A few people have asked me how we have got on with health care here in France, so here is my experience so far with my understanding of how things work…

To come to France, you should have adequate health insurance. For applying for a residence permit of more than 3 months, your insurance should include comprehensive cover including repatriation. After 3 months of living in France, you can apply to join the public health system – Protection Universelle Maladie (PUMA), but I had read that it can take time to process applications, so we decided to buy private health insurance for a whole year. It was expensive, but it gave us the flexibility we needed and the ability to cancel quarter by quarter.

After arriving in France, I tried to register with a doctor in Eymet, but there were already too many people on their books for the resident doctors, but I was told that if I need an appointment I was to call and they would fit in me when they could, but I couldn’t be assigned a GP.

I made my first appointment because I wanted to run in a local race. In France, for nearly all sporting activities, you need a medical certificate from a doctor saying you are fit to take part. The doctor I saw was very friendly, he asked me questions about my health, measured my weight, height and blood pressure, he examined my body and listened to my breathing. Finally, he gave me a full EKG. Everything was fine so I had the certificate I needed – valid for a year. I’d hoped my expensive private health insurance would pay for the appointment with the doctor (€40) so I scanned the invoice and sent it to them with a claim form. My claim was rejected because I arrived in France less than three months ago 🙁

After living here for 90 days, I filled out the forms to join PUMA with all the necessary documentation (of which there was a lot of course) and popped it all into the letterbox of the CPAM office in Bergerac. Two months later I received my social security number and my Carte Vitale so I happily cancelled my private health insurance. I did, however, take out a ‘mutuelle’ to top-up the public health cover.

A couple of months ago I heard there was a new doctor in town, so I have now registered with him, and I have since used my Carte Vitale + Carte Mutuelle to pay for appointments and prescriptions.

After breaking a pair of glasses, I wanted to buy a new pair, but that was not possible to do here without a prescription from a French ophthalmologist, so I made an appointment with one in Miramont-de-Guyenne. She tested my eyesight and gave me a prescription. I then visited the optician in Eymet to order new glasses. The Carte Vitale + Mutuelle paid for the sight test and significantly reduce the cost of the glasses leaving me to pay the balance.

All in all, the healthcare system seems to me be well set up, easily accessible and affordable once you are ‘in the system’, which like a lot of things here, takes time and paperwork.

Back at the B&B we’ve had a houseful this weekend and we’ve had a heatwave. With temperatures over 40C during the afternoons there were bound to be some uncomfortable nights, but we’ve learnt that by keeping shutters and windows closed during the day the house stays reasonably cool. The swimming pool has been great! We turned two rooms this morning so the washing machines are whirring away now and I’m ready for une sieste.

This weekend we welcomed our 40^th guest (excluding family etc) to Le Portanel since we opened for business at the start of May and the bookings keep coming in which is great. It can ibe hard work, there is no doubt about that, but we have some quieter days and make sure we have our down time too and we certainly have no regrets so far…

This weekend we blocked the guest rooms off for Sunday night and invited some local friends around for a chilled afternoon of eating, drinking and a well-earned break. It was 32 degrees, so perfect for the pool and the BBQ, and it made me think about what a great community we have here. About 25 of us relaxing and enjoying our new home and garden less than a year after moving over here. I have been so lucky to have such brilliant local running group – that must be a topic for another post.

A lot of people have asked me about how I, a UK passport holder, got a visa to live in France post-Brexit. I suppose you could say I cheated a bit because I am married to a citizen of the European Union. With both of Tom’s parents being Irish, he applied for his Irish passport as soon as Brexit started to look like a reality. So, Tom can come and go pretty much as he pleases and being his spouse, I was able to come to France without a long stay visa and then request one within 90 days of arrival.

Once in France I made an appointment for a Carte de Séjour application meeting at the Préfecture de la Dordogne in Périgueux giving myself about a month to get my dossier together which included :

• An application form
• My passport
• My birth certificate and a French government approved translated copy
• Proof of our address in France
• My private health insurance
• Proof of my financial income
• Proof of my date of arrival in France
• Three recent passport photos
• Our marriage certificate and a French government approved translated copy
• Tom’s birth certificate and a French government approved translated copy
• Tom’s passport

… + an extra copy of all of the above

At the appointment in August, the government officer looked through my file, took my fingerprints and asked me a few questions. Then we signed a marriage declaration form and the officer prepared a temporary residence permit (six months) to keep with my passport while I waited for their decision and my Carte de Sèjour which would allow me to stay in France for five years.

