No Graham, the other way round, when I was living in France, I got a job for a French company that wanted an English/French speaking person for one of their contracts in Africa, ( Cameroon) go the job, later I had to go to Tchad for the same company, came back to France for a holiday, but when I was about to go back there, war had started, ( Tchad) so I could not get back there, well I had another holiday I went up to Holland, liked it so much I stayed here, that was over 20 years ago, and I'm still here, I made Holland my base in Europe, since then I've been to Gabon ( building railways through the jungle, came back to Holland, then was off again to Algeria, building 23 supermarkets in the desert.for a British construction company, I was kept on after the buildings were finished as trouble shooter, ( repairs and maintenance ) out of all the workers on the contract only about 3 could speak passable French, .
I was in Norway, building Disco's for the Eskimos, that was a bloody cold job, -27c.
worked around Europe, and one day went to Iraq, again building houses for the workers on the railway, ( 1000kms ) and that job was bloody hot 45-50+c.
here in Holland I live in a nice area, theres a big forest just down the road, where we have deer and wild pigs, but now I've slowed down, ( getting too old for this game) so I'm retired.and settled in my small village, and enjoying life, ...to the English, Italy,France,Belgium,Holland,Danmark, they are countries far away, but to us living here they are countries that are just 2 hours drive away.