It's the long long 8 week summer holidays. Every time we've been on nice beach holiday over the past decade me and Dan have always asked ourselves, "what would it be like if we lived here?" So now we actually do live in a top holiday destination how does it compare? Here are the pros and cons of a summer in Perpignan.
Pros - it's hot,
What's really annoying about England is that you can never plan anything. I tried to plan a get together with some friends in June when I was back in England, staying at my parents river house there was one day everyone could make, but it was cold and grey and rainy. On a sunny day it would have been a lot of fun, and there was a lot of outside space for people to hang out in, but it was nowhere near as good without nice weather.
What's great about being here is you can make plans to go to the beach or park or anywhere in the summer and know that there's a 98% chance it won't rain, and if it does rain it will probably be a brief refreshing break from the sun. I don't take a coat anywhere because if it rains I want to get rained on.
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| We went to a pool party planned two weeks in advance with no backup option! |
Cons - it's hot
It's too hot! I hate to be someone who complains, I never complained it was too hot in England, but it really is crazy hot. It's normally 32 to 35 degrees, but it can be up to 40 and that's just stupid. Today when we got in the car after it had been sat in the sun, the car said it was 43 degrees! We've seen about 5 forest fires since we've been here. After once living somewhere that was so cold in winter that nothing really needed the fridge, it became my dream to live somewhere where butter is spreadable at room temperature, but here it's actually liquid. We have one air con unit downstairs that we use a lot and we bought a portable one for upstairs. We put it on in the kids room a while before bedtime and then move it to our room and put it on a hour before we go to bed. It's a bit annoying having to work out when to put it on and it takes up a lot of space, but it does help.
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| forest fire seen from our bedroom window |
In England when we used to sit and eat outside I always said I felt like we were on holiday, and we told people we moved here for more of an outdoor lifestyle. In reality though I often take the boys out first thing, leaving the house at about 9, and we stay out for a few hours and then stay inside the rest of the day. We rarely open the shutters on the windows upstairs because it lets too much heat in, so the upstairs of our house is just a dark hot box. When I'm doing work on the garden and I listen to a podcast on my phone outdoors I can only listen for about 5 minutes before the phone overheats and I have to put it in the fridge.
We could have chosen to live anywhere in France and at the moment I can't help thinking "I bet the north is a lovely temperature." But May was nice, so I hope September and October will be lovely and I'll get used to the heat.
Cons - not many friends
I'm getting a little bit bored of the 3 people I live with. Much as I love them I need more people than just them, we established that a long time ago in lockdown. I am slowly getting to know a few people here, last week I had two play dates, one with a French speaking mum of two boys who I met online, she lives not too far from me and she is keen for her kids to learn English. We've met twice, once she came to mine when the kids were in school, and last week we met in a park with the kids, who refused to really speak to each other. It was good for us adults to practise our French even though it was awkward and embarrassing at times. I also had a play date on the beach with a South African mum of a baby that I met at the English speaking church and that was a lot less stressful. This mum is hoping her baby will be Trilingual (English/French /Afrikaans) by age 3. I'm so jealous of babies that are learning multiple languages. I really wasted my baby years. I'm also really jealous of all my comedian friends in Edinburgh right now. I so wish I could be there for a few days. A year ago I was doing Jonesfest in my garden. Such a fun weekend. If I could just spend ten minutes time traveling I'd go back to this moment and hug all of you:
Pros - It's beautiful everywhere
A massive benefit of being here is it's just beautiful everywhere you look. Even the car park of my local big supermarket is amazing, because you can just see a big mountain from there. Even a run down house has a rustic French charm that a run down house in Liverpool wouldn't have.
There are so many nice views and I've been out painting them with the boys which has been a lot of fun. In fact today we went to this lake and even though I wasn't going to do any art, Eric really wanted to, so he sat and drew this:
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| More Art |
Lake vinca is such a big win. 1 euro each on the train, the kids play happily in the sand and go in the lake for a swim, I can sit on the sand and read a book and they can entertain themselves, or I can go for a proper swim. As long as I can see them they're fine in the shallow bits. It's the parenting dream.
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| Lake Vinca |
Apart from today when Percy lost his shoe and we never found it. He had to get the train home wearing a shoe I made for him out of some card from a plaster box as a base, a sanitary towel stuck on (to add comfort), a mask and a hair bobble wrapped round it all attaching it to his foot, and a sock over all of that. And yes a man on the train did notice and I had to think of the French for 'my son lost his shoe in the lake.'
