Those of you who know me, know that in an earlier life my career involved the collection and analysis of data. I wasn’t brilliant at it, but I really enjoyed the mental challenge involved with manipulating data and trying to work out what it was telling us. I had some great mentors during my career who taught me lots of things including how to use Excel, although many of those skills I have now forgotten. But, not all.

Even now that I have well and truly retired, I still collect and record and analyse data.

I am writing this post as much for myself as for any other reader – it is a good way of recording just what went on during our attempt to live in France for a year using house sitting as a way of allowing us to spend more time immersing ourselves in a location without costing us an absolute fortune.

OK.

Our goal was to spend 12 months in France (I’ll call it our French Adventure). When we left Australia we weren’t sure we were going to be able to get the visas to allow us to do that, but thankfully we did.

Before we left, we had two confirmed house sits – 11 weeks in Fenouillet with a 23-day gap until the second one in the Auvergne. I was able to get us a short sit of 8 days in the Gers during that break once we were in France. All the others were organised while we were living in France.

We arrived in France on 11 December 2018 and we left on 22 November 2019, 17 days short of the 12 months – but we also spent 4 days in the UK in August when we visited our son for a long weekend.  So that actually makes a total of 49 weeks spent ‘living in France’.

While there were still quite a lot of house sitting opportunities we could have applied for to fill in those remaining 17 days, many of them were in areas Mick and I had already been to and we did not feel like travelling from upper Normandy (where we had our last house sit) back to the southern part of France (again). So we ‘bit the bullet’ and headed to the UK for some house sitting opportunities there.

France is divided into 18 administrative regions, but 6 of them (including Corsica), are not part of mainland France. During this French Adventure, we stayed overnight in 10 of them. (In previous trips to France we have visited the remaining two we did not visit this time).

REGIONS
1 Auvergne-Rhône-Alps
2 Bourgogne-Franche-Comté
3 Brittany
4 Centre-Val de Loire
5 Grand Est
6 Hauts-de-France
7 Île-de-France
8 Normandy
9 Nouvelle-Aquitaine
10 Occitanie
11 Pays de la Loire
12 Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur – although we did spend a day visiting Avignon

Those in red are the two we did not spend a night in on this trip. I have used ‘spending a night’ in a location as a way of calculating whether or not we have been ‘there’. More breakdown on this a little later on in the post.

Mick had his own way of recording data about our trip too, and I have included a photo of his contribution, which shows clearly how we criss-crossed the country.

Some Key Points of Our Time in France

• We completed 10 house sits in France – 8 organised through the Trusted House Sitters website, 1 through the Mind My House website and 1 arranged privately as a follow-up house sit in Fenouillet.
• During these ten ‘sits’ we cared for a total of 11 cats, 11 dogs and 1 sheep. The most at one time was five cats at one home, and four dogs at another.
• We hired cars for 4 of the sits. One of the sits was in a city so no car was needed, and the other 5 sits we were given a car to use.
• The length of the house sits ranged from a minimum or 8 nights to a maximum of 78 nights (although we returned to that house sit and ended up spending a total of 109 nights in Fenouillet during our French Adventure).
• We stayed in 34 different cities or villages during our stay. These are listed later in the post as well. In addition to the 9 locations for our 10 house sits, we stayed in 25 other places – ranging from 1 to 5 nights. We also spent 1 night on a train to Paris.
• Of the 49 weeks (343 days) we spent in France, we made ourselves available for house sitting for 336 days (as we had 8 days off holidaying with our friends and neighbours from Australia). We spent 39 weeks (273 days) house sitting – 81.25% of our ‘available’ time in France.
• We spent 70 nights in hotels, appartments or chambres d’hôtes (mostly booked through Booking.com ),  in other words, in accommodation we had to pay for. Plus the 1 night on the train from Perpignan to Paris.

	REGIONS		Nights
1	Auvergne-Rhône-Alps	La Fôret(43), Montluçon(5), Lyon(3), Clermont-Ferrand(4),	55
2	Bourgogne-Franche-Comté	Dijon(3),	3
3	Brittany	Rohan(1), Cancale(1),	2
4	Centre-Val de Loire	Saint Satur(4), Montargis(2),	6
5	Grand Est	Mandray(24), Nancy(3), Mulhouse(3), Strasbourg(3),	33
6	Hauts-de-France
7	Île-de-France	Samois-sur-Seine(35), Paris(3),	38
8	Normandy	Auxais(10), Rugles(12), Caen(1), Bayeux(3), Rouen(2), Argentan(2), Flers(1),	31
9	Nouvelle-Aquitaine	Magnac-Laval(23), Poitiers(3), Limoges(3),	29
10	Occitanie	Fenouillet(109), Bouzignon(8), Montpellier(9), Montpellier (2) Perpignan(2), Caudiès(7), Toulouse(3), Auch(3), Nîmes(1),	144
11	Pays de la Loire	Châteaubriant(1),	1
12	Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur	Avignon (day trip only)

The towns or cities written in red are the ones where we house sat.

We spent the most time in the Occitanie Region, completing 3 house sits – spending just over 46% of our time house sitting in Occitanie, and 52% of our total time in France there.

So what is our favourite region?

Undoubtedly the Occitanie Region and in particular the area around Fenouillet. The majesty of the mountains, the friendliness of the people, the €1 buses, and the taste of the wines in this part of our France make it our Number 1 region.

What about our favourite city or cities?

Possibly too many to name. But funnily enough, up until the very last day we were in Occitanie, as we headed for our tenth house sit, I would have said the least favourite was Perpignan (in Occitanie Region). We had been told it has some wonderful sites, and we caught a glimpse of them the day we caught the night train to Paris.

Mick and I feel very lucky (although Mick would say ‘fortunate’) to have had this opportunity and to have had no dramas during the time.

Thank you for following us on this adventure.

FOOTNOTE #1

I tried quite hard to learn French during our time here. While I did make significant improvements in my knowledge and vocabulary, I am disappointed in my oral comprehension skills and my pronunciation. I enjoyed learning the language very much and hope to continue to study it during our stay in the UK.

FOOTNOTE #2

I also have data on how much money we have spent on the 70 nights accommodation for this trip, along with the costs for the hire cars and the trains and so on. And yes, even how much money we spent on French wine!!

But, you’ll be pleased to know I will spare you those details.

Now it’s time for an adventure or two in the UK.