79: Living Our Best Life in France. The new terrasse is done and we are so looking forward to sharing our home with family.

Welcome to the 79th weekly post of our Baby Boomers Move to France blog.

We are into our 51st week in France 7/20-7/26/26 having spent 3 months in Duras and then roughly a month and a half in St Germaine de Confolens before settling in Chabanais.

We have been in our home in the village of Chabanais in the Charente department of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region of France since the middle of December 2025. We are still loving it.

This week,

EB volunteers at the cancer charity shop. Drive with Ron and Michelle to Angouleme for us all to pick up our Titre de Sejour. Zoom meeting with the gang regarding our family trip plans. Shade sails and more.

Our home in Chabanais, France

Things on the agenda this week:

• Angouleme for Titre de Sejour
• Shade sail install
• Outdoor furniture
• Work on Garden

Weather forecast:

I’m switching to the metric system for our weather forecast temperature updates. Temperatures are in degrees Celsius here. This is the way France designates temperature, and we need to get used to it. I hope it doesn’t confuse anyone too much. I will add degrees Fahrenheit in parenthesis. Warm weather forecasted for this week with highs in the 39 C (102F) and lows in the 16C range (61F). Slight chance of rain forecasted but cooling breezes make the afternoon nice.

Why this Blog?

Long story short, we are Mark and Elizabeth Beiley, “Baby Boomers” that have moved from Venice, Florida to the beautiful French countryside as retirees. After a little over a year of planning and fretting we sold everything in Venice and made the move on 1 August 2025.

We publish a brief update of our adventures every Sunday to share our experiences, tips and mistakes.

If you are wondering what got into our head and inspired us to make the move, check out some of our earlier posts. Again, if you have questions about our adventure, drop your questions in the comment section below.

This Weeks Daily Update

Sunday

Install additional shade sail over our walkway

We installed a second triangular shade sail over the walkway without any drama. WooHoo! The larger rectangular shade sail install is put on hold as my hammer drill was too noisy for a Sunday. In France there are usually ordinances on noise. No loud noisy work between 12-2 during the week and Saturday (lunch time) and all day on Sunday (day of rest!!)

No problem by the time we got to this point EB suggested that we walk over to Cafe des Sport for a glass of wine. EB went directly to the cafe and got an outside table and ordered the wine while I walked over to check out the car show. This was a nice surprise.

The car show was set up in the parking lot of the Salle de Fete across the street from the cafe. Very cool cars. I love the old Citroens.

Other cars too.

The wine was good

EB had ordered a bottle of Rose and found an outside table under the huge shade umbrella. There was a really nice breeze and I proclaimed, “Life is good”.

Monday: Super nice weather.

No Simon this week as work on the garden would crowd him out.

Our conference call with our financial adviser didn’t happen. His flight was delayed on a return trip home, so we had to reschedule. Now scheduled for next week.

Additional harvest from EB’s veggie patch

More cucumbers and finally a couple of ripe tomatoes (tomates). She made a salad and tossed in the cucumbers and tomatoes. Super good!!!! Who knew EB is a farmer? I watered the veggie patch with the hose that we had moved up to the garden area. It is so much more convenient now that Simon completed adding a water spigot up there. We are currently on water restrictions so you can’t water between 10 am and 8 pm.

Tuesday: Another beautiful day

It was an early morning as we needed to get up by 6:00 to be ready to go to Angouleme. Ron and Michelle picked us up at 8:00 and we all traveled together to Angouleme, the prefecture for the Charente department where we met with an official to pick up our official Titre de Sejour (Residents permit). Easy peezy and we didn’t need to speak much French. Ron drove the less than 1 hour drive to the office located in the old part of the city within the ramparts.

Since Roman times the ramparts have surrounded the Plateau of Angouleme and are classified as historical monuments. There is a lot of history in this city.

Angouleme is a city with a population of about 42,000 (the center of an urban area of about 110,000 people) that is located on a plateau that overlooks the Charente River.

Below pictures from the Angouleme ramparts looking west I believe. In the distance of the picture on the right, you can see a golf course.

Pictures from the ramparts looking east. The Angouleme train station dominates the photos on the right.

From the Prefecture offices we walked over to this very pretty marketplace. I couldn’t help but grab some photos of the walk and the marketplace. The market (picture on the right and bottom) is within a pretty (joli) building. I didn’t find out how old this building is. Probably built in the 1800s I would guess. The picture on the left is some official looking building. I apologize I didn’t get the info on the building or its purpose.

We stopped for a coffee at a really nice outdoor cafe.

We were home well before lunch and quickly took Rosie for a walk. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take her with us to the Prefecture offices.

FaceTime call with family to talk about our family get together in France in September.