Cons - parks
Liverpool is great for parks. Theres so many and theres a few really big ones that have playgrounds and sell ice cream. Sefton Park has festivals in in the summer and Calderstones has a fairground and fake beach. Theres not really an equivalent of those parks here. There a playground in our next door village with a basketball/ football space and a little bit of skate park, but there's not a lot of grass or trees. And then we went to a park this week that had a high rope course for kids in and 2 proper restaurants and a bit with inflatables (you have to pay for all this stuff). it was a nice park, but still nothing like Sefton Park.
Pros - beaches
There's loads and they're all great. Perfect temperature, clean sea. Every day of the summer is a possible beach day. There's also no tides (because it's the med) so you don't have to do that annoying thing where you have to move where you're sitting. Or that even more annoying thing where you arrive at a beach only to discover it's high tide and there is no beach.
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| Collioure |
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| Argeles |
Pros - road trips
There's some great places within two hours of Liverpool, like the Lake District and North Wales, and we've been to a lot of them over the years. But I am very excited about all the places you can get to from here. We're two and a bit hours from Barcelona, and Andorra. Also were near Carcassone and Narbonne. When it snows we'll be just over an hour from skiing places. There's also smaller little towns, and loads of mountains and a whole load of new places for days out like safari parks, water parks, kids farms, castles etc. So far we've been to a safari park and Andorra for one night which was very interesting. The main city was full of duty free shops, because it's a tax haven. Diesel was 20c cheaper too. The mountains there were also amazing, we saw so many epic views. I also saw someone on ski's with wheels practising skiing up hill like a crazy person.
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| Andorra |
Pros - childcare
There's a bit of a different childcare culture over here compared to England and it makes a lot of sense. In England in the summer holidays if both parents work then you're fighting other parents for a week off in August. And then you get the grandparents to help out one week and you might send them to a camp for a week and it's all a bit stressful. I was lucky that I had a term time job, but loads of women (and maybe some men, but I don't know of any) just get a rubbish job they don't really want, because it fits round the school holidays and 3:15 pick ups. In France you can just pay for childcare at your kids school, or nearby, all summer if you want (it's about 15 euros a day) and it's totally normal and not something they feel guilty about and they do a full day like 8am to 6pm. The woman I met up with said she sends her kids in even when she does have time off work. No woman in the UK would admit to that without feeling bad.
Pros - Food
The cheese and different kinds of bread are amazing, but probably my biggest food love I've enjoyed since arriving has been the ice cream. It's the range of flavours as well as the quality of ice cream that makes it great. Currently in my freezer I have apple sorbet, pear sorbet, and mango, pineapple and coconut ice cream. What ice cream do you currently have in your freezer? I genuinely want to know. The other great thing I've discovered is frozen paella. It takes 10 minutes to cook in a pan and it's got prawns, mussels, calamari, veg and rice all delicious. And it works out less than 1.50 euros per adult portion.
Pros - Cost of living
Things that are cheeper include:
Gas - we buy a big gas canister for cooking it costs about 30 euros and lasts at least two months.
Electric - I don't think it's especially cheap compared to the UK a few years ago, but it's cheap compared to how crazy things are in the UK know.
Wine
Train tickets
Council tax, if you're renting it's paid by the landlord.
School trips - so far our kids have been loads of places and we haven't paid anything.
Child benefit- were about to switch to the french system and I'm not sure yet but it looks like it's more generous. We were told if we had a third kid it would be really generous.
Cons - cost of living
Dan earns the same as when we were in England, our rent is more that what we paid on a mortgage in England but we make a profit on our old house that we rent out, so that's all kind of equalish. A big change though is that I am not bringing in money now.
And here are some things that are more expensive:
Most stuff you would buy from a supermarket. Especially sliced breads, which you have to get from the foreign food aisle. I like to get baguettes sometimes but I can't be getting fresh bread every day. Meat is also really expensive, and I can't find any meat alternative stuff like Quorn.
I've heard if you go just across the border to Spain, about 30 mins away, you can buy a load of stuff like cosmetics and cleaning products and fuel a lot cheaper, so we will try that out one day.
They don't really have charity shops either. I did just join a clothes shop for kids though. You pay 30 euros for a years membership and you get all the clothes half price and free delivery if you wanted to buy online. It's nice stuff too all very bright and fun.
So overall it's hard to say really whether I've had a better summer here. Sometimes it's been amazing, sometimes it's been a bit boring and too hot to be honest. It's been very different and I wanted a change This with friends would be amazing.
I feel like that's a weird slightly sad ending so I will cheer you up with this place I walked past yesterday:
