy
xx

Collioure_Bee

Judging by that route, all I can say is. Phew, Safe!

Andrea50

Lawks, CB, has the day come at last where "white van man" has met his match on the roads in the form of a 5ft 4" woman driver? Formidable!!!!

britex01

In my impeccable non-French - bon voyage Andrea. Have a wonderful time ...

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Andrea50

Thank you kind sir! And same to you, have a great time.

And to be honest, the language thing is a bit blown out of all proportion. Think of 10 English people you know. How many of them do (or could) speak and write perfect English? Same with the French, we just don't know they aren't perfect cos we don't understand enough of it to know that.

My OH is still freaking out about not being able to communicate, it is THE big thing he is now worrying about (aside from how many crates of baked beans we can get in the boot of a clio).

Enjoy your trip.
Bon chance.
Andy

Collioure_Bee

I'm to courteous to be a white van man Andrea.

Andrea50

A rare breed indeed then!

I should imagine you have great fun driving round that area. I well remember the road from Argeles-sur-Mer, all along the coast, lovely, until we reached the outskirts of Collioure when it got a bit more "interesting" lets say. There were two castle like things up behind Collioure, and then we carried on for lunch at Port Vendres. The road continued to get more and more "interesting" as we approached Banyuls-sur-Mer, and I had a far too close encounter with a French toilet there - tres horrible.

You live in a beautiful bit of France though. We looked at a house at Cerbere, which was great but needed a lot of work and was a bit overpriced, and another just outside Port Vendres. I'm not a lover of "the Med" as a rule, but that bit I did like. We looked at a couple of plots of land up high outside Collioure, great sea views but other plots were in front so when they were built on, we would have lost the sea view a bit. The immobilier bloke who took us to see those plots had clearly had a few at lunchtime, and me and my ex were terrified of his driving - he was throwing that car round corners, one arm out the window, getting VERY close to drop-offs, and I was thinking "Sweet mother of God, if something is coming the other way we are history".

Hope your weather is better there than it is here anyway, and have a great week.

Cheers to all, happy Saturday.

Collioure_Bee

It's about 70 here and it feels bloody cold Andrea.

Those places just up the mountains with the great views are fine when you see them in the summer, but come the winter......

Andrea50

70 feels cold???? Reckon there are some folk in England right now who would have promised to take Holy Orders to get a bit of 70 .....

We we also further into the Pyrenees in February, having been across the Black Mountains, down to Carcassone, then down to Ceret, up the D618 (that was fun) to Vinca, down to Prades, carried on up the E9 to Ax les Thermes, up to Montgaillard, along the D117 to Lavalanet and right back across the Razes to Axat then up to Couiza where we had a rented Gite for 5 months. We used to also go skiing at Chioula. We had chains in the boot (obligatory in the Pyrenees in winter as you know) and were probably just lucky never to get stuck, although it was dead dicey (and icy) at times.

Don't envy you your driving job in the winter CB, but presumably you are used to it by now!

Collioure_Bee

What is scary Andrea, is that Canigou had a small spreading of snow on it on Saturday!!!! Gulp!

When it snows I'll have to remember I am English and make sure everything grinds to a halt.

Andrea50

Gosh that took me back to my first view of the Canigou. It looked so beautiful and I think it was probably around end of October when I saw it for the first time - and yep, it had its "white hat" on. Beautiful. Do you ever go to Isle sur Tete? Although it's a few years ago, I remember that area as being really nice.

Also remember a place called Gesse I think it was, right down at the bottom of a gorge - along from Axat I think, first time I really knew what a "frost pocket" was, it was freezing and an old boy we asked directions from said it stays like that all day every day in winter -either white with frost or white with snow, and the sun shining on the top of the gorges each side. You picked the right place to live in that area - on the coast. The difference in temp in winter even over a few miles from the sea was amazing, although every time we went to Argeles it was very windy, regardless of season.

Trouble with English climate it is too "samey" as I call it. Don't mind cold, don't mind snow, don't mind heat, like storms, but this boring, crappy nothingness of weather here - it's not one or the other. What I loved about the French climate was they have seasons - proper seasons.

You better get the chains out soon then ...

Novocastrian

Chains?

<perks up>