In mid-October, I received an email from the préfecture telling me it was ready for collection, so I made an appointment to collect it the following week. This appointment was very short, just two minutes to verify my details and sign for my card. We’d already had an offer accepted on a house by that time, so it was just as well it went smoothly!

Temperatures are back in the 30s again this week and we are pretty full for the next couple of weeks so I think June will be a really good test of how we are doing in our new venture.

We’ve been more or less full for the last couple of weeks and we’re starting to get into routines now for breakfast shopping & prep, breakfast service & clear-up, room refresh for guests staying on, room change overs as guests check-out, laundry, keeping the house clean and tidy, house/pool/garden maintenance and of course welcoming and hosting new guests. I guess that is pretty much my job description now 🙂

Our first home in France was Le Pigeonnier at Razac d’Eymet that we rented for 3 months from Sim and Josie who were lovely hosts and super helpful while I was dealing with all the administration of moving to France. Importing my car was quite a ‘biggy’ so I’ve focussed on that this week.

I had French insurance sorted before I left the U.K. but I only had a month upon arrival in France to submit my application to register my car in France i.e. with a set of French number plates on it. This would normally be done through the gouvernement website A.N.T.S but to open an account there you need a social security number or a tax number which were still months away for me, so I sought the help of a local garage , for a small fee of course. They were very helpful .

Before applying for the registration, I had to take the car through Contrôle Technique – the French equivalent of the UK MOT test. The main potential stumbling block there was that my headlamps and rear fog light are designed for driving on the left, but having had a HUGE quote from AUDI to replace them, I choose instead to find a sympathetic CT Centre who could help me with the beam deflectors to allow the car to pass legally. Again, I found them to be super helpful there.

Another tricky one was the import certificate to prove that import duty has been paid, or in my case, that I was able to import it duty free as it was part of a main residence move. After a couple of false starts at the local customs offices I was eventually directed to an office in Bordeaux that could help. After explaining my situation on the phone, I was able to do it all remotely so after scanning 12 pieces of documentation to email them, about a week later I had the certificate in the post.

Along with the CT and Import Certificate I had to pull together, scan and print out for the garage helping with the registration: car insurance, UK registration certificate, passport, driving licence, proof of address in France, EU certificate of conformity for the car, and the form applying for registration. ~4 weeks later I had French Plates on my car and could declare my car as ‘exported’ to DVLA UK.

My UK driving licence runs out later this year but that is another story.

It was lovely to have some friends and friends of friends staying last week for a few days. I was able to go for a run with one of my Woodbridge Shufflers running buddies. I’ve not been able to get out with our local running group here much since we have opened but I’ll be able to pick that up again when things quieten down again. In the meantime it is just me or me and Tom out there enjoying running through the countryside.

Where did May go? We had a weekend and a few days off this week with the house and garden to ourselves which has been great for a change of pace, but we’re about to get very busy until bookings quieten down in September.

I’m feeling a lot more relaxed about the Chambres d’Hôtes now that we have some experience under our belt and with the feedback we’ve had so far. It’s been lovely having people enjoying the house and garden and what Eymet has to offer, so we’re feeling really positive about the coming few months.

Picking up my from my post about getting ready to move over, with a combination of lots of planning and preparation, plenty of good fortune and chance, we had everything lined up to leave the UK on 22/7/21.

Leading up to the big day we packed everything away that we weren’t going to squeeze into the car updating the customs inventory as we did so and over the two days of 19^th & 20^th July Revells moved everything into storage.

On the 20^th July after they had left, while Tom was at work and later enjoying his last day of term party, I cleaned the house, packed the car for the journey, said goodbye to the neighbours, checked into a nearby Premier Inn and waited for the call from Tom to say I should pick him up from the party. I was exhausted!

