Foreign Perspectives » France

A bit of a surprise at Decathlon

Arnold — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 08:46:09 +0000

We’ve had a Decathlon card since our time living in France but since we’re into our second year back here we’ve obviously not used it for a while. Almost two years in fact.

Anyway, Belfast happens to be one of the first places that Decathlon has opened a UK store so we thought we’d pop in. It’s very much a French Decathlon that happens to be in Belfast with seemingly all the same products and even the very same trollies which, of course, can’t be used as they need a euro in them rather than a pound. Even the prices seem much the same which makes it one of the more expensive stores around unless you pick something up on one of their 60%+ off opening offers.

Amazingly it’s even French to the point of being able to use my French Decathlon card which is a level of internationalisation that’s very, very rarely seen which is quite a surprise. The website isn’t 100% in English yet but I managed to change the address of the card to here which is also something that’s rarely considered when a company goes international.

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Wading through the junk mail

Arnold — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:56:28 +0000

One of the biggest problems in getting out of France is the sheer quantity of post and email that continues to generate.

This wasn’t so bad when we were actually working in the hotel as we were online daily and keeping on top of everything that came in but now that we’re away from that we don’t have nearly so much time to devote to that as it seems to need. For instance, in the past week I needed to go through dozens of pieces of post and thousands of emails only to find a mere handful that were relevant and needed action taken on them.

Despite France having quite a strict no-spamming law, the quantity of junk email coming from France far exceeds that from anywhere else in the world and almost all of it seems to contravene the French law. The reason why that should be is quite simple: French ISPs require anonymous logins to their mail servers so anyone can send anything and, of course, they do.

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Extricating oneself from the French administration

Arnold — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 08:29:29 +0000

When we moved here it took us four years before all the various authorities recognised that we were actually living in France. That started quite a flurry of back-administration obviously and it still isn’t entirely cleared up (eg we still get three separate bills for the TV license).

However, it would appear that it’s going to take quite a substantial amount of time for the authorities to recognise that we have now left France and are no longer French residents. Although we ceased to be French resident in January we are still receiving reminders that we’ve not paid various social security and health charges some eight months on.

It’s not that we have ignored their demands for money though. In fact, we informed them in January that we had left, then again almost every month since using their Internet service, email, fax, letter and even recorded delivery letter. In fact, it would appear that all missives from us are completely ignored. Last week we even resorted to writing to them in English as it would appear that they don’t understand French!

Actually, that last letter from us was in a response to a demand from them that it would actually be illegal for us to pay!

Perhaps another couple of years will see it sorted out…

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Sorting out the lights

Arnold — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 14:47:25 +0000

One of the hassles of buying a house in France is that the previous occupants almost always strip the house of lighting fixtures which is, on the whole, a pretty daft thing for them to do as the old ones hardly seem likely to fit the new house.

Anyway, since we think that we may finally have found a buyer for the accommodation business it looks like we’ll really have to get going and do something about all the empty light sockets dotted around the house. Thus far we’ve basically ignored the issue in that we’re mostly in the other side of the building and can get away with using standalone lamps for the places where we really do need the light. However, that’s not going to work too well if we’re going to be living full-time in that part of the house.

Oh well, ’tis off to see about a whole house full of lights…

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Tiling the kitchen & bathroom

Arnold — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:38:08 +0000

It looks like we’re going to find ourselves in the unusual position of getting going on redoing two bathrooms and two kitchens.

Sounds like a bit of a nightmare I’m sure but it’s even worse than that as one set is in the UK and the other is in what seems likely to become our holiday home in France in the next month or two. Unfortunately, it means trawling round two sets of places to find all the stuff to do the work as it’s not really a runner to buy it all in one and ship it to the other.

Since we’re looking to decorate both places in a similar manner we’re currently trying to find a ceramic tile design that’s available in both sides of the water but, of course, that’s not as simple as you would think.

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Golfing in Bulgaria

Arnold — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:43:32 +0000

One of the big surprises in many ways is just how fast formerly eastern block countries are moving into the first world.

