Heads Above Water: Staying afloat in France - Softcover

Dagg, Stephanie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1539665216 ISBN 13: 9781539665212

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016

Synopsis

Heads Above Water is the story of our first couple of years as expats in France. And yes, I know there are lots of books about living in France out there already, but a lot of these are the short-term adventures of single people or retired couples. Moving abroad for good with a family, and without a pension as back-up, is a whole new ball game. Especially when your plan is to run a gîte and a carp fishing business and you’re moving to two derelict hovels with three empty lakes... That’s what makes Heads Above Water different. It’s about us, a family with three children, who stick the hardships out and make things start to work. It’s about hurtling enthusiastically down what turn out to be dead ends and having to do quick about-turns. It’s about actually – eventually – making a living in a new country. It’s realistic, honest and gritty – but also fun, lively and very entertaining. Exploding toilets and escaping llamas tend to make for an interesting life. If you’ve ever thought, however vaguely, of moving to France or have already done so, or are just intrigued to find out more about the courageous/crazy (delete as appropriate) people who have taken the plunge, then this is the book for you!

About this title

About the Author:

Hi, I'm Stephanie Dagg. I'm an English expat living in France, having moved here with my family in 2006 after fourteen years as an expat in Ireland. I now consider myself a European rather than 'belonging' to any particular country. The last ten years have been interesting, to put it mildly. Taking on seventy-five acres with three lakes, two hovels and one cathedral-sized barn, not to mention an ever increasing menagerie, makes for exciting times. The current array of animals includes alpacas, llamas, huarizos (alpaca-llama crossbreds, unintended in our case and all of them thanks to one very determined alpaca male), sheep, goats, pigs, ducks, geese, chickens and turkeys, not forgetting our pets of dogs, cats, zebra finches, budgies and Chinese quail. Before we came to France we had was a dog and two chickens, so it's been a steep learning curve. I'm married to Chris and we have three bilingual TCKs (third culture kids) who are resilient and resourceful and generally wonderful. I'm a traditionally-published author of many children's books, and and am now self-publishing too. I have worked part-time as a freelance editor for many years after starting out as a desk editor for Hodder & Stoughton. The rest of the time I'm running carp fishing lakes with Chris and inevitably cleaning up some or other animal's poop.

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1539665216
• ISBN 13: 9781539665212
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 206