About Us
This is us, the Barley family.
For years we have harboured a dream to move from our home on the east coast of England to a new life in France. In December 2007 we made that dream a reality.
This blog will be a collection of our thoughts, experiences and other random items that we hope you will find mildly interesting.
But first, some introductions…
I’m Richard Barley, 36 and I’m a consultant for an IT company. I’m married to Lisa (age undisclosed!), who, up until the move, was a teaching assistant at the local school. We have 3 children: Rosie (13), Molly (10) and Joe (8). And together we are finding our way through the maze of new experiences that make up the process of settling in a new country.
I hope you enjoy reading about our life in Foussais-Payré. If you have anything to say, don’t be shy! Add a comment or locate me in places such as Twitter or FaceBook (see the My Links section on the right).
I look forward to hearing from you!
on 7 September 2008 at 12:10 pm :
Hi
I was searching the net for some info on the fours a chaux in Foussais – for a school project (for my son); when came across this site! We live about 3 or 4 miles from Foussais and both my sons go to St Jo (3eme and 5eme); no doubt our ‘paths will cross’ sometime!
on 7 September 2008 at 5:09 pm :
Hi Simon, glad you found us!
How long have you been over here?
Rosie is now in 5eme so she will probably know at leat one of your sons. What are their names? Maybe I’ll see you at the next réunion!
Keep in touch,
Richard
on 11 September 2008 at 6:55 pm :
Hi Richard
we moved here in 2001.
Richard Longe is in 5eme and Ben in 3eme
on 22 September 2008 at 1:34 pm :
Fascinating absolutely fascinating. We live in the same village as well.
on 22 September 2008 at 1:37 pm :
Hi there Ken and Linda, thanks for stopping by! I hope you find something interesting here and feel free to offer up a comment on anything you see – it’s always good to get the views of someone else from the same area.
Richard
on 27 September 2008 at 5:01 pm :
Richard,
Fantastic site – and congrats on the move. I hope you and your family are doing well. I like the market picture – very real.
-Jason
on 27 September 2008 at 6:23 pm :
Hi Jason, thanks for stopping by!
Yeah, we made it in the end, and loving every minute. Hope all’s well with you.
Take care,
Richard
on 3 November 2008 at 10:58 pm :
hello there Richard,
hope your famille is enjoying the move to Vendee.
thanks for the opportuniy to view your website.
my wife & I have been contemplating such a move for sometime yrs to be frank. In fact we were in the dordogne in OCtober and in Brittany in August.
how are your kids getting on at school? we have two aged 11 and 6.
a bientot
eric
on 4 November 2008 at 11:55 am :
Hi there Eric,
Thanks for stopping by and glad you enjoy the blog.
I would really recommend making the move now while you kids are the age they are. Ours were 8, 10 and 12 when we came and I think it was the ideal time. They have all got on fantastically well at school. The first few months were hard for them, but now, after nearly a year, they are just a normal part of the class and don’t need any extra help.
They all now say they prefer their french schools to their english ones and this, combined with the life here, has made them very settled.
We love it here and would never consider going back.
Keep in touch and let me know if you would like to discuss anything about making the big move!
Richard
on 5 November 2008 at 5:51 pm :
hi again richard , thanks for the speedy reply.
im glad to hear your off spring are doing well, im sure there must have been moments when they felt quite daunted by all the changes especially the language. Do they need and get extra help with their french? why did u pick foussais?
sorry about all the questions!
eric
on 6 November 2008 at 10:52 am :
Questions are fine Eric, keep them coming!
Yes I think the language was a big worry for them when they first started school. There were days of sheer frustration for Rosie (our eldest) especially, when she just couldn’t understand what was being said and she didn’t have the confidence to speak up. But these were few and far between and lasted for only the first month or so.
Ours never really had any extra help with their french. Rosie attended a few extra classes with some Norwegian students who were staying at her school for a while, but I don’t know that these were much of a help to her in the end. Other than that, they have all just got on with learning by immersion and it has done the trick.
The schools have been very supportive and have always been very concerned that the kids are happy and we cannot fault them for how they have treated the children.
We picked this region of France because we had visited the area before and we loved it. Also there are lots of airports in the region – la Rochelle, nantes, piotiers etc – for me to use when I go back to the UK for work. Foussais happened to be fairly equidistant from each of these airports, so this was the area we concentrated on, Luckily our estate agent found us our beautiful house in this village and now we cant imagine living anywhere else! There is so much to do here and such good facilities in the village and surrounding areas. Its our ideal – a rural country house, but with all the amenities very close at hand and well connected for travel to the UK. Ticks all the boxes!
Cheers,
Richard
on 6 February 2009 at 10:45 am :
How bizarre – Husband likewise is an IT consultant – does the weekly commute to London, Nantes, Tours, Poitiers, and sometime La Rochelle – Works from here too – currently on a conference call to Scotland Yard!
We are near Thouars and Bressuire – Deux Sevres, or Deux Chevres as our more sophisticated neighbours to the North call it.
Think we have made contact before, but can’t remember when or how.
Regard
Haddock in the Kitchen(AKA Haddock Come Lately to Twitter)
on 20 February 2009 at 4:58 pm :
I’d have thought an IT consultant’s blog would be a bit faster. This is sloooooow!
on 20 February 2009 at 5:20 pm :
Hi Peter, thanks for visiting. As I’m sure you are aware, IT is a very broad field, with many different areas of specialism. The area of IT in which I am currently a consultant sadly doesn’t make me a guru on optimising websites. I wish it did.
I am aware that the site is not as fast as it could be, although this is mainly due to the amount of photos that I include in my posts. If you have any helpful tips on how I might otherwise speed things up, I’d be very happy to receive them. I run this site in my apare time and don’t get a lot of chance to research such things.
on 8 April 2009 at 7:44 pm :
Good heavens, I’m totally jealous! I stumbled upon your blog somehow from one of your postings about the recent TweetDeck… And now am whisked away to beautiful France, even just for a moment, and through technology… Thank you