For example, not so many years ago the thought of a luxury golf property in Bulgaria would have been laughed at. No longer though for the likes of Tharacian Cliffs, starting from scratch, seems likely to become one of the top golf courses in the world according to Gary Player.

The reason is simple of course: they’re able to start from a blank sheet and have lots of cheap land and labour to construct the courses. For the rest of us there are increasing numbers of cheap flights available to get us to the area.

Overall, a win-win situation for everyone apparently.

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Complications in buying televisions

Arnold — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:08:48 +0000

A long time ago buying a new TV was a very simple affair. You just picked the screen size and off you went.

It’s changed a lot since those blissful days though. Nowadays when you look at televisions there’s still the size to consider but now you’ve added the choice between flat screen and CRT style (not to mention the different flat screen technologies), then there’s normal vs high definition (and HD vs HD ready) not to mention the possibilities of home cinema and potential computer connections.

Even the “simple” choice of screen size isn’t so simple anymore. It used to be that 14″ was bedroom size but now that the prices have dropped so much you can easily be thinking in terms of 32″ instead and living room screen sizes run to feet rather than inches these days.

However, with all that complication has come a massive drop in price. The 42″ flat screen that replaced our 7 year old 28″ TV was only 2/3rds of the price and those prices are still dropping.

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Thinking of buying a gite in France?

Arnold — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:04:35 +0000

When people think of moving to France their first thought as to how to generate an income is to buy a gite complex and rent it out to people from back home.

It sounds like an idyllic lifestyle, doesn’t it? You work one day a week and the rest of the week you can be sunbathing by the pool.

The snag is that you need to wash all the sheets and towels and carry out maintenance work during the week. OK, so two days work and five at the pool? In theory, you might get away with that though, of course, the guests will be using the pool too and, usually, expect you to do things for them like organise tours or the area, tell them all the best places to go and so on.

What’s frequently forgotten about in all this is the financials that go along with this lifestyle. From a typical six or seven person gite you can probably get around 700€ a week in the peak season. That size of gite equates to a small three bedroom house in size and, of course, amount of work to look after. In reality most people aim for a gite complex of around four or five gites. On the whole, you’ll eventually reach an occupancy of around ten weeks per year for the gites which translates into around 35,000€ a year of an income.

However, there’s the matter of expenses to consider. Bearing in mind that you only have four or five hours to reset the gite between guests you’ll end up hiring a cleaner to help you which eats into the income somewhat and you may need someone to look after the pool. There’s also the business of maintenance: unlike a normal house rental you’re getting a new set of tenants virtually every week and that tends to be quite hard on the furnishings so you’ll need to renew at least some items pretty much every year.

Oh, and don’t forget the taxes!

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Why is it that the diesel in Spain lasts longer than the diesel in France?

Arnold — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 16:28:39 +0000

One thing that constantly confuses is that whenever we have a trip to Spain the diesel that we’ve bought there seems to last considerably longer than when the diesel that we ordinarily buy in France.

A LOT longer too. For example, we filled the car up Friday a week ago in Spain, have been running around quite a bit during the week and only needed to get some more last Friday. Ordinarily we’d have been expecting to top up at least once during the week.

Weird, huh?

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Success with Child Development (ED209)!

Post office staffing

Arnold — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:24:27 +0000

The staffing levels of post offices often seems to be very much politically led and rather than being subject to whatever local demands would dictate seems merely to reflect that it’s considered as effectively a job creation scheme.

Thus, although the nearest post office to us is on a main road and in quite a large village, it has the same number of staff as the post office in the small very quiet village where our son goes to school. The net effect of us is that what should be a fairly well staffed post office is almost always virtually unuseable. Not only are the queues frequently out the door but they close quite often to catch up with the backlog of work that this generates.

By contrast, the post office in the little village rarely has queues and always leaves us with a good impression. However, a large part of that good impression is no doubt due to that office being effectively well overstaffed for the level of business which it receives.

Whilst I wouldn’t want to deny the small quiet village its own post office, that service should really be part-time with the staff working the rest of the time in the larger one thus improving the service standards considerably for a large number of people.

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