Life in France

It’s been such a great couple of months here since my last update. As well as the usual wet and windy spells and cold nights that we see during Spring, we have had some fantastic weather with temperatures up in the high 20s for a few weeks. The swifts, hoopoes, warblers and cicadas are back, our swimming pool is open and the terraces of the cafés, bars and restaurants in town are filling up. Along with the migrating wildlife, the Easter holidays also brought the usual influx of second homeowners and tourists into the region to make the most of what we have here.

We’ve already had some lovely guests in the B&B over the past couple of months, and with often just one room at a time booked during the spring, guests have often had the house to themselves, enjoyed their privacy in the garden and getting cosy in front of the fire in our guest lounge on the colder evenings.

Between guests, we have pressed on with the house and garden maintenance work, taken a city break in Porto and had some time just to enjoy living here before things get very busy later this month. I finally made it to Chateaux Milandeslast week which has been on my list for ages. Josephene Baker was amazing and this beautiful house and garden that she owned really brought that to life for me, surrounded by such beautiful countryside too!

Eymet has seen some changes over the winter, a few bars / restaurants / shops have closed, moved or expanded and some new ones have opened. Likewise on the weekly Thursday morning and monthly Sunday markets, there have been some changes to the regular stall holders, but overall, the town remains vibrant with plenty of choice and the usual summer activities to look forward to. We had pizza and a carafe of wine at Casa Napoli on impulse last week as we walked by one evening, they are such great hosts with delicious fresh pizzas.

This year will see our 5^th anniversary of moving to France. I’ll need to renew my carte de séjour for the first time later this year, and I’m seeing mixed messages about whether I first need to pass a level B2 French exam. I’m pretty confident I could pass B1, but B2 is quite a lot more challenging from what I can see. Either way, I am still working to improve my level, not least because it makes living here so much easier!

Now we’re into May, the wedding season is underway, and the busy season really kicks off for us and I was delighted to see reservations start coming in for 2027 too!

Our 4^th summer season in the B&B has flown by once again. The weather has been fantastic until the last few days of August when the storms arrived. We did struggle a bit with the 40-degree heatwaves which continued into August, but the house stayed relatively cool and the aircon that we had installed in May was brilliant. The rest of the house will be done later this month so next summer we will be truly ready for the heatwaves.

We have learned so much since we opened in May 2022. I think our biggest lesson has been to carefully close off rooms / days from time to time to give ourselves a break and to stay just about sane during the busiest weeks. Also, over time we each seem to have settled into the roles that suit us best and we’ve become much more efficient as a result. Tom is much happier in the kitchen than serving breakfasts to guests for example, and I certainly couldn’t turn out the perfect poached eggs or the great daily breakfast specials that he does. Tom takes pride in cleaning the bedrooms while I take care of the bathrooms with all the delightful things that involves.

In 2022 the B&B was pretty much our life, now we have a much better balance (although we are both looking forward to our winter downtime again this year!) Because we are more experienced, we are more relaxed. The routines of check-in/out, breakfast, cleaning, laundry etc mesh nicely with our daily life most of the time.

I’m also so much more at ease with our French speaking guests now, to the extent that I can chat with them in French to pass the time or to deal with whatever questions they may have. When we arrived in France I could just about ‘get by’ in French, but before appointments, phone calls etc I had to spend time looking at the vocab and role playing the conversations in my head. Somewhere along the way I developed the confidence and vocabulary to deal with daily life here and new situations as and when they arrive. I still have a long way to go with my French, especially when speaking as I know I make loads of mistakes and forget the vocab that I really should remember, but I’m proud of where I am and I’m determined to keep improving.

A year or so after moving over, once the novelty had worn off a bit I guess, I did start to crave for ‘stuff’ which is either hard to find here or is ridiculously expensive compared to buying it in the UK. As time has gone on, I find the list of cravings is much shorter as we have grown to enjoy local alternatives. One example still on my reducing list is a proper British country pub, with a wide choice of excellent real ales, to wash down a local pork pie or scotch egg, in front of an open fire or in the beer garden…mmm… but I guess I’ll just have to manage with a glass or two of local wine with a charcuterie board sitting in the sunshine watching the world go by outside one of our local bars until our next visit to England…it’s a hard life.

