Alison & Stephen

Information de voyage

Actuellement, nous sommes

Description

We are Alison & Steve, an English couple living in France. We bravely moved to France 23 years ago when our 2 children were 10 & 6 years old. We lived in a small hilltop village in Provence and loved it. We worked very hard to integrate into the local community but we still find speaking French a challenge (unlike our children who are completely fluent). We ran a successful B&B for 12 years. It was fully booked with guests returning year afer year, a sign that we were doing something right and something we are very proud of.
We also bought a run down restaurant 10 minutes away from our village and converted it into a villa that we rented out for the holiday season. We loved meeting new people and when guests returned it was like friends coming home to stay. We have now sold our B&B and our rental villa and have just spent 3 years fully renovating our forever house, which is now perfect.. We consider ourselves in 'pre-retirement'..!
Steve is very hands on with any DIY jobs he will and can do anything including gardening, pruning, decorating, building, plumbing, electrics, fitting kitchens and bathrooms. He used to work in London in IT so moving here was a massive change of life, especially for him.
I enjoy cooking, gardening, entertaining, walking and going on holidays !
We have been to NZ and Australia working for many different families and have loved every moment. Since Covid we have been staying nearer to home here in France but we are now looking forward to our next workaway. We feel that living and working closely with a family is a great experience. We would like to be working outside if possible.
Ideally we would like to do something that we have never done before. We always put in 100% and are keen to learn new skills, we are happy to do almost anything ! I don't really want to be babysitting, but I am happy to help out in the kitchen with cooking, light household cleaning and any jobs. Obviously having owned and run completely by ourselves a B&B buisness and a villa rental buisness we are very capable of getting accomodation ready for the season and guests.
We are very tidy, clean and organised, we are happy to get up early and work alongside other people as part of a team or by ourselves.
We both have full driving licences. We're both non-smokers and eat pretty much everything...except blue cheese for me !

Langues parlées

Anglais: Courant
Français: Intermédiaire

Compétences et connaissances que nous aimerions partager ou apprendre

Ça nous intéresse :  

Aider dans une ferme

Éco-projets

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Nous avons des connaissances :  

Jardinage d'entretien

Préparer les repas / cuisiner pour la famille

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Nous pouvons apprendre aux autres:  

Projets DIY créatifs

Petits travaux d'entretien

Quelles sont vos compétences ?

Building, gardening, DIY, cooking, general maintenance,

Âge

61 & 63

Autres infos...

Steve & I spent 9 weeks in 2017 and 10 weeks in 2018 travelling and working in NZ. We loved every moment and have booked our flights to return and do it all again in 2020. In 2017 we worked in Tauranga on a Kiwi farm and had such a fantastic experience that we went back the following year, we also worked on a sheep farm near Queenstown. Again had a great time. In 2018 we worked on a highland cattle farm in Kerikeri, an olive and hazlenut farm in Sedon and the kiwi farm that we had worked at the previous year.
In Jan/Feb 2020. we went to Australia and housesat for a family with two small dogs in Brisbane for 6 weeks. We then went on to NZ and worked at a raspberry farm, a gardening job, painted the outside of someone's house, house sat on Kawau island and cut enough wood for the family for the winter, and painted their house, we also went back for a 3rd time to our first workaway job in Tauranga where they now have a wedding venue where we helped
In between workaways we like to walk in the countryside, we spent 3 nights Kayaking down Whanganui river staying in huts en route which was fantastic.
We really do enjoy learning new skills and doing something that we have never done before.
We love stopping for a coffee and enjoying a wonderful view, we really like the simple things in life.
Thanks
Alison & Steve

Informations complémentaires

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  Fumeur

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  Permis de conduire

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  Allergies

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  Régime alimentaire spécial
  no blue cheese for me