La Fête de la Musique

Summer here in France begins with the sound of music. The 21^st June marks the date not only of the first day of summer but, more importantly, of the public celebration of music and arts that is the Fête de la Musique. Launched in 1982 by the then Minister for Culture in order to promote music for everyone, it has become a much loved and celebrated festival all over France and has also spread to hundreds of other countries around the world.

On the 21^st June from midday to midnight, just about every town in France will have some sort of event or concert taking place and all genres of music on the streets, in the squares, in public buildings, parks, stations and castles along with, of course, plenty of good food, wine and merrymaking. The department of the Ministry of Culture in charge of promoting the Fête de la Musique requires that all concerts must be free to the public, that all performers donate their time for free and that it be open to any musician, amateur or professional, who want to perform in it (hence the quality of the music on offer can vary hugely!) The aim of the Fête is to attract as large an audience as possible and to popularise every kind of music from classical to rock, jazz to fusion, latino to choral, for everyone of all ages and from all backgrounds.

Furthermore, the Fête de la Musique is a way to encourage the major music institutions (orchestras, operas, choirs, music schools) to perform outside their usual location and to develop exchanges between city centres and their outlying areas, to offer concerts in hospitals or in prisons, to promote encounters and exchanges between young musicians and well-known talents and to encourage a love of music of every and any kind.

Celebrated in over 110 countries around the world, it is now the world’s largest music event and if you are in France on 21^st June, it is guaranteed to be happening where you are. Bonne fête.

Striking skiing - the school day in France

A tough day at school!

We have discovered since living in France that, most of the time here, it is best just to go with the flow. Hence, when we learned on Monday that Tuesday school was cancelled (teachers on strike for the day), rather than stressing about childcare and cancelled meetings, we decided to ‘saisir le jour’ and hit the slopes for the day, despite the forecast looking decidedly ropey. The teachers, however, clearly had insider knowledge that neither we, nor Meteo France were privy to because by the time we had our skis on, the clouds had cleared, the sky was blue, the views were breathtaking and we spent the day skiing on 30 centimetres of fresh powder and almost empty pistes (only a few teachers to be seen here and there!) in the sunshine, punctuated by lunch in our favourite restaurant.

Nice spot for lunch - Chalet Beauregarde

It is days like these which remind us why we decided to settle in this very special part of the world. There can’t be many places where you can be skiing within an hour of leaving home and the fact that our nearest skiing happens to be one of the best kept secret in the Pyrénées, means that we often feel as if we have our own private ski resort. And yet, while much of Europe has been struggling with bad weather and snow, we have not had any at home; we just have the pleasure of looking at it on the mountains from the window and enjoying it on sunny days when we feel like it.

Empty pistes and fresh powder snow

The teachers certainly picked their day for a strike – and we are already looking forward to the next one!

Paradise in the Pyrenees

P.S. We weren’t the only one bunking off – the gendarmes were at it too!

Police on piste

What is it about France?

In the last few weeks I have been very busy with clients out here viewing their short-lists of properties I have found for them and they all want to know what it is that makes France such a great place to live. This is a difficult question to answer because there is not really just one specific thing that I can tell them; it is more a question of lots of lovely aspects of living here which add up to what for us is a very good quality of life. So I thought I would run through some of those little things that have made up my week this week and most weeks and never fail to remind me what it is that is so lovely about living here:

1. Yesterday, after two days of rain I opened the shutters to blue skies and fresh snow on the mountains.

2. And it was Wednesday so I got to spend the afternoon with my children (no school in France on Wednesday afternoons)

3. My neighbour turned up with a huge pumpkin she thought I would like (and lots of suggestions as to how to prepare it!)

4. Today I got to sit outside in the sun and eat my lunch – working day or not, the French live to eat not to work (and it’s still possible to have a great three course meal for around 10 Euros)

5. The local towns have just started putting up a few Christmas trees and the local school children have begun to make decorations for them. This is as about as commercial as Christmas gets around here which is just fine by me.

6. Everywhere I’ve been today, I have bumped into somebody I know and they all are happy to stop and say hello. I also know all my neighbours by name and they know me which is probably one of the reasons we feel part of the community here.

7. When I went in to buy my baguette this morning, everyone in the shop said bonjour, au revoir and wished me a good day. It was the same in the bank, the chemist and at the children’s school.

8. And when I pick my teenage children up from school, their friends come up and peck me on the cheek. Girls do the same when they greet each other and the boys shake hands. My younger children kiss their teacher hello and goodbye. How civilised.

9. Most days I get to walk the dog in the fields behind the house – today I saw two deer, numerous red kites and kestrels and a red squirrel. Sometimes we spot eagles, owls and even once a pole cat. The farmers don’t use pesticides here and we have predominantly meadow, full of wildflowers and wildlife.

