{"id":925,"date":"2014-10-13T08:00:52","date_gmt":"2014-10-13T08:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=925"},"modified":"2014-10-09T16:30:46","modified_gmt":"2014-10-09T16:30:46","slug":"the-peculiar-life-of-british-expats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=925","title":{"rendered":"The Peculiar Life of British Expats"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lila<\/a>

Lila Quander \/ CP Port Isaac Pier Complete V2 \/ dementeddivas.blogspot.com\/2013\/09\/pretty-things.html\/Flickr<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Probably like the majority of anyone living in Britain, I often dream of living somewhere with warm weather, blue seas and a hugely better quality of life. Having just come back from staying with friends in Tuscany and the Dordogne this summer, I am beginning to re-think this idealised view.<\/p>\n

Whilst geographically both locations were stunning and quite different \u2013 Tuscan hills with forests and pine trees or vineyards and bastide hill towns; they were similarly very isolated houses dependant on a village or hamlet. Although both holidays were in different countries, different languages, food, wine and friends; there was nevertheless a distinct similarity with the world the local British expats lived in. In very broad terms, very few had Italian or French friends. The locals had little or nothing in common with the largely middle class British invaders. They worked the land as their forbears had done for generations or were local craftsmen. The British even found that they did not want to trust the local craftsmen to do their building work as each group had completely different ideas of what was acceptable and any language problems magnified by difference in taste. The European countryside is not the Cotswolds.<\/p>\n

The British largely spoke the local language quite badly although often with some gusto, thus forcing themselves on to a social circuit made up of other expats. The problem then arises that you have to be friendly with people that you might not necessarily have made friends with had you met them back in the UK. The British are notorious at their social class stratifications. The expat stratification is equally difficult to comprehend but is nonetheless different from that experienced back in the UK.<\/p>\n

Do they live full time out there or several months a year or are they only there a couple of weeks a year? How long have they lived out there? Several years or only recently? How well do they understand the ins and outs of local laws and taxes? Do they have to live off the income from rented apartments or cottages? Can you they use their pool in summer or have to wait for paying guests to leave? All these subtleties bear more importance than titles and previous employment.<\/p>\n

The expats living in Italy have more challenges than is fair with regards to building regulations. A few years ago, it was regarded as normal to make changes to your home and get back dated permission from the local council \u2013 after all the Brits were improving the properties rather than letting them fall apart. Planning permission is changed locally with little or no forewarning\u00a0resulting\u00a0in some homes becoming unsaleable because they do not have the necessary new permissions. One sad expat spoke of the heartbreak of having to knock down part of his home because he could not get permission of work carried out over 20 years ago and had to sell his beloved home to move back to the UK with a sick wife. Another problem with those living in Italy and trying to improve their properties is that any neighbour or local person with a grudge can lay a \u2018denunzio\u2019 on your building work which immediately brings everything to a close and can take months if not years for lawyers, architects and local council to come to an agreement that will then allow the building work to continue. Witch hunts or the Inquisition could have been easier to have got through.<\/p>\n

Any new comer to the district realises that they have to invite the existing population of expats for drinks or dinner. As each expat is called up to be invited for a drink before dinner or dinner as well, the tom toms have already been at work. The subtlety of being the first to be invited but for only a drink while somebody else was called up many days later but for dinner is analysed by all involved.<\/p>\n

Ultimately most European expats return to the UK when they become too old or too ill to survive in their dream country. They don\u2019t like the UK, don\u2019t want to be there but cannot survive old age anywhere else.<\/p>\n

My only advice to myself if ever I still wish to live the dream is not to settle in a pretty cottage in the countryside but to choose a town with a mass of other international expats and try to keep away from the Brits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I often dream of living somewhere with warm weather, blue seas and a hugely better quality of life. Having just come back from staying with friends in Tuscany and the Dordogne this summer, I am beginning to re-think this idealised view.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,55],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=925"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1552,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925\/revisions\/1552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}