Yahoo Finance Living the dream? Our 'Year in Provence' ended in divorce
Who hasn’t dreamt of a place in the sun: escaping the middle-class hamster wheel of expensive private schools, large mortgages and 70-hour weeks?
Having had an amazing year abroad in Paris when I was studying French at university, I always dreamed of moving back with my husband, Robert, and our two young children. In 2003, after a trip to Bordeaux, I convinced him to make what was intended to be our ‘forever' move.
My vision of France was never quite the bucolic idyll of Peter Mayle (who died on Thursday), but his 1989 ode to the slower pace of life in Provence inspired thousands like us to follow in his footsteps, in pursuit of a simpler, sun-drenched life.
Our children, then aged six and eight, were excited to learn a new language and experience a different culture. Robert was set to work as an actor for six months of the year and enjoy long lunches and aperitifs with neighbours during the other six. But the French dream got off to a rocky start.
The problems started before we left England. In no time at all, we found the perfect house near Bordeaux and put in an offer. It ticked all the boxes: it was in the countryside but had a community feel. Taking the plunge, we sold our Virginia Water home and pulled our children out of their £15,000-a-year school, Bishopsgate.
To celebrate, we went to France one weekend shortly after exchanging contracts in the UK. But in the car from the airport to town, the French estate agent called us and said the house had been sold to cash buyers the day before. We’d lost our dream home and our moving plans were delayed. We had to move in with my parents for two months and the children missed a period of school. Perhaps I should have seen it as a warning sign.
The next house wasn’t as easy to find and, in the end, we went for a quirky property in a hamlet near Roquecor in Tarn-et-Garonne. I immediately put it on my “No” pile, but Robert loved it. The house was a 300-year-old farmhouse built into the side of a hill. It was on a five-acre plot of land and was accompanied by an old coach house and swimming pool.
It certainly wasn’t the traditional maison de maitre (old merchant’s house) that I had wanted to buy, and it was strangely decorated in a colour best described as “baby poo” yellow. But it had a unique charm. Virginia Woolf’s great niece had painted a stained glass window in the guest cottage and the living room had a 21-foot cathedral ceiling.
Under pressure to find a new home and leave my parent’s, we bought the house for just €340,000, the equivalent of £200,000. It wouldn’t be ready for a few months so we moved into rental accommodation nearby in January 2004.
Like Mayle, I had been dreaming about the sunny climes of the south of France, with 40-degree summer days at the front of my imagination. Freezing winter evenings hadn’t figured in the picture; until we arrived in Tarn-et-Garonne.
Our first night as French residents was horrendous. The rental home was freezing and when we tried to turn the heating on the electricity cut out. The house was unable to provide light and warmth at the same time, so, eventually, the four of us bundled up and climbed into one bed together. We slept fully clothed. That was the first harsh winter in France; with many more to come.
Once we were finally settled into our new home, things got easier and, I’ll admit, I started to enjoy myself. The area was beautiful, with rolling hills similar to Dorset. The village was awash with fetes and markets in the summer, and I enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere; if Mayle’s tales of “the farmer next door, the mushroom hunter and the lady with the frustrated donkey,” never quite chimed.
Everyone in our village was friendly, but it wasn’t easy fitting in to the tight-knit community and we made many more acquaintances than we did friends (although I have forged lifelong friendships with other expats). When the summer months passed, the area completely shut down and the long winters were very isolating. At one point, when Robert was away filming, I realised the person I spoke to the most during the week was the village shop owner. The lack of facilities in our rural area meant I practically lived in the car, running up more than 20,000 miles a year.
My biggest bugbear was the schooling. You hear wonderful things about the French education system, but my children were in a primary school of just 20 pupils and one teacher. It was very traditional and rigid, with a lot of copying from the board and filling out worksheets. There was hardly any creativity or organised sport until they started college at 13. In my son’s second week at the school, a supply teacher slapped him on the back of the head for a minor fault. I was astounded. Nevertheless, they took to France and within a year they were fluent for their age in French. That never could have happened in England.
Life ticked along and we became settled enough to want to stay, despite the hiccups. Then, in 2008, the financial crash hit and the walls crumbled around us. Robert’s work dried up and our savings crashed overnight along with the exchange rate. For a year we ate our way through the children’s university fund before deciding we would have to sell and move back to England.
We couldn’t sell the house; the market crash meant people were gladly taking €100,000 less for their houses than a year before. Because we still had a mortgage to pay, we mistakenly decided to rent the property to an American family of nine and move back to Wiltshire. They were a nightmare from the get go. In two years they paid six months’ worth of rent and constantly complained. Meanwhile, they sublet the guest cottage and took the money. It’s illegal to evict tenants with children between November and March in France, which made it difficult to ask them to leave. When they eventually did go, they owed us around £17,000 in rent and had caused nearly nearly £19,000-worth of damage.
An estate agent who we tasked from England with selling the property once they left said: “I don’t know how you could something like that on market and expect someone to buy it, it’s disgusting.” The children had carved their names into the walls and the bathrooms were so dirty they had to be replaced completely. Even after the repairs, we weren’t able to find a buyer and mortgage arrears racked up.
The bank eventually repossessed the house and sold it without telling us. We found out when we sent another estate agent around only to find a new family was living in it. The bank then sent us a £140,000 bill, saying they had sold it in a government auction for just €140,000.
Our marriage didn’t last a year after the French house was repossessed. As they say, “When money troubles come in through the window, love goes out of the door.” That was it, really. We had had a nice life together, but we couldn’t move beyond everything that happened. So we split in 2013; I moved to Somerset, Robert to Manchester.
We’re certainly not the only family to have naively burnt our bridges in the UK to escape to a French idyll - and we won’t be the last. Despite everything, I don’t regret moving to France. I would never have become a published author without the inspiration for L’Amour Actually. My children are both bilingual and studying dual degrees with French at university. We still go back to Tarn-et-Garonne for my daughter’s drama school - and to visit the friends we made who, unlike us, will always be there.
As told to Cara McGoogan
