In the late afternoon December sunshine I am walking my dog through a wooded hillside in central Brittany, and reflecting on the year gone by.

The eight thousand euro kitchen has, unbelievably, been fitted without a hitch in time for its absentee owner to arrive for Christmas.  On behalf of another client, I have explained to the under floor heating engineer that he cannot test his thirty thousand euro system (high tech, geo thermique) until the client has the money to change the electrics to cope with it.  I have emailed a request for sage and onion stuffing to another client who is arriving on Christmas Eve from the UK.

It’s almost time to pull up the drawbridge (of course lowering it for real emergencies!) and start to think about my own Christmas, and drink a toast to another successful year. Our network Les Bons Voisins which started here in Brittany, now cares for more than one thousand  homes in France from Nord Pas de Calais to Languedoc,  and I have watched over the growth of the network since I started it in 2002.

We look after people’s holiday homes – their “maison secondaire” – in their absence.  Most of our clients have bought them principally for their own enjoyment and only let them out on a very ad hoc basis.  It’s a fact that committed Francophiles that have bought holiday homes has led to the demise of much of the commercial gîte rental market in some areas of France.  We dread settling down at the end of the day and seeing one of those television programmes with their “no going back” theme that show people buying a couple of properties in France, confident that they can live full time in one of them funded from the income that the second one will generate – no longer the case in most areas of France.

It seems to us that everyone in England knows someone with a holiday home here, that they “borrow” for a fraction of the cost of a commercial let, without the angst of wondering what it will be like.  And, indeed, hence the niche market for our business – Les Bons Voisins (Good Neighbours) that I started with my husband in Central Brittany nearly a decade ago, which is franchised now in more than thirty other areas.  With an intense five day training course for our new franchisees, ongoing support and network connections, we provide a one-stop shop for our clients. They can rest assured that when they arrive to relax, their holiday home will be as they want it to be with no leaking roof or waist high weeds in the garden..

My own favourite client is a designer for a famous Paris fashion house who arrives every month to chill out and unwind.  I collect him from station or airport.  I make sure the table lamps are lit and the fridge is stocked – a real welcoming atmosphere for him as he unlocks the door.  We collect his guests when they arrive at the airport – I well remember discovering I was chauffeuring a world famous hairdresser on a really bad hair day – c’est la vie.

I sometimes wonder how we had the nerve to sell up in England and relocate in 2002. In retrospect we were absurdly confident that we could make a living in France.  We had already spotted what we felt was lacking in the area of our own much loved holiday home – top quality caretaking and property management.  We have managed to do what we have because no one said we couldn’t do it – self-belief has a lot to answer for.

So we came over, with prospective clients who were hopeful that a fellow countryman was going to be here full time, to cut their grass, wait in for the electricity board; sort out a new roof for them.  However they, and to an extent we, expected this life to be the stuff of dreams, involving little more than casually popping round to check properties, arranging a vase of welcoming flowers and making sure the garden stayed well kempt.  All this would be during long sunny days with an ever-open bottle of chilled wine, with the birds singing and no stress to speak of…

What a gap between expectation and reality.  For a start, Brittany is a green and beautiful region because of its heavy rainfall.  If you have six lawns to mow and a window of opportunity between showers of maybe three hours, that’s what we call stress!  You think people in Britain talk about the weather – it’s nothing on a French countryman.  Our Breton farmer friend has now gently explained that in Brittany you often get all four seasons in one day.  He thinks only a foreigner goes out even on the hottest day without a sweater for when the weather changes…

So what other problems?  Well, when we started up our business in our area we were very much an exception.  In those days, there WERE still owners of gîte complexes who did indeed make their living from letting maybe four properties out for eight or ten weeks a year, providing enough income for the whole year.  The only other “ex-pats” around were “early retired” couples taking advantage of the cheaper property in this part of the world to make up for their ravaged pension funds.  So, a couple who set up a business and worked as hard as you do (or should do!) at the beginning of any new  business venture, seven days a week no matter what, were an oddity who did not fit expectations.

