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Hi from France

Sun 21-Feb-10
8:54 am

gofarmer

France/Bulgaria

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Sun 21-Feb-10

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Hi!

Just came across the blog and forum. Great to find a forum that actually has active users. Bit about me:

I moved to a farm in Cumbria with my parents when I was around 16. Have to say at first hated the idea of moving out of town but grew to love the country life. My parents have horses and sheep. After university I moved in with my partner at the time onto his family farm and lived there for around 7 years. We had dairy and beef cows and sheep. Was a traditional hill farm. We stopped milking after a while. Myself and my partner set up Gofarmer not long after the F & M crisis when farmers had started to use the internet to showcase their stock at auctions during movement bans. We spent a couple of years promoting it heavily at agricultural fairs and in magazines and newspapers.

However, in 2006 the relationship broke down and I moved out to Bulgaria. I lived there for 3 years and built up a portfolio of property. Houses with half an acre can be bought for under 10,000 Euros and another 10,000 Euros renovates them and you have a lovely home in sunny climate. I worked selling and renovating Bulgarian houses for a couple of years. It was certainly not all plain sailing and faced various difficulties. But I have a lovely home there with a large vegetable plot and each grow all sorts - lettuce, tomatoes, sweet corn, onions, cucumbers and have tried water melons (got to the size of a large marble!) and swedes and so on. There are fruit trees everywhere and I have plum, apple, peach and walnut trees. Every one is self sufficient and pickles everything for winter.

In the winter of 2009 I decided I needed a break and some time out and headed to France for a ski season. Absolutely love France and am just in the process of buying a place here. I intend to spend winters in France and summers in Bulgaria, but need to sell off a few of my Bulgarian houses first.

In the meantime I am working on building up Gofarmer and also do some freelance writing.

I have 3 dogs, all rescued from Bulgaria. I did have 7 dogs and 3 cats at once stage but was a bit mad so rehomed the rest. I support a dog rescue charity in Bulgaria and do what I can to raise funds for them.

Phew! That's me in a nutshell.

Rachel

Get one step ahead - for all your farming and smallholder needs visit http://www.gofarmer.com

Sun 21-Feb-10
9:34 am

tascar

Plelauff, Brittany, France

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Mon 15-Feb-10

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Hi Rachel and welcome to the forum, sounds and looks like you have been very busy, France is the right place to slow down, I'm on the other side in Brittany, you can't get much slower than here. Hope you do well in France, great people, food etc.

Wishing you all the best.

Sun 21-Feb-10
1:21 pm

Danny

Scarborough, England

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Sat 12-Aug-06

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Welcome, Rachel. You certainly have not allowed the grass to grow under your feet!

Good luck with the move and with Gofarmer.

Never knowingly underfed

Sun 21-Feb-10
1:43 pm

brightspark

Wilts

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Wed 30-Dec-09

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Welcome Rachel - you'll love France, as Tascar says - we have a house in France, too, just outside Cognac and the people there are lovely - so friendly and willing to help.

Smile

Women are like tea bags. . .

you never know how strong they are

until they're in hot water.

- Eleanor Roosevelt -

Sun 21-Feb-10
4:33 pm

Toffeeapple

North Bucks

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Tue 22-Sep-09

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Phew, Rachel you wore me out just reading your biography, you must have tremendous energy. I just wanted to welcome you to the Forum but feel I have to go and lie down now! Big_Laugh

I'll try that again!

Sun 21-Feb-10
10:32 pm

Shereen

Near Belfast, Northen Ireland

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Sun 17-Jan-10

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Hi Rachel and welcome to the forum. It's a very friendly place, and perfect to relax in with a cuppa, assuming someone with your energy ever relaxes Wink

Sun 21-Nov-10
12:06 pm

gofarmer

France/Bulgaria

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Sun 21-Feb-10

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Hi!

Now my life is a little less hectic and little more sorted I intend to really build Gofarmer up into a good website and business. As part of this the website is being overhauled (after a server attack) and I have changed the payment system from worldpay to moneybookers as moneybookers is much cheaper to run. However, as it is a little difficult to ensure everything is working as it should be on a test system I am looking for a handful of people to help me test the new site and system.