10. The ski resorts are about to open and soon we will be able to spend our weekends on the ski slopes.

11. Nobody locks their doors here

12. The owner of the cafe where I often have my morning caffeine shot, told me that my coffee was on him today.

13. I can do most of my weekly food shop at the local market where everything is uncertified organic (not ones for bureaucracy here!), very fresh (hours old, not days or even weeks) and very local – everyone at market comes from within a few kilometres radius.

14. Everything shuts on Sundays – family and friends are king here not the supermarkets

15. Oh and I get to look around lovely houses and explore new areas on a daily basis and meet lots of interesting people.

There are many many other reasons that make me happy to live here but these are just some of the small events that make up my week and make me smile.

House sharing

Every year since we have lived in France, we have been joined in our home in the spring and early summer by a family of kestrels. And when I say ‘in our home’, I really do mean ‘in’ – the kestrels return each year to nest in the same hole in the wall of our house, just above our back terrace and right outside our kitchen door. From a bit of research into these birds, it would appear that these are the same breeding pair each year; they are long lived at 15 or more years, they mate for life and are very territorial.

‘Our’ kestrels have become part of the family now; they are used to our habits and seem unperturbed by our comings and goings, loud mealtimes on the terrace below their nest or by noisy children (and shouting parents!) The only thing that really upsets them is our two cats who take to hiding under the table when the kestrels are nesting to avoid being dive-bombed. We also have got used to their habits and are careful never to walk directly under the nest nor sit too close, particularly as the babies grow and get more adept at dropping pellets and everything else out of the nest onto unsuspecting loiterers below. We have had at least two visitors who have lingered too long outside the kitchen door and have had a very lucky day as a result.

Despite this, we love having them here and look forward to their return each year, eagerly watching for the first signs of nesting which is followed by the calling of the chicks and then our first glimpse of them as they demand more and more food from their industrious parents. We watch as they get so big that they barely any longer fit in their nest hole and seem to literally teeter on the edge for much of the day, calmly observing the comings and goings below. When they finally fledge, most seem to make it safely to the walnut tree opposite although occasionally they join us on the terrace for a few hours, like this one in the photo, before managing to get properly air bound.

Then they gradually move further and further afield although still close enough that we hear their distinctive calls for the rest of the summer and often see them perched watching us from the roof of the house. We feel very privileged to have such a ringside view of the life cycle of such a magnificent bird – another bonus of living in a region where there is plenty of unspoiled habitat, meadows and food for them, thanks to the ubiquity of organic and traditional methods of farming here.  

Proposed tax on second homes scrapped

Good news for people looking to buy a holiday home in France; the French government has abandoned plans to levy a controversial new tax on holiday homes owned by non-residents. This has been worrying many people although, as it turned out, if this new tax had been imposed, it would probably only have amounted to a few hundred pounds a year on the average holiday home.

Up to 360,000 homes would have been liable for the tax under the proposals and it is thought that President Sarkozy backtracked when it was pointed out to him how many French nationals living abroad would also have to pay the tax. The French have a tendency, thanks to their inheritance laws, to hang onto property over generations and so a huge number of French people own second homes, including many who now live and work abroad.  The government was also said to be worried about the effect the tax would have on tourism to France. Moreover, it was suggested that this new tax could have been unlawful under European laws designed to allow the free movement of Capital.

Whatever the political ins and outs, it is good news for my clients currently buying or looking to buy holiday homes and means that France looks set to remain one of the most popular and best value holiday destinations in the world.

Have the French found the recipe for happiness?

According to a survey by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the French spend more time eating, sleeping and shopping than any other country. I have lived in France for eight years now and I would say that yes, it’s all true – but how do they do it, how do they find all this extra time in their lives when the rest of us seem to struggle to find time to grab a sandwich or even get enough sleep?

Apparently the French sleep an average of 8.5 hours (yes average!) It makes France the longest sleepers out of all 34 of the OECD’s members. Does this mean that the French have less to fit into their days or are they just more relaxed about what does and doesn’t get done? Do they have less to worry about – or maybe they expect the state to do their worrying for them – and thus sleep easy at night (or in the afternoon!)

The French also spend the most time eating and drinking at more than two hours per day on average which is nearly twice as long as the Americans and Canadians. Looking at obesity rates though, clearly time spent consuming doesn’t necessarily mean more consumed. Of course it is this emphasis on long, lazy lunches that brought many of us here in the first place but it is very noticeable that the French do not eat or drink excessively – a meal is probably less dense than in the UK but each element makes up a separate course to be lingered over, enjoyed and never rushed. Nor do the French tend to snack in my experience. So more food and wine isn’t crossing the lips of the French – it just feels as if it is.

