Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Places’ Category

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…

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.

One of the oddities of Northern Ireland is that the almost total lack of cross-over between the Scottish descent population and the Irish descent population imeans that complete lack of comprehension in some areas can still exist even now.

For instance, something like seven or eight years ago a colleague in work happened to mention that he was sure I was wondering why he was wearing a poppy. Frankly I’d never even given it a second thought as it was a commonplace thing in that it was in the period just coming up to the November 11th Remembrance Day when, of course, wearing poppies is fairly common. In fact it wasn’t until some time later that I found out that the poppy was considered by Republicans as a British symbol and therefore political thus something that he “shouldn’t” be wearing since he was a Catholic. I’m sure that I’m not the only one from the Scottish descent community who simply couldn’t understand this reasoning at all.

However, just a few days ago Wendy received this as a final statement on a comment on her blog “And for the record, Northern Irish people are not British.”. Well, actually as far as those of us of Scottish descent goes I don’t think anyone even considered that there was such a thing as “Northern Irish” and actually we ARE British (as indeed, at least legally, are those born in Northern Ireland who consider themselves Irish). It seems peculiar that someone living in Belfast could possibly think that nobody in Northern Ireland was British these days, but there you go.

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!

Hawaii is probably the only place in the world that says “holiday” in every sense of the word.

There doesn’t seem to be anyone who it wouldn’t be suitable for in terms of fulfilling their holiday interests. Want a surf beach? It’s surrounded by them. Just want to crash on the beach? There are loads of quiet ones that’ll let you do that too. Fancy seeing a little of the cultures from the Pacific islands? No problem: the students from the Mormon university run a fantastic cultural centre that’ll let you do just that.

That’s just on Oahu too…. the other islands offer even more choice for you and all surrounded by beautiful and spectacular coves as you can see.

With all those advantages Hawaiian vacations don’t come in one-size-fits-all. Sure, you could do the standard flight and hotel deal but you’ll get much more out of your Hawaiian vacation if you choose a vacation rental property as your base.

With the massive numbers of tourists arriving in the islands, Hawaiian Local Travel Information comes in considerable volume so it’s easy to be overwhelmed by it all but then that’s just a good excuse to go back again next year…