Basically I will need you to register as a seller on the system to test the credit card processing facility - this will mean you are charged £5. However once signed up I will cancel your subscription and make you a lifetime member, instead of having to pay the subsequent year's fees of £45. So you will get lifetime membership of Gofarmer for £5. You can advertise your poultry, rural crafts, B&Bs etc for sale and more.

If interested please email me directly on rachel@gofarmer.com or post here. I hope to have the website all sorted in a couple of days and the system ready for testing. Basically I'll get one person to test system, find any faults, fix, get another and so on....

Help much appreciated.

Rachel

Get one step ahead - for all your farming and smallholder needs visit http://www.gofarmer.com

Sun 21-Nov-10
6:09 pm

Green Rosie

Calvados, France

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Tue 11-May-10

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Bonjour from another Frenchie here - Calvados this time wave

http://www.eco-gites.blogspot.com

Fri 26-Nov-10
5:43 pm

shelley

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AND ANOTHER!!

from the south west of France !!

Fri 3-Dec-10
1:24 pm

Cherami

Cher France

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Thu 30-Sep-10

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And just like that Another from central France. I bet it's not so sunny in Bulgaria now. doh

Our children reap what we sow

Fri 3-Dec-10
2:39 pm

typhoo

France - ex Ecosse

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Fri 8-Oct-10

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................and another also in Central France, The Creuse in Limousin, welcome. big_hug

Fri 3-Dec-10
5:09 pm

paperman

Saxmundham, Suffolk

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Tue 20-Apr-10

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Welcome to the madhouse of food loonies !! Having just retired some 13 years after establishing the first Internet specialist paper company I had a look at your web site, it looks a very interesting project and I wish you good fortune with it. The Internet is the ideal medium for specialist and niche businesses which is what you are developing. This forum is fantastic, great help when needed and a ready resource plus good company. Welcome aboard, from humble Suffolk the unspoken pearl of the universe.

I have reached an age where my train of thought often leaves the station without me...

Sat 22-Jan-11
11:03 am

gofarmer

France/Bulgaria

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Sun 21-Feb-10

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Thanks for all the messages. Life has been rather hectic these last few months. We returned from summer in Bulgaria around the end of September, after two weeks of travelling around Croatia and Slovenia.

Went straight into setting up our own French business - airport transfers for the Three Valleys ski area and promoting that. So far, we are about a third of the way through the first ski season running our own business and going well.

Now that is all out the way, I have managed to get time to work on promoting Gofarmer. I changed the payment system from Worldpay (RBS) which was very expensive to moneybookers which is free. Took a lot of doing but we got there. Now just discussing promotional ideas with a couple of PR people.

I have managed to sell one of my old Bulgarian houses (for a whopping 3,700 E) but hey one down.....and have some enquiries for a couple of the others and in the meantime we have agreed to buy an apartment on the Black Sea coast and are interested in getting a mobile home somewhere on the south coast of France. So its all go......

Got the garlic in just before the first snows arrived and am planning on getting some seedlings started in a mini greenhouse for the summer veggies. We have a large plot (for a ski resort) and a friend grows veggies over the summer for her chalet while we are back in Bulgaria.

Get one step ahead - for all your farming and smallholder needs visit http://www.gofarmer.com

Sat 9-Jan-16
10:54 am

thetravelbug

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Sat 9-Jan-16

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Wow, well last post was Jan 2011 - lots happened since then. We have been selling off various properties we own in Bulgaria. In spring go 2013 we closed down the business in France and decided to try Austria, where we bought an old farm house. We split our time between Austria and Bulgaria. Our stray dog charity has taken off and we now spend most of our time dedicated to this. And with that in mind we are now selling up in Austria (if anyone wants an old traditional farmhouse, recently renovated) and moving back to Bulgaria full time.

Gofarmer has taken bit of a back burner and not really sure of what I'll do with that at the moment. I do have it listed for sale but may just change it and take it in a different direction.

Life in Bulgaria - http://www.thetravelbug.org

Sat 9-Jan-16
11:01 am