EB and I are looking forward to meeting up with Cindy and Don in Aix les Bains for Cindy’s international Dragon Boat Regatta, and then the 4 of us meeting up with Dan and Rhonda in Geneva, Switzerland and then the 6 of us going on to a canal boat trip in northeast France. We will all come back to Chabanais to rest, recuperate and do laundry. We will do a couple of day trips to take in some local sights and then spend a couple of days in Loubes Bernac, which is near Duras and Eymet for a couple of days of sightseeing. Then the beautiful city of Bordeux.

Thanks to Cindy for setting up the call. It was good to talk with everyone and lock down some final plans. EB and I have been talking about plans for months now.

Wednesday: Beautiful morning and coffee on the patio.

Work continues on the garden and is pretty near completed. The large umbrella finally arrived, and we will need to do a little assembly.

French class was well attended and Patricia worked hard to keep us all speaking French. Ron had to rush off after class as he plays “walking football” on Wednesday nights. Diane, Joel, EB and I walked over to Cafe des Sport for a beer and Stewart joined us. We were able to find a table outside and gathered up 4 chairs for the group. I went into the boulangerie next door and picked up 2 baguettes. Nice chat and a little more French language practice as Joel does not speak much English which works out well for us since we need to speak more French.

At home EB and I had dinner then carried our wine up to the unfinished garden terrace and relaxed for a bit.

Thursday: The garden Terrace is done!! Market day in Chabanais

After coffee we walked over to the Farmers’ market and picked up some fruit and veggies. On the walk home we stopped at the Barrier Cafe and hotel. We had a coffee (2 coffees including a chocolate each: 3 euros) and EB made hotel reservations for Cindy and Don. EB managed the reservations completely in French. She is pretty sure it is all okay. I guess we will know when Cindy and Don arrive. LOL

Garden and Terrace (Terrasse) is completed except for some plantings needed.

Before pictures (pretty bleak, I know!)

After

We spent a large part of the afternoon moving the furniture into place and while I got started on putting the umbrella together EB strung “fairy lights” in the fig tree and the grape arbor. The umbrella is a beast, so EB helped me get it together and of course we had to open it up and test it out.

We opened a bottle of Prosecco and christened the Cocktail Coop.

After dinner including a salad made with EB’s fresh cucumbers and tomatoes from her veggie patch and delicious chicken we took the Rumicube game up to the terrace (terrasse) and played on the new table. And, and, and I didn’t spill any wine on the furniture.

The terrasse is a 3 meter by 3 meter (just under 100 square feet) wooden structure that is made out of some “exotic” wood. I honestly don’t know what the wood is. It is supported on a bunch of adjustable piers that are in turn supported on compacted rock and a cement topping. The structure is surrounded by gravel that is stabilized by a honeycomb base to form a walkway around the structure. Since the garden was slopping the team had to dig down several areas to create a flat surface. We worked with a company called Garden Party on the design and construction and I would recommend them. They were very hard working guys and much appreciated the waters and sodas we left for them daily!

Friday: Coffee in the Cocktail Coop

We have been dreaming of having coffee in our newly renovated Cocktail Coop since the day EB came up with the name. Our dream came true. What a treat!

After coffee we started working on completing our to do list for the day.

• Weed the veggie patch
• Replant the Lavender plant
• Remove one rose bush
• Decheterie run: Cardboard, garden clippings, wood
• Glass bottle disposal run
• Add pavers to the area under the new water spigot
• Harvest some more veggies
• Make final payment to Garden Party via Wise
• Clean up the area around the compost bin

We got most of our list done. I got a start on the compost bin area but the project is not complete yet. It will go on the new list for Saturday.

Saturday: EB volunteers at the cancer shop, Simon finishes the outside stair rail and smoke from the wildfires comes to Chabanais.

Off and on light rain after about 10:00 all day.

Simon finished the install of the outside stair rail. It looks good and definitely makes navigating the stairs up to the terrasse a little easier.

EB worked at the cancer charity shop until 1:00 while Rosie and I held down the fort.

When EB got home, we had a quick lunch and then drove over to Confolens to check out the garden shop just outside of town. The plan was to buy a plant to replace the Camillia bush. No luck. we will have to keep looking.

The smoke from the fires has arrived at Chabanais. We are hoping that the light rain will help the fire fighters and maybe wash some of the smoke out of the air.

While we were out, we stopped at the Bricolage and picked up some carabiners for the shade sail project. Caribininers work great for securing the shade sails. They make it easy in the event that I have to bring down the shade sails.

Then we did a little grocery shopping at the Super U.

Oh, and I decided to put the compost bin area cleanup project off until Monday.

So that was our week.

A trip to Angouleme to pick up our Titre de Sejour, our Garden Terrasse is completed and furniture moved and arranged, and we tested out the cocktail coop. We worked down a bunch of “to dos” on our list. I made it over to a small car show in town,

French Lifestyle and Culture

A note on our French lifestyle.