On the 21^st we headed down to Dover and checked to another Premier Inn all ready for Ferry Crossing the next day. I was feeling really anxious about it all, and on the 22^nd I confess I was a nervous wreck as we approached customs. In my mind there was so much that could go wrong – COVID restrictions, customs forms, BREXIT implications, no house to go back to, no jobs etc etc. I knew I was over analysing but I do get stressed in new situations…anyway we had all our paperwork to hand (and more than was needed of course), Tom was calm and relaxed and he drove us through customs without a hitch. After a brief wait / coffee we were on the ferry.

It had been such a mad few days / weeks leading up to it, that it was then it really started to feel real. I love the ferry across to France, I always have, but this one was a bit special. It was actually happening…

I’d reserved a cheap and cheerful motel in France on the way down near Le Mans and actually it was perfect. Safe parking for the car with all our stuff in plus the bikes on top, cheap and clean bed / room for night, a lovely bistro a short walk away, just off the A28 and about 6 hours drive from our home for the next 3 months inRazac d’Eymet. 

That was just over 10 months ago, and we’ve since bought a house just 5km from there. We’ve been working on our accommodation at the back of house this week, starting to add an ensuite and generally bringing it up to date a bit. Of course, our priority up until now has been the guest accommodation, but now that looks great, we’ve got plenty of background projects for the summer when we have time and it’s not too hot!

Our Chambres d’Hôtes has been open for 3 weeks and we’ve had 3 ‘waves’ of paying guests staying with us. I hope this time is indicative of the season ahead because we’ve met some lovely people and had some great feedback, so I am feeling very positive. The heat wave that started a couple of weeks ago has seen temperatures up in the 30s every day which has taken some getting used to, but our big stone house which was so expensive to heat in the winter is now keeping us lovely and cool + the insulation I bought from Tridome to put in the loft space is already paying dividends! The pool is great now too!!

Picking up the timeline from my last post, I left my job in February 2021 with very mixed emotions. I loved working at SET Saxmundham school, I felt emotionally attached to the school, staff, pupils and community and I was about to take another big step into the unknown.

With 5 months to go until we moved, I decided to split my time between planning/preparing for the move, learning French and revisiting some of my favourite places in England.

The UK COVID vaccination campaign was accelerating nicely and although we would need ‘an essential need to travel’ to enter France, moving house was included so we were increasingly confident that we’d be able to get over.

Despite BREXIT, we could still import all our belongings into France without paying tax or fees as it was part of a move of our primary residence, but in order to be able to do this I had to create a detailed inventory of absolutely everything we were bringing over, in English and French and each with a value in £ and in €. This, along with the associated customs forms and declarations, was to accompany us, as we travelled over with what we could fit in the car and later, the removals company when they brought everything else over.

During the spring of 2021 our house in Framlingham went on the market with Clarke & Simpson, and after several quotes I booked Revells Removals to move all our stuff into storage mid-July and subsequently ship it to France once we’d found a house. We were doing a lot of ‘decluttering’ in preparation for the move – stuff in the house and garage, but also accounts / memberships / loyalty cards etc etc etc…

We sadly decided to sell Tom’s Audi TT convertible, not being the most practical of our vehicles, and take my boring Audi A4 Estate with us. I discovered we would need French car insurance before we set off because we were moving our residence outside the UK, the usual holiday cover you get could not be used in this case. I ended up phoning AXA in Eymet to arrange the cover. Once I’d explained my situation, they were very helpful in getting that sorted. Once in France I’d have about a month to get the MOT and registration process sorted so that went on my project plan.

As I was sorting car and health insurance out, it was becoming clear life would be a lot easier if I had a French bank account. I managed to open one from England with HSBC France. They allowed me to open the account before I moved over, using the address of the rental property we would be staying at to start off whilst still sending my cards / documents to my UK address, and I was then able to move some money across to start covering the costs of French car and health insurance.

With a heavy heart we decided it was going to be way too complicated and most likely expensive to import our lovely motorhome so that too went up for sale. We got a good price and have tucked the money away in the hope of buying something similar here in the EU.

My French was progressing slowly. But with a combination of Duo Lingo, You Tube videos and a weekly hour-long Skype call with Liz, a lovely lady in Paris that I met through Tandem who really helped to boost my confidence, it was heading in the right direction.

Well having spent most of this afternoon ironing bed linen, I think I’ve earned a glass of wine by the pool this evening!