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might be same ad Last Word 19 years ago this year, on a cold and sleety February morning, I boarded a ferry at Dover and watched the famous White Cliffs fade as I headed to France on a day trip with my dad and my husband. We were going to buy wine and cheese, have lunch and head back home with our booty. It didn’t quite work out as planned. We bought the wine and cheese. We couldn’t find anywhere open to have lunch as we left it too late, and we succumbed to a cup of coffee offered to us by a property agent who spotted not just our rather miserable faces peering in his window but also an opportunity! Despite my adamant assertion that 1. we didn’t want a house in France and 2. we couldn’t afford a house in France, he persuaded us (me) to look at his three cheapest properties. And somehow I fell in love with one of them despite the fact that frankly it was a hovel. I bought it there and then (it was very cheap, less than the price of one of Kim Kardashian’s designer handbags), though my dad said it was a ‘never ending job.’ Well this year may be the year we finally finish renovating. Stage one. Dad was probably right. The house is now comfortable and I think, rather nice. We basically built a house within the shell of an old barn that was insulated with tons of a mix of muck, mud and straw which we spent many fun-filled days (not) removing. I’ve filled the house with mementoes of my travels around France and with animals – 4 dogs and 8 cats and occasionally a hedgehog called Charlie and a dove called Doris – though it being summer, they are outside now with the chickens, ducks and geese. Where I live in Pas de Calais, is very rural, very authentic, my dad used to say it was like going back 50 years in England. There are no shops, bars or cafés in my village, just 150 people – mostly farm workers – and 1000 cows in a very green corner of paradise. My 90-year-old neighbour Claudette has watched us toil on our house these past two decades, laying floors where there was once dirt, putting in windows where there were once holes and fixing a roof that you could once see the stars through. “A house is built of logs and stone, of tiles and posts and piers” she said to me recently, quoting her favourite author Victor Hugo. “A home is built of loving deeds that stand a thousand years…” Janine Janine Marsh lives in France with her husband and around 60 animals. Her books My Good Life in France, My Four Seasons in France and Toujours la France are available at Amazon and all good book shops. Her new book How to be French will be published in October 2023. Buying in France? Discover how to save time & money on your currency transfers. Excellent exchange rates No transfer fees Personal account manager Multiple transfer options Regular currency updates Award winning service Email: calum.h@currenciesdirect.com or register for free and request your free Buying in France digital guide, or call +44-207 847 9446 and quote “Good Life France” © Currencies Direct Ltd, One Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5AA, United Kingdom. Registered in England & Wales, No.: 03041197. Currencies Direct Ltd is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority as an Electronic Money Institution under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011. Our FCA Firm Reference number is 900669. Our EU services are provided by Currencies Direct Spain. © Currencies Direct Spain, E.D.E., S.L., Avenida del Mediterráneo, 341, 04638 Mojácar, Almería, Spain. Registered in the Commercial Registry of Almería under the Spanish tax ID number B04897930. Currencies Direct Spain, E.D.E., S.L. is authorised by the Bank of Spain as an Electronic Money Institution under Law 21/2011 of 26 July and Royal Decree 778/2012 of 4 May. Our registration number with the Bank of Spain is 6716. Register here UK18844EN 118 | The Good Life France The Good Life France | 119
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e France is brimming with romantic
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Biarritz. Napoleon III and his wife
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