It turns out that the French are big shoppers too – or perhaps just slow shoppers.  According to the report, the French spend 32 minutes each day shopping. However, I would guess that we are primarily talking about shopping for food here. Most of the French people I know shop for fresh ingredients every day and have no problem taking their time about it – it is all part of that pleasure of appreciating their food.

Unsurprisingly therefore, the report also shows that French people have the second-highest life expectancy in the OECD, presumably thanks to the high amount of time spent enjoying themselves. Add that to the 28% of GDP that the French state spends on healthcare and social welfare, the highest spending of any OECD country and it all starts to make perfect sense.

The rest of us can only look on enviously - or make that move to France and hope that some of the magic dust rubs off. Vive la France!

Car Trouble in France

I don’t normally write about cars but my trusty 20 year old estate car finally gave up the fight last week and I found myself stuck on the side of the road going nowhere when I should have been en route to a packed day of viewings and appointments.

Always a stressful occurrence, I was expecting a similar experience to the last time I broke down which happened to be on the A303 in England. That time, I had a baby in the back but I also had AA breakdown rescue insurance so I telephoned the emergency number and was told that I would be a priority and a rescue vehicle would be with me as soon as possible.

As soon as possible turned out to be three hours later, when a man and a van finally turned up. He fiddled under the bonnet for half an hour before telling me he couldn’t fix the problem and would have to call a tow truck. That was another hour and a half arriving and by the time we finally got home, both me and baby were stressed, hungry and fed up as well as no nearer to having fixed the problem of a broken-down car.

So when I called the break-down number which comes as part of the French car insurance (the number is always fixed to the inside of the windscreen), I was expecting to spend most of the rest of the day waiting for help to arrive. As luck would have it, I had managed to break down just yards away from a café so, having made my call, I decided to wait for the rescue van in the warm over a coffee, where I then planned to start telephoning around to cancel all my viewings and appointments. However, I had barely got to the bottom of my espresso before the waiter pointed out that there was a breakdown truck outside the door and sure enough, he was looking for me (having made the assumption presumably that I would obviously be waiting for him in the nearest café!) I showed him the car which he immediately hoisted by winch onto the back of his lorry and then asked me to which garage he should deliver us both.

Ten minutes later me and car were on the forecourt of our local ‘garagiste’. I simply signed a form and the breakdown service was complete. At which point, Patrice, the garage owner, suggested that I take his car for the day so that I could go to work and he would take a look at mine before I came back that evening. 

So I whizzed off and managed to make all my pre-arranged viewings and appointments and what could have been a stressful and frustratingly wasted day turned into a very positive experience. There are many things that the Brits and French do differently but, when it comes to breakdown rescue and helpful mechanics, the French win hands down – in my limited experience anyway. 

Eccentric British Behaviour

Apparently today is officially the first day of Autumn. Which, in the sunny south west of France, means that, despite the fact  that the sun is shining, the sky is blue and Meteo France is forecasting 26 degrees in Saint Girons for this afternoon, everyone here is now wearing winter coats and winter boots. Well, everyone that is except for us – the crazy famille anglaise.

An autumn day in Saint Girons

As we arrive at school on another perfect, sunny morning, nobody actually says the words, irresponsible mother – or certainly not within my hearing – but the slightly shocked looks as each new parent and teacher clocks my children’s bare knees and toes, say it all. I fear that, if this was England, I would probably be reported to social services for cruelty to children.

There is no doubt that there is a noticeable chill in the air in the mornings now; a warning that colder weather is not that far away. To put this in a British context however, we are still eating every meal outside on the terrace and by mid-afternoon it is definitely too hot to sit in the sun. This is better than English summers that I remember and, being forever British at heart, there is no way that I am going to waste any opportunity to make the most of every last warm ray of summer (or autumn) sun. Of course winter has its own pleasures but I am not ready for them yet. It is another of the many reasons we live in this glorious part of the world where the summers seem to go on and on. Much as I love England, I have always struggled with those endless long grey months whereas here winter proper doesn’t really start until December and, even then, it is usually bright and sunny, albeit cold, with that wonderful, mood-enhancing southern light.

Luckily, one of the many good things about being an English family in France is that we can get away with odd behaviour which our friends and neighbours here happily put down to typical British eccentricity. And of course, there’s nothing the French like better than us behaving in ways that confirm their beliefs about England – such as the wearing of t-shirts in September which clearly proves that we grew up in such a truly horrible climate that we are inured to the cold and thus can get away with wearing summer clothes in September when normal people are wearing jumpers and fur lined boots. Being British, we are expected to behave strangely, thus we can (and do) get away with so much more. Personally I rather like this role of eccentric abroad.