Tony and Anne Jones

About Us

In 2002, retiring early from our respective careers, we moved to Brittany to pursue the lifelong dream of living in France. For many years we had enjoyed holidays in various regions of France, but the beauty of Brittany, the variety of terrain and the friendly nature of the inhabitants made it an easy choice for the next phase of our life.

We started looking for a house with tourist income potential as we wanted to keep active and supplement our private pensions. I suspect this is the same desire as many people seeking to retire abroad and in particular France.

Did we speak French? I would love to say fluently, but the truth is Anne had completed the first year of the Open University’s ‘Modern Language Course’ and could put some simple sentences together and I was reliant on the few words I remembered from GCSE French.

But undaunted we started looking for our dream home in January 2001 touring the countryside looking at everything from ruins to new builds. It was one of those times in your life when you go through highs and lows, eventually wondering if you wouldn’t be better joining the exodus to safe regions like Devon. It was fascinating listening to rural Bretons describing their palatial homes, when in front of your eyes you could only see 1970’s DIY having destroyed, what at one time, must have been a beautiful period house.

Eventually in October 2002 during house search trip number twelve, we were chasing an estate agents car deep into the country side in search of a farm conversion that had just come onto the market. The agents car pulled to a halt alongside a stoutly built Breton lady in a piny held together with bailing twine. It soon became clear that we were lost and our agent was seeking directions. The exchange was short and terminated with some rapid hand gestures describing the route ahead.

Five minutes later we turned into a small tarmac lane which led past some ancient stone houses and the inevitable cross standing on a large stone plinth. As we turned the next corner we could see a range of Breton cottages on the brow of a small rise sitting in beautiful isolation amongst the surrounding countryside. As we approached we had a feeling our search was over.

The next three years passed quickly as we proceeded to change the farm shell into our dream home. We met many challenges along the way and there were times when we doubted our sanity and wondered if we had made the right choice moving to France. Having lived the dream for seven years now we no longer have doubts and feel we are ourselves part of the landscape that changes with the seasons.

In addition to our Gite business we keep ourselves fully occupied by writing, providing free English language classes for the adult education system, Breton dancing and of course keeping up with the extensive Breton social life.

Last year we noted a number of web sites were being set up to assist those considering a move to France, giving lots of advice and links to useful organisations and official bodies. In our small way we felt that it may be of interest to others if we started a Blog to put down in writing the many experiences and lessons learnt by us in the past seven years.

Hence the Blog ‘A Home in Brittany ‘ which we hope you will find helpful and amusing. Wherever possible we try and keep our information up to date and our links current, however you are advised to check for current updates where necessary and by all means advise us of errors or bad links

Best Wishes from Tony & Anne