Reinvention isn’t just a change—it’s an art, and Susan Hays has mastered it, French style. In this episode, Susan Hays shares her journey of reinventing herself after settling in southwestern France. From managing a guest cottage to curating a boutique vintage shop and assisting clients with property searches, Susan has built a fulfilling life centered on passion and purpose. She reveals how she combines her love for France with entrepreneurial spirit, creating a life that embraces change and thrives on connection. Tune in for Susan’s insights on adaptability, building a business, and living with gusto, all inspired by the charm of French living.

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Reinventing Yourself, French Style: Susan Hays’ Inspiring Journey
How To Please Yourself By Helping Others

Welcome to the show, a show dedicated to providing a platform for people who are growing older in a positive and productive way to dispense their wisdom. You can find out more about our show by going to our website at www.GrowingOlderWithGusto.com. Our guest is a woman by the name of Susan Hays who has shown by example how to reinvent herself as she is growing older.

She is coming to us from Southwestern France and talking to Susan about her life makes it clear she’s like a controlled tornado. She grew up on a farm in Southern England loving outdoor adventures and a passion for horseback riding. She moved to London to work as an adult where she met her husband, Roddy, and they moved around a bit, floating among three different continents.

Craving warm weather brought them back to France with their five kids where they tested the waters in Provence and Pyrenees. The past twelve years, they have settled into an area in Southwestern France. I think I’m pronouncing this right, Charente-Maritime, where Susan is happily engaged in a property search and relocation business, a guest cottage endeavor, and an online boutique business. I think I need a nap already.

 

 

Welcome to the show, Susan. Great to have you.

It’s an absolute honor to be here. Thank you for having me.

In talking to your childhood experiences seem magical in themselves. I know that horses and physical activity seem to be the predominant theme. I was wondering, looking back on your formative years, how did they create a platform for you to continue Growing Older with Gusto?

Get Up And Go: Embracing An Active Life

I think I’m a great believer in just getting on and doing something. I think being a farmer’s daughter, even though we had help on the farm, you learn just to get on and do things. If I want something done, just go for it. Always believe in yourself, and do your best. Also just to be outside as much as possible. I’m a great believer in outside doing physical activity as much as possible. Somebody once gave me some advice, actually quite recently, and it’s when you get up in the morning, no matter what the weather, stand outside and just feel fresh air for five minutes. I now do that, whether it’s rain or shine, and somehow it just sets you up for the day.

When you get up in the morning, no matter what the weather is, stand out and just feel the fresh air for five minutes.

That’s a great idea. I’ll try that. Now that I’m living in a warmer climate will help.

That’s true. Sometimes when it’s cold, it’s quite tough. I haven’t gone the cold bath that route.

I was just going to say, I don’t think I’m going to be a candidate for a cold climate. Nonetheless, me neither. I just cannot, no. You moved from southern England to London where you received a pilot’s license. How did that come about?

I started working in London and I was actually terrified of flying and it was I would go on holiday and whenever I was on holiday, I would worry the whole time that I had to come back and get on that airplane again. I was sharing an apartment with a lady who was older than me but she also was a private pilot instructor. She said, “Just come and do a trial flight and a little plane and see if you enjoy it.” Funny enough, I really did enjoy it. I joined the flying club and went on to take my private pilot’s license which sadly is no longer current, but it was a magical time.

I remember when I was quite younger, I used to always love the takeoffs and the landings. It was always thrilling, but having a fear of heights, I don’t think I could ever do what you did.

It was fine if they were little planes. Now I love it. Cured my fear of flying for little planes. Little planes I absolutely love. Big planes, I still hate them. I count down the seconds, literally hate it. Little planes this, we went with the flying club, we went all the way down through France. We circled Mont Blanc in the Aerobatic plane, I did acrobatics. We did just so much over, it was magical.

Love, Life, And Big Game Fishing: A World Record Adventure

Tell us how you met your husband, Roddy, how did, and how it changed your life.

We met because I went on holiday with some work friends from London, we were with Lloyd’s insurance. We met actually when he was fishing on the island of Madeira, and he had his own sports fishing business. I met because we hired one of his boats and went fishing.

Speaking of fishing, you mentioned to me that you won the world record for big-game fishing. Like where were you living? How did you get involved? Was that through Roddy?

