Nobody would take the plunge and move to Normandy if they tried to plan it, says Simon Powell, an Advertiser reader in Etretat (Seine-Maritime).

We bought a run-down chaumière in Etretat at the end of 2007: 260m2 of house and 44,000m² of land. A week after signing the compromis de vente, I lost my job in the UK, but my wife refused to let me abandon the house, even though we could have done so without loss under those circumstances.

After three months in the UK, I failed to find a job, so we decided to move to France to repair the house and sell it on. I was able to find some project work with UK, American and Malaysian companies, so I set up my own limited company, while my wife studied French and the children leapt in at the deep end by attending a French school.

Suddenly we were living in France, so we changed the car registrations, paid our taxes and hunkered down.

All was going well until the end of 2009, when a client failed to pay for the work I had done. Sorting this out involved many frustrating encounters with the French authorities, recalcitrant banks and the avaricious tax man.

We made many friends on the way, both English and French, and were really reluctant to give up and go back to Blighty, so I decided that I had to find a proper job. I applied for numerous jobs in France, and also in the UK, to avoid burning bridges.

Just when it all seemed pointless, I found a job that seemed too good to be true and applied with the help of a bilingual friend, because your first letter has to be perfect. To my amazement, I got an interview with the head hunter, all in French. That then led to 12 hours more interviewing, before I found myself as technical director of a family-run manufacturing business with about 300 staff and three factories to run.

My wife has not been idle either; she is a qualified midwife and has done some commuting back to the UK to earn money, but she has now started an English-teaching course and is teaching at a school and an adult education centre. In the two years since we got here, we have also set up a potager and nearly finished the house, while the children are now fully bilingual and as fit as a butcher’s dog.

We have certainly learnt a lot, and it was not the most organised of transitions, but we are here and surviving. Nobody would do it if they tried to plan it; sometimes you need a big shove.