Storms and chickens

[Cinnamon]

The Hubby,bless him, is desperate for us to sell up & move either to France or to Cornwall. He wants a smallholding or something with more land than we have,& maybe a couple of cottages to rent out.

 

We can do this now & pay off our small mortgage,which only has 10 years to run. We had a good buy with this house & it is worth at least 4 times our mortgage.

He doesn't want to have to keep on working through his middle years like his father is having to.....& I can see why!

While it all sounds nice I really don't want to uproot the children (13 & 11) & move now,prefering to wait the 10 years when the mortgage is paid.

 

France is not my idea of somewhere I want to live,but I can see myself in Cornwall....one day,just not right now

And I would like to live on a smallholding,just like Lesleys one with piggys,hens & kittens

 

It has got to the stage now where he is saying that he NEEDS to know what long term plans we have.

He wants to go & view property & want to get a valuation on the house & business.He wants this move NOW

 

HELP!!!!!!!!!

 

 

[Chicken on a mission]

Hubby and I have gone through a similar dilema recently and decided between us on our 10 year plan.

 

In 8 years (if not sooner) we should be free of our mortgage as we only have at £27,000 left to go and after that the morgage repayments money will go towards giving the house a makeover so that we can get the best price when we sell. We would then be looking at something rural and Esme will be going to senior school.

 

My hubby really wanted to sell up and move to France because every time we go over to visit my grandparents, who have been there for more than 10 years now, he falls in love with the place again.

 

However what I have forceably need to point out to him is that he is looking at a French lifestyle from the point of view of a retired couple with money in the bank.

 

Gradually there have been more and more Brits moving into the area where my grandparents live and the trouble they have found is getting employment because the French in that area do not want to employ them. I don't know if it is the same for all areas, probably not.

 

We both agree that France would be a great choice for when we retire but not for now

 

We have both had very 'itchy feet' (and I'm not talking atheletes foot here!) for a long time and used language like 'wish' and 'hope' until I'd finally had enough and we discussed our options in a constrructive way. This works quite well for us because hubby is very over optimistic and I like to consider the worst case senario so we meet somewhere in the middle.

 

Once we actually talked about the practicalities we very quickly realised that our best option was to work towards our goals in a constructive manner and weren't quite so tempted to jump straight in

 

I hope you both can work out what you want togather and that a compromise can be reached.

 

Good friends of ours emigrated to NZ last year having already decided against it and that they wanted to go to Belgium where they had family. But the house in Belgium fell through and fate offered M a great job in NZ.

 

Now M loves it, he is living the dream but C hates it and is stuck there for the next 5 years which is how long it will take them to save to come back to Belgium.

 

C allowed herself to be persuaded to please M and tried to ignore all the reasons why they decided that they didn't want to go when they first considered it.

 

Now those reasons are exactly what has caused her to resent the place now.

 

So whatever happens you need to make sure that 1 person isn't leading the other because it could all go wrong.

[Guest]

My advice: if you want to do it and can afford to do it, then the sooner the better. You never know what's round the corner. Live for now.

[Boris70]

I know I'm completey biased here - but France is fantastic. Tom and I would move out there tomorrow given the chance, and run a B&B. Our problem is money. I want to keep the house on in England - and let it out, but if we do this we can't afford to go. Also tom would still have to work in the Uk until the business was established - so we'd need to be near an airport - and we wouldn't see each other during the week- which isn't good news.

 

French shcools are so much better than english schools - something our English friends found when they came back and ended up sending their daughter to private school as the local school was so bad in comparison. I wouldn't worry about language either - the kids out their picked it up so quickly.

 

All I can say is follow your heart. France isn;t as far away as you think - and you can still get normal bread and baked beans from M&S out their. I was really scared when I first went out - but it was the best thing I ever did!

[Cinnamon]

I know there are a lot of things going for France,but I just feel worried about it.

Not from being away from Family,that doesn't bother me,but its just the BASICS...Doctors...schools...driving

 

We could rent out this house & that would cover our current mortgage plus enough for our new home too.

Then if it all went wrong at least we would still own our house here.

 

Oh God - this is going to be a tough decision,isn't it?

 

For me that is,not The Hubby - his mind is made up

[AnnieP]

Sarah, Why don't you just take it a step at a time. think seriously about not selling here, but renting out your home and planning on giving it, say a year at first, just to feel what it could be like. No decisions, no guarantees, just a trial? You've all got to be happy with the decision, not just get carried away on one person's enthusiasm.

