Book Reviews: My Good Life in France by Janine Marsh

One dismal day, Janine Marsh travelled to Calais to pick up cheap wine. Hours
later, she returned to London the proud owner of a ramshackle barn without running water or electricity (one of many unpleasant surprises on move-in day). It did come, however, with a single pole propping up the crumbling heap and unsuspected handouts: a dilapidated caravan and sheep.

Undeterred, she quit her city job for the roller-coaster existence of an expat-cum-master builder. Armed with unflappable optimism and the (unsolicited) nous of her nosey neighbours, she and her husband set out to restore the wreck – coming up daily against a miscellany of structural faults, and even a rusty bike buried under a hedge. Ten years on, she charts the (bewildering) vagaries of living out of a hollowed ruin and conquering the expat lark.

My Good Life in France by Janine Marsh. List price £9.99. Published by Michael O’Mara Books. Highly recommended.

From France Today magazine

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