Moving to France, the early stages
After we got home from our 3-month sabbatical in Quillan, on American Independence Day 2011, I’ll never forget Fran reminding me (via text, email, tweet, or however it was communicated), as to the irony of that choice of date! Some 235 years after the Americans celebrated their independence and were no longer part of the British Empire, I, an Englishman, was returning from my “independence” (however brief) to work in corporate slavery for an American company based on English soil. I had to have a little chuckle at the irony of that, I have to admit!!
What followed the 4th of July Corporate BBQ was a few years of mixed emotions about France and the UK. I was and still am eternally grateful to my boss, G, as I said earlier, for making it possible for me to take those 3 months off in 2011. I therefore returned to work for him as the faithful servant. Bound for the foreseeable future, to serve my time working for the corporate machine as best I could for the 40+ hours a week my employers owned me for (in reality they owned me 24 x 7 x 365 and they, and I, knew it!!).
From then onwards, France started to slowly slip out of mine and my wife’s minds, whilst at the same time it had changed us forever.
I went to work every day, did my piece, kept my head down, delivered project after project and towed the company corporate line, working for THE MAN (in the figurative sense, not the literal one). I have never been a fan of the ‘corporate animal’, I hate having to be one, more than most other things in this world, but for the 2nd half of 2011 and all of 2012 I played the role as well as I could, in-part to repay my boss (I owed him, big-style), also to give me something to focus on so I could get back to reality and try to put France out of my mind. The rat race had won it seemed, or so everyone thought!!!
— — —
Top Tip — always play the long game, try not to focus on the here and now. I mean, do focus on the here and now from a mindfulness perspective, absolutely, that is hugely important for your health and mental well-being. What I mean is, keep the long game in mind at all times when making your life plans. In my case I was persuading my bosses I was their corporate slave, and in some ways, a lot of ways, I was. They had won the short game and they knew it. I couldn’t afford financially for it to be any other way. But inside my head, I remained hopeful that one day I would escape the rat race, that the frustrations I endured day after tedious day would eventually come to an end. Stick with it dear reader, in the end it does get better if you formulate a plan, keep to it and if you are happy to sacrifice short term pain for long term gain. This is as true in physical exercise as it is in making life changing plans!
— — — — —
So, throughout this period of self imposed corporate slavery, internally I was in a sense of flux, eternally changed by our 2011 French Adventure, always destined (or so I hoped) to do something slightly different from the norm with my life.
Months turned into years and we still hadn’t returned to live in France and I was starting to think that our love affair with the beautiful country was over. That my long term dream would never come to be and that I would be a corporate slave for the rest of my days.
If that was to be the case then so be it, but I wasn’t going to just accept that fate without a fight!
My wife and I had countless talks, debates, sometimes arguments, over whether we could or should move to France and if yes, how would we make it possible. I forget when, but eventually we decided to call it quits completely and put all our time and attention into the UK. That was a sad day. THE MAN had won.
—
It was in the early part of 2013 that I started to really hate my job and decided that something had to be done about it. Up until that point I had worked for all of my career (since 1988) as a permanent, salaried employee of one corporation or another, I got a monthly salary paid into my bank account, my taxes were paid at source by my employers, and I got a standard 25 days a year holiday. I was working a lot at that time with a type of employee who are known, in Financial Services industry circles, as “Contractors”. Self employed freelancers who run their own Limited company, through which they sell their own services (and those of their partners/employees) to companies wanting experienced people for short bursts of time (typically 3–6 months) on specific projects, but without all the overhead of PAYE, sick pay, tax, liability, or whatever. Disposable mercenaries for hire in other words!! These contractors earned several hundred £’s per day and could earn upwards of £1k per day with a bit of experience, a load of confidence and having made a name and a reputation for themselves as someone who just gets stuff done and can deliver ‘heavy weight’ projects on demand.
I decided I wanted to become a contractor so I had the freedom to chose my movements and work when and where I wanted (not always that easy but I didn’t realise that at the time!!). This was the bones of our long term plan, France was once again back on the table and I knew how we could, hopefully, one day, make it happen.
The scene was set, I started to pitch myself to agents, worked out what I could do, where my niche was, and thanks mainly to an awesome recruitment agent in Leeds who I would work on and off with for the next few years (cheers Ben, I will buy you that beer one day!), I got my first gig as a contract Infrastructure Project Manager in the September of 2013. One year contract, decent day-rate, close to home, no travel, building a new digital Bank, as you do!
The first step towards moving to live in France had got underway — earn some money, build up some savings, bide our time and wait for the right opportunity to jump ship!! I was still working in slavery for The Man, but at least this time it would be done partly on my terms!
Around that time my wife and I were sat on our sofa at home, watching TV. My wife was reading one of those magazines you can buy about living in France (we had a subscription to it for years, even after we gave up the ghost on ever making it to France). There was a feature article about a region called Poitou-Charentes. She read how it was the 2nd sunniest region of France, after the Languedoc, how it had rolling green hills, good climate most of the year, and, this being a property magazine, it extolled the virtues of buying a house there and how, if you did your homework, it was possible to find a LOT of property for your money.
What followed was something along the lines of……
My wife: “I’ve decided, we’re going to live here, it sounds nice”
Me: “Where’s that then?”
My wife: “Poitou-Charentes, it’s the second sunniest part of France, loads of property for your money, sounds perfect”
Me: “Ok, cool, well we’d better go and have a look at the place then I guess!”
The pieces were all falling into place. To back up the financial plan and a plan for freedom (courtesy of my new self-employed status), we also now had a possible location to target for where we would move to live.
All we needed now was the right opportunity and to bide our time until it presented itself. The dream was back on and getting one step closer. That was an exciting day!
— — — — — —
More from me next week on what happened after reading this now infamous (in our world at least) article in the French property magazine!
