No Sanitation, No Water And Limited Electricity.
- Book: In Foreign Fields: How Not To Move To France
- Location: South West France
- Author: Susie Kelly
In Foreign Fields: How Not To Move To France is a humorous travel memoir.
Susie had a life-long ambition to live in rural France, and when the recession of the 1990s took away everything that Susie and her husband Terry owned, they made the decision to leave England. With little money in their pocket they bought an eighteenth century farmhouse in the Nouvelle Aquitaine region of France. The property had no sanitation, no water supply inside and a very limited source of electricity―but what it lacked in facilities, it made up for with peace and tranquillity.
In July 1995 they packed their five dogs and two parrots into a small van and headed to their new home. Susie would live there full-time, while Terry returned to England to find work to finance their new life. The next four and a half years were a steep learning curve, not helped by the coldest winter, the hottest summer, a hurricane and numerous accidents. They’d coped with the unexpected, survived many crises and dealt with tragedy, but at the time of publishing they’d spent twenty-three years in their French home.
I was amazed at Susie’s ability to cope, especially with the demands of friends and neighbours who on numerous occasions seemed to take advantage of her kindness and generosity. Susie was also someone who would always put an animal’s comfort before her own, thus she collected quite a menagerie of oddballs to keep her company. I admire her spirit and determination and thoroughly enjoyed this amusing, informative and unusual memoir.
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