Party time

Yesterday it was party time at our village pub.

Two of our friends are off to live permanently in France later this week and this was their farewell party.

Five years ago they bought this wreck of a property in France. Ever since, every holiday they’ve been over to stay in a caravan on site while they did up the property.

Steve is a builder by trade. His wife ended up being builder’s mate. At last the property is in a liveable condition.

The idea is Steve will continue to work as a builder. His wife is going to run part of the property as a gîte (self-catering cottage).

We can’t help thinking they’re being very brave. They bought the property on their first visit to France. They speak very little French & they are going to live in an area with few ex-pats.

However, during the building process they have got to meet all their neighbours, been invited to their parties & felt warmly welcomed. We wish them well.

There was a time we considered moving to France. However, we couldn’t afford to lose my disability benefits by emigrating – you have to live in Britain, only going out of the country for a maximum of one month at any one time.

I must admit I was also nervous about how I would cope. Our French is reasonably good, but I feared the difficulties of understanding what hospital specialists may say – it’s difficult enough in English - & I certainly didn’t fancy the red tape involved in sorting out care needs & equipment.

We then thought we would leave it until I no longer got my disability benefits & had moved on to old age pension. The problem with this is that they moved my retirement age from 60 to nearer 70. The Fox, being older than me, would be well into his 70s by then – too late to think of such a radical move. We may conclude we need to move into a smaller property or sheltered housing but not a different economic political social situation as emigrating would involve. Since we made that decision the Fox has had his stroke & that makes us even more reluctant to change country.

However, Steve & his wife are still young enough & healthy enough to have a good life in France before such problems arise. We wish them well. Who knows, one of these days we may even visit them in France & stay in their gîte.