Welcome to Autumn

The November 2010 Newsletter 1

Clocks have changed on both sides of the Channel and it’s certainly starting to feel more Autumnal these past few weeks – certainly in the UK anyway. We’re off to France for a couple of weeks during November, having finally convinced ourselves we aren’t going to get caught without fuel or have our ferry turned away at Caen Ouistreham due to the industrial action. I hope you weren’t impacted too much by the recent action. I have made my own views about the retirement age increase known on the blog in my response to Nicola’s Sarkozy v Oil Refinery Workers post. If you were impacted, or if you have a view, why not add your comments too?

I’m pleased to welcome Stephanie Godwin as our newest guest blogger. Stephanie and husband Jeremy moved to Mayenne in France in 2001 to begin renovating an old farm they had bought. As well as running their French Accountancy Services business, Stephanie and Jeremy have also turned their hobby of breeding Parson Russell Terriers into a business.

We had another bumper traffic month in October, beating our previous best month (September) by 20%. This is due in large part to the quality of contributions from our guest bloggers. I hope that you find the blog a real quality read and that you will help us achieve an even better result for November.

If you are a keen writer and would like to keep us updated on your life in France, please see the section at the end of this issue. It’s easy and fun and can help you get more traffic for your own website in the process. An interest in Brittany or the Pays de la Loire region of France is all that it takes (even if you don’t live or work there full-time).

Post of the Month

This month I really enjoyed reading the account from Nicola Harrington, one of our most prolific guest bloggers, who turned 11,000 apples into 600 litres of apple juice in a single morning. The apples could have been turned into cider, but the moon was in the wrong phase. It sounds like quite a bit of work, but, I imagine, incredibly satisfying (as well as thirst-quenching in the end)…

Read “Making cider from apple juice” and “Do not press apples on a descending moon” here.

Holiday Property Rentals – looking forward to 2011

For the holiday property rental owners amongst you, I have to say I am a little surprised by the outcome of our survey to find out how your 2010 bookings have compared with 2009. Anecdotal evidence had suggested that holiday rental owners in France (or at least in North-West France where the survey was targeted) had experienced some hard times this year, but the results suggest otherwise. Ok, with less than 100 respondents it is hardly representative given that there are thousands of holiday property owners in this part of the World, but nevertheless, they do suggest that things haven’t been quite as bad as I had imagined.

Let us know what your expectations are for 2011. Are your 2011 bookings coming in later than usual, and do you think that the industrial unrest will have an impact?

Take a look at our 2010 survey results and leave your thoughts about what 2011 holds here…

Want to improve your profile?

From helping to vent your issues with French bureaucracy to building the trust of like-minded individuals, a regular blogging spot could be for you. As well as enlightening our readers it could help you to do more business – blogging is a great way of developing a passive following from people who could be more inclined to do business with you if they can see that you have a knowledge of, or interest in, a subject relevant to their needs…

Find out more about contributing regular posts

Our Fresh New Offer

This blog is based on WordPress architecture and uses a premium theme to deliver a neat design. Whilst WordPress has traditionally been associated with blogging it is rapidly becoming a framework suitable for the development of fully functional websites too, with integrated blogs, nice SEO features, and an easy content management system so that website owners can add and edit pages, add images, change navigation, etc. without having to ask an expensive web designer to do it for them.

I am proud to announce a brand new website package. Called Freshen-Up, it is aimed at business owners whose websites are looking a little tired and dated. Starting at just £149 a FRESHEN-UP package can revitalise your website, using your existing content and images to produce a brand new website with attractive styling, a content management system to allow you to easily make future changes, an integrated blog, and a very search-engine friendly site to help grow your traffic organically.

If your website could do with a FRESHEN-UP, get in touch and ask us for more details…

Find out more about FRESHEN-UP

Until next time…

Martin Jarvis, Blogger, and Website Developer

Oh, and if you are on Twitter you can follow me on Twitter here.

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