As we come up on our 1-year anniversary of living in France I want to reflect on how our life is going in our new home. I know you get a weekly dose from this blog, and I enjoy sharing our adventure, but how do we characterize our French lifestyle?

You will remember way back in 2024 we first started thinking about a move to France and it was that fateful trip back to Amboise, France that really got me starting the research. Cindy and Don had a big trip planned in the UK but came to Amboise to meet up with EB and I for a week before they headed to Scotland.

That trip to Amboise in May 2024 for Elizabeth’s 60th birthday included a funny and unforgettable story of delayed flights and overnight airport stays an UBER driver and finally getting to the Airbnb at about 2:00 in the morning where Cindy greeted us with a solar powered lantern next to the Loire River with a view of the castle across the river.

It was one evening during that week as the four of us walked across the bridge towards the Ambois chateau Cindy asked, “Are you guys thinking of living here?” The rest is history.

Cindy knew that we had been looking at alternatives and although we loved Venice, Florida we felt that there was something else in our future, but we weren’t sure what that looked like. We had looked at options in the states without really loving any of them and we were left with wondering what it was that we were looking for.

I did a lot of research on the possibility of living abroad and living in France in particular. I shared my research with EB. She got on board and we watched a lot of You Tube channels. Soon we realized that France checked off boxes that we didn’t even know mattered to us. Fun fact, most of the ex-pats we meet, the move to France has been initiated by the husband/significant other….

Lifestyle

Our life is simpler, less stressed and slower paced than it was in Venice. Being retired has its benefits of course. By the way, EB could not have retired for another few years (she says 10 years) if we stayed in the states.

Learning a new language is a challenge. but at the same time super rewarding every time we go into the boulangerie and purchase a baguette speaking French. Every time that I ask for 2 beers at the Cafe des Sport I say to myself, “this little old man is getting the hang of it.” It is good for my soul and my brain.

The fact that we can live on our social security checks and not dip into our savings for monthly living expenses makes this move make sense for us. That said there are many, many places to settle that offer that same benefit. It is just that France feels like home to us. Despite the language issues France is just comfortable for us. Who knows what the future holds but we are living our best life now.

We love that we walk to the village center for our baguette and croissants and to the farmers market for fresh produce and meats and cheeses. We have 3 boulangeries in walking distance.

We read with increasing dismay at the crazy politics in America and breathe a sigh of relief that we don’t have to worry about sharing our views anymore. People that we meet here (Americans, French, British and others) agree with us and are appalled at the direction that the administration is pushing the country more and more towards authoritarianism (some might say Fascism).

Our lifestyle includes less fear. In the states I had purchased a pistol more for protection than sport. Elizabeth learned how to shoot too. In France people do not feel the need for a firearm for protection. I no longer own a pistol or feel the need for one. Also, I believe it is illegal to own firearms (except hunting rifles) unless you are with the police. Since we have been here there has been NO mass shootings or school shootings and children don’t have to have that drill where they hide in closets in school.

We are very fortunate to have made some great friends, and the circle continues to grow. We were a little concerned since we had such wonderful friends in Venice, would we be able to make friends 4600 miles from Venice. It is definitely harder to make friends but little by little our group is expanding.

EB volunteers at the local cancer support charity shop. We participate in the various charity events that go along with that shop and appreciate the added dimension to our life this makes for us. For example Greek night coming up soon as we will be having Greek food, grilled lamb, probably some Oozo, and dancing.

It is hard to fit in all of the fetes (parties and festivals) that surround us. There are 2 big ones coming up. August 1,2 is MACfest which is a Music Against Cancer event with about 8 different bands over the 2 days and lots of food, beer, wine and fun. Also, August 10-16 is Festivale de Confolens which has multiple events of the 6 days celebrating other nationalities and cultures.

The walks through and around our village are calming and invigorating at the same time.

I guess I can say our life here is pretty much like it was in Venice except with less stress, less angst, and a bit more… LIFE.

Next Week (la Semaine Prochaine)

• Celebrate 1 year anniversary of living in France
• Simon the handyman will quote on another project
• Celebrate 21 years of marriage
• More work on the garden
• Greek night fund raiser for the cancer services organization

Weather forecast for next week

Sunny and warm days are forecasted for this coming week with high temps forecasted to reach 39 C (102F). Overnight low down to 16C (61F). Humidity 40% range and a little breezy.

Signing off for the week

As always, we sign off wishing you all a good week and remind you to take care of yourselves and your family.

Keep in touch and leave questions, suggestions and comments below. We really enjoy hearing from you all.

Wishing you a good week (Bonne Semaine)

Mark and Elizabeth Beiley

Babyboomersmovetofrance.com