But what are problems but opportunities to succeed? We were drawn to our local French community, a group of hard working artisans and farmers who understood our necessity to earn a living once we explained to them no, we had no gîtes and no, we were not yet retired.   So we became an object of great amusement and not inconsiderable fascination!  However once we had broken the ice and began to prove our sincere desire to fit in the community, and began asking for quotes for our clients requirements from their brother/uncle/cousin/neighbour the plumber/roofer/electrician/drainage expert, the word spread that here was a couple different from the “norm”.

What took us by surprise was the warmth of the local community… One day, we were trying to erect a fence in a particularly stony piece of ground in a small back street lane.  Our retired Parisian neighbour strolled past with his son-in-law – saw what was happening and told us to wait five minutes.  He gathered appropriate tools, an extension lead and help from other neighbours. This lead to a group of seventeen people surrounding us as we eventually succeeded, sweating profusely, to erect ramrod straight fence posts in the inhospitable terrain.  I took out a tray of “kir” – the local Breton aperitif, a splash of Cassis in white wine – and we toasted the “entente cordial”.  We left a sign on that fence, saying it was thanks to combined efforts – what a chuckle that raised.

It’s hard to explain the warm glow left as a result of experiences like that.  Little by little, we became absorbed into the local community.  A great icebreaker was our little Jack Russell terrier we imported when we came to live in France – what else could we call him, but Jacques?  We trained him in French commands before we got here – but did not realise that our French neighbour’s first name was also Jacques. When I went striding up the lane, shouting “Jacques – viens ici!”  It caused much merriment.  Eventually the dog became “le petit Jacques” and M. Gallene  “le grand Jacques” which seemed to be ok.   Incidentally, the whole town joined in our mourning when “le petit Jacques” was run over and killed one sunny bank holiday in the centre of town.   The local vet, responding to our frantic telephone call, refused to charge us for the callout.  A horrid time was made much more bearable by the warmth of peoples genuine concern.

So how can we give something back to the local community?  We always try to find French artisans to work for our clients, trying to change the perceived local opinion that the English always work with the other English.  That way the artisans get work because we liaise between our clients and them, the clients’ standing in the community is enhanced by their employment of local labour – and our own standing in the community is equally enhanced, even if it is for our entertainment value!

Some of our French friends do worry that the English only come here because the houses are cheaper and of course there is an element of truth in that. On the map Brittany seems near to the ports so incomers can sprint back to Marks and Spencer or to see their family when they feel the urge!  But – Brittany deserves to be loved for far more than :the relaxed pace of life, the beautiful unspoilt countryside, and the empty roads that are a joy to drive on and last but not least the truly wonderful friendship that can be achieved with the local people. Someone somewhere must eventually carry out a study on the effect of the influx of the British to France and particularly in the early 21st century.  One of our clients is an Oxford Don – we’ve already suggested it to him!

So am I living the dream then?  Well there’s a lot of hard work for it to be a dream – but I live in a lovely house, in a pretty market town of just twelve hundred people.  Being mortgage free and with the luxury of working for yourself, on a good day takes some beating.  On a bad day, when the responsibility of looking after people’s second most valuable asset in the world gets you down – the clients overlook your emails, and you are chasing them for decisions or payment and you are earning a fraction of what you earnt in the UK – yes these are the days when I long for my power suit, my company Mercedes and my seat on the Board of Directors.

Then, I walk my new dog (French, of course) in the early evening up the lane and across our neighbouring farmer’s land.  I meet him, and we discuss the “meteo” for tomorrow, and arrange to drop in together to our Parisians neighbours for aperitifs on New Year’s Eve  (quelle honneur!).  I see the sunset over the majestic woods as I return home, spot the smoke curling from our wood-burning stove into the unpolluted sky knowing there will be a glass of wine to greet me, when I get home…

I shall reflect on the day just gone, and plan the next…

Perhaps I am in that dream, after all…

Sally Stone
December 2010
Les Bons Voisins – friendly help from professional people
www.LBVfrance.com