A mum from Liverpool moved to France in 2017 and says life is much more relaxed and outdoorsy since the move
Steph with her daughter and son(Image: Stephanie Beech / SWNS)
A mum-of-three who ditched the UK for an idyllic French city shares how her kids get a three-course meal every day at school – feasting on calamari and Camembert.
Steph Beech, 39, originally from Liverpool, moved to Carcassonne in Aude, France in 2017 after her partner, 35, moved jobs.
Despite missing “a good curry” and the ease of speaking English, Steph has found life for her and her kids, aged 16, seven, and five, is much more relaxed and family-oriented.
The prices of food and property are not much different to that of the UK, but the family are able to spend much more time together as Wednesdays are a no-school day, and “everything” is closed on Sundays.
Never miss a story with the MEN’s daily Catch Up newsletter – get it in your inbox by signing up here
Steph, a piano teacher, said: “At school there’s no uniform for one. They have Wednesdays off, although some kids go on a Saturday morning.
“To be fair the canteen food is amazing, they get a full three course meal. They get an entrée, main and dessert.
“They’ll have a salad starter, then the main can be quite a lot of vegetarian options like a veggie lasagne, and a yoghurt for dessert or freshly made tartes and pastries.
Steph with her son(Image: Stephanie Beech / SWNS)
“There is always a side of bread and cheese. It really teaches them how to have a meal. It’s something you notice when you go out, the French kids sit so well. They’re not on their phone or iPads.
“It’s very different to the UK. It opens them up to more varied selection of food. They’re having calamari and Camembert.
“They have all sorts of food and it’s all 90% organic which it has to be across France.”
With an extra two weeks off every summer, Steph says it’s “a dream” for the kids, but difficult for parents to navigate.
She said: “I feel like I’ve been off ages already compared to parents in the UK. There are more things to do, the weather helps with that.
Join the Manchester Evening News WhatsApp group HERE
“There is more of that outdoor lifestyle and activities to do that don’t cost money. We can just go to the lake for a swim with a picnic.”
Steph said it was “difficult” at first for her kids to make friends at school as they were not speaking the same language.
She said: “Even though they were born here we didn’t speak French at home so when they started school they learnt there.
“We’d teach them basics like the colours and numbers but going further we thought we didn’t enough and leave it to the French to teach it.
“We didn’t want to try and teach them French as it wasn’t our first language.
“Now they have their French and are teaching me and correcting me, which is good for me.”
Whilst she doesn’t believe one school system is better than the other, Steph believes the UK and France are “just very different.”
Steph’s daughter in the French town of Menton(Image: Stephanie Beech / SWNS)
She said: “In France, they get them out on more school trips. They do get a lot more homework.
“My daughter has been getting homework and it’s got to be in the next day.”
Having lived across the channel for eight years, Steph admits to missing certain UK foods.
She said: “I can’t get a good curry here. Some of the food is quite different, the same with school.
“When they [the kids] go into school half the time they’re not wanting to eat the food because what we eat at home is what we’d eat in the UK – we’ll make a curry at home or chicken. We tailor it more to a kid rather than an adult palette.
“I miss the ease of just being able to speak English. With the other foreigners here, we just tend to hang out together. We’re making French friends as we go but maybe not as quickly as we would in the UK.”
Steph also mentioned that she returns back to England a lot as she has a business there.
In the future, the family say they “don’t know” whether they will move back to UK. “We’re just going year by year and going with the flow,” Steph said.
You can follow Steph and her French journey on TikTok @stephsfrenchlife
Dining and Cooking