[ubereglu]

If I were you I'd wait for the ten years as houses in Cornwall aren't that greater value and are costing a fortune at the mo.

 

In ten years the houses there may be cheaper as interest levels rise. Also if you were to move to France you'd ned to learn to speak the language fluently, so do that first if I were you.

[Boris70]

The basics are easy to cope with too. Driving was a bit terrifying at first, but I soon got the knack of it - after a near miss Carefour carpark - I was soon nipping round the arc de triomphe!

 

Doctors were fantastic, I had a really bad ear infection when I was out there, so went to see the normal doctor, who sent me on to the ear hospital on the same day. The doctors were great, and I got to see my eardrum with this fab camera he had.

 

Eating out was cheaper, food shopping cheaper, petrol cheaper etc.

 

The language was frustrating to begin with, but I soon picked up the french I needed to get by with in shops and restaurants. Tom speaks fluent french after studying it at uni - so he had no problems.

 

A lady I worked with has just moved out there permanently - to run a bar - after buying a holiday home 2 years ago. After spending all holidays at the house, they decided to uproot completely too - but have kept their UK home to come back to if needed.

 

If you are having doubts - maybe now isn;t the right time? Although I had huge doubts when I went out, but in the space of 2 weeks I was fine.

 

good luck whatever you decide to do,

 

Vicki

[chocchick]

I would do what you're happy with, it's a big decision

[Martin B]

If I was you I'd pack my bags and leave for France. I understand your problem though!

[Lesley]

I'm not going to be much help

 

We had been looking at France for around 12 years - it took me 5 years to persuade Carl but by then I had a grandchild (now two grandchildren), living in the same village, who I looked after two days a week.I was torn between staying here and moving to France. We both love France and like the same areas but my heart wasn't in it any more - my heart was here.

 

The farm we are in now literally fell at our feet - just two miles away and exactly what we wanted. We knew straight away that we wanted it and we moved heaven and earth to raise the finance we needed. We are not in an ideal situation until we have sold our house but we knew we had to do it. It feels right.

 

If it feels right then go for it - as grd says, you never know what is around the corner. But if you have serious doubts then address them and work out together just what it is you both want and form a plan.

[Paola]

Oooooo spooky! If my hubbie saw this post he would have kittens!

 

He has always wanted to move to Italy. He feels that the family would have a better quality of life. He was offered a job there about three years ago. He is the only one that speaks Italian We found a house to rent and paid a deposit on it. Within a couple of weeks of returning to the UK after we had found the house, the job fell through.

 

The same year our baby daughter became very ill with kidney trouble that has since been resolved but she is still on medication. I was pleased that the move fell through because she was treated over here. I do not think I could have dealt with it over in Italy.

 

The subject is never far from my husbands mind. I said yes about two months ago to moving to Italy. But the more I thought about it the more I realised that I was only doing it to make him happy, which was wrong. I finally plucked up the courage to tell him and of course he was really disappointed (small understatement!). Another reason that I wanted to stay was because his parents have only just moved down here to be closer to our kids. The kids really adore their grandparents.

 

A small part of me still would like to go. If we do go we would not be able to afford to return if it did not work out.

 

Good luck Cinnamon

[Guest]

It's a difficult decision. Dan and I thought about this recently and I must admit looking at the pros and cons have decided to stay put at the moment. Harry and Jules are settled at school, I am settled in my job, Dan's job could move at anytime and it could be moved to Glasgow, which doesn't help, as we would like to move to Shropshire.

 

When you have children, I think sometimes you have to make life as easy as possible, especially if you work as well, which I do. We have reasonably good local schools, (which also provide before and after school clubs) we have good local shops, are on a bus route, if we need it, we have doctors', dentists' etc. We have family nearby, which is useful when we go away as they look after the chooks and cat and keep an eye on the house.

 

This probably sounds really boring and safe but that's my opinion. I was moved from my school at 13 to a different one as we moved house. I hated it and never settled at all, so I wouldn't like to do that to my children.

 

The other side of the argument is that, change is a good experience for all concerned, new country, new culture, language, new schools, jobs etc.

 

I do think it is easier for men in these cases, they don't seem to think about schooling, shopping, doctors even things like calling out a repair-man if your washer goes on the blink

 

Maybe you could make a list of all the things around you now that are comforting, ie schools, transport, language, family and then see how you could compare them in France.

 

I know some families are quite happy moving around a lot (I think I really would like to be like that) but I’m not and like to have familiar thing around me.

 

Whatever you decide I wish you luck

 

PS We once decided not to move because the house we looked at had nowhere to hang our coats