As we’re approaching the end of the busy season, I’ll make this my last update for a few months. One final push for us this month until we get some proper downtime as well as a chance to work through the list of jobs for the winter.

This week we have a house full of family staying with us. Last week, we had a house full of paying guests. On one hand it is hard to close for a week during peak season (€) on the other, it means we too can relax and make the most of high summer here. Of course, having extended family staying for a week comes with its own challenges! but it is lovely to have everyone together and great not to have to get up early for breakfast service every morning and worry about keeping everything clean and tidy all the time.

It was during July four years ago that we emptied our house in England, squeezed what we could into the back of the car and made the move to southwest France. This July was a lot less eventful, but it has been a lot of work for us as well as a lot of fun.

To celebrate la fête nationale française on the 14^th, commonly referred to as Bastille Day in English speaking countries, the town once again provided an excellent evening in Parc Bretou with food, drinks, live music and an awesome firework display at the end of the night. This is among my favourite evenings of the year here.

We have also been enjoying the 3rd year of the Apéro Cadix events on Thursday evenings in the grounds of Eymet Château. With different local wines / foods on sale each week, live music and of course the Wholly Vinyl DJs to finish the night off, it is such a great setting to meet up with friends, have some food, wine and a dance. We were quite restrained for the first two weeks, but with no breakfast service this morning as it is only family staying…well last night was a good night and we are having a gentle day today.

In the house, we upgraded from copper to fibre broadband with the step change in performance you would expect. Also, having lived with aircon in half the house for a few months now, we have bitten the bullet and agreed a quote for the rest of the house to be switched over to reversible heat pump heating / air conditioning in September. This means we will be able cancel our gas supply contract and do our bit with more environmentally friendly heating during the winter, as well as benefiting from aircon in all the rooms during the heatwaves in future summers.

July was another busy month in the B&B. I counted 50 room nights during the month, which is about 20 down on last year, but with 4 rooms being closed for family for a week that is not surprising, and we’re very happy with the season so far as well as the advance bookings for next year.

Reflecting on our 4-year anniversary of selling up and moving to France, I think this deserves some more time on here, so I’ll do that during my next update in August.

I’ve mentioned the Eymet summer marchés nocturnes before. They are events that have really grown on me since we moved to France, and the first of the season last week didn’t disappoint. When we arrived in July 2021, I didn’t really ‘get it’. That month was a rather rainy one, the tourist season was in full swing, we were still coming out of COVID restrictions, so the stalls were limited and the queues were long. Now, however, we really look forward to them.

Sometimes we find a table for two where we can sit with a bottle of wine and ‘people watch’. Sometimes we join some friends and spend the evening catching up. We have a few favourite food stalls that we frequent. I love the fresh grilled demi-magret de canard and saucisse de foie gras served with potatoes cooked in duck fat and delicious garlicy herby tomatoes. The falafel or onion bhaji wraps from the excellent vegetarian stall are another favourite and sometimes a simple barquette de moules frites is perfect. The local producers sell their wines and there is a mixture of stalls selling crafty stuff plus the ubiquitous touristy tat of course.

The atmosphere of these evenings changes through the summer. The first ones of the year are largely dominated by local families coming from all around to enjoy the evening. During late July and August, it gets very busy with tourists as well as locals. We now know where and when to make sure we secure a good shady spot for the evening, and how to avoid the longer queues for food.

We’ve kept up our weekly ‘date-lunch’ during June to get us away from the B&B for a while and to enjoy some of the great restaurant options around us. A couple of the highlights this month were En Toute Simplicité in Loubès Bernac for a 17,50 € fixed menu du jour of 4 courses + wine and coffee, and Château de Fayolle in Saussingac for their amazing charcuterie planche on the terrace overlooking the Dordogne valley. 

During June we have had the 2^nd and 3^rd heatwaves of the year so far, so the newly installed air conditioning in our west facing guest rooms came into its own, and the pool has certainly had plenty of use. Apart from a couple of stormy days, we were able to serve breakfast outside throughout the month. 

We were really pleased to have 4 repeat-reservations during June (22 nights in total) and both rooms that checked out yesterday have already reserved to stay again. For me, a returning guest is the best review that we can hope for. It has certainly been a very busy and positive start to the summer season but, learning from previous years, we have blocked off some days in July and August to give us a break and have family to stay. We have a full house again tonight, but we’ll be off to enjoy tonight’s night market of course!