Jon and his wife, Jeannie, both gave up jobs on an English local paper to move to France a year ago. They came with two young children and a labrador, and Jon is currently working as a French registered builder in order to support his family. They have settled in Charente Maritime.

Christine Coombes is 60, and has lived in France for five years with her husband, Peter. They have settled near Eymet in the Dordogne. Having lost the two elderly Cavalier King Charles spaniels which moved here with them, they now share their lives with a small black poodle, found roaming the streets of Bergerac. “So far, our lives in France have been spent re-discovering the pleasures we’d almost forgotten in Britain – wild flower meadows for instance,” says Christine. “Being retired is bliss. It gives me time to concentrate on writing, researching French food and exploring. What more could anyone want?”

Sue Wells and her husband, John, had been restoring an old farmhouse on the borders between the Dordogne and the Lot et  Garonne for 18 years – before Peter Mayle got in on the  act – in between working in the UK, but have only recently been able to move here more or less permanently. When given a choice between the selling of the family home in the UK and the old farmhouse here, their children all told them to sell the UK home. “My passion is the history of France,” says Sue. “I would dearly love to discover more about our home here, as it is four hundred years old. However, so far this has proved quite difficult, so I will continue to delve into the past. The more I learn, the more attached I become to this country.” Sue grew up torn between wanting to be a famous actress, or a famous writer. “It’s pretty obvious now I’m not going to be either, particularly as I’ve just finished my teaching career,” she admits. However, this does not mean she has neglected her interests though, at present, writing is taking more of her serious time than acting, which she uses as light relief. As with most writers, she is working on a book, but this often has to take second place to the various articles she writes.

Christine Brice and her husband, Derek,  have just celebrated the fifth anniversary of their full-time life in France. They were partly inspired  to come here by the death of a close friend. “It made us see life is indeed short and we never know when our last day might be,” says Christine.

Born and raised in the Midland Black Country, he worked as a metallurgist and production engineer in many different industries in many parts of the UK. After owning companies in the UK and Hong Kong he retired to fiery Andalucia, which he left eleven years later when a four-lane motorway came between him and the beach. He spent four years in Worcestershire, then moved to the Franche-Comté, where he's lived for the last three years, walking, cycling, exploring, eating, drinking, socialising, renovating a house and gardens and, latterly, running a B&B. "Along life's way I recruited and mislaid three wives, with whom I now have more distant but friendly relationships, and became active as a Fellow of the RSA," he says.

Joan Stewart took early retirement from teaching to live in what had
been her holiday home in the rural tranquillity of the Vendee.  Lured there by the variety of different landscapes and the proximity of beautiful sandy beaches, she has recently been finding the time to follow her heart and write, now that most of the work on her old farmhouse has been completed.  Adopted by Sammi, a miniature apricot poodle with a very determined personality, she is finding life busy and a lot of fun.

Valerie Calder is a French native, coming from the Champagne Region, where her family still has a vineyard.

Since 1997, Valerie has been running the Val d'Or Language Tuition school in Swindon, Wiltshire, where she teaches people of all ages to speak French and Spanish.