That again was through Roddy. This was after we had just thought of number one at the time. He was contracted to go and work for somebody on the island of Midway, which is a long way south of Hawaii. I went out there, but only for a short time. He was out there for several months. I went out there for a couple of weeks. Whilst I was there, we decided to go for a couple of wild records and succeeded. Still standing to this day. I was quite proud of that. I did a lot of fishing with him. Amazing.

Did that require you to really not talk a lot? Why you make me catch the fish?

It’s serious, but we work as a good team. He’s always been a boat captain. When we don’t have paying clients, then I will be his angler for the day. Basically ever since we met, so for 30 years or so now, we’ve been a team and always worked together, always. It’s just worked for us.

I know your family expanded rapidly and you ended up having five children. I’m curious, how did you manage to juggle parenting and all your other activities?

I don’t know. I absolutely love children and they come before everything always. The youngest is now eighteen so technically they’re all adults, but they will always still come before anything. For me, the children are my life. They just joined in. They were really easy children, I guess, if they had been really difficult children, maybe we would only have had one. In fact, the only one that was a bad sleeper and really difficult was the very last one. Maybe that’s why we only had five. Aside from her, all the others slept absolutely beautifully. She was just a bad sleeper till she was about ten.

That’s funny. Maybe she had a lot of excess energy knowing who her parents were.

Yes, she was always the one in charge in charge of all of her siblings and always has been.

Returning To France: Creating A Life In The Countryside

Now I know that you and Roddy found France to be your favorite place. You ended up moving back there after living on several different continents before you landed in this area which you’re calling your favorite spot. Could you pronounce that again for me?

Charente-Maritime.

Very nice. Tell us a little bit about how you got back there and why you’re there and why it’s such a special spot of yours.

My great-grandmother was French, so I always had a love of France and Normandy. I still actually do love Normandy. What is from the Channel Islands, which are little islands, actually part of the United Kingdom, but they are off the coast of Normandy, so they’re much closer to France than England. He always used to come across to France a lot. For both of us, we had this love of France, Normandy in particular but the weather is not.

I hate cold winters and I hate long gray winters, much though I love Normandy. We decided to settle further south. We were in Provence, did not go too well for us. We were burgled and it’s a long story, but eventually, we had to go abroad for work and we came back and we went abroad and we came back. When we came back the third time, having made two costly and rookie errors when you buy something in the summer and you think everything’s wonderful and you don’t check things out.

There was nobody to speak to or to give us advice except for locals that we might meet. When we came back the last time nearly twelve years ago, we had a checklist and we really stuck to it and we knew our eldest daughter was at university in the UK. We wanted to have good transport links to her. We wanted to be relatively close to the coast. We wanted a good-sized city town within twenty minutes, a good community spirit. We knew exactly what we wanted and we knew this area.

We came here, we looked around and just completely fell in love with it. We have a great microclimate. We have guaranteed long summers. We have the second sunniest driest area in France after the Mediterranean. We do get those wonderful warm summers but we also get very short, mild winters. I never think winter doesn’t really start till December. Now we’re January, the mimosa’s out, and daffodils will be out next month. February, we get days in the 20s, which is low 70s Fahrenheit, and spring is here. It’s life just great.

I should mention to our readers that you have a wonderful newsletter that you sent out almost weekly, I think, with some actually exquisite photography that really illustrates exactly what you’re talking about, about this part of France. I’m a Francophile, so I like France too. It’s intriguing. It’s an interesting pocket of France that I’m certain that a lot of people aren’t aware of.

No, it’s we call it a really well-kept secret. It’s absolutely loved by Parisians. Many have second homes here. That’s a really good thing because actually it’s kept it quite cosmopolitan. There are things open. A lot of places in France tend to that especially places that are touristy tend to die a little bit in the winter and become a bit like ghost towns. This is because it is so cosmopolitan. It’s open all year round. You can always get a good cup of coffee. You can get a good restaurant. It just keeps it quite buzzing. It’s rural, it’s quiet, but it’s not backward. It’s just got a great feel to it.

It sounds like it has everything you could ask where all rolled up into one, which is unusual and really special.

It’s not super touristy because as you’re saying, it’s not known by outsiders in the way that a lot of other areas of France, a lot of people when they think of France, think of Paris, Provence, and maybe Normandy. That is France, but there is so much more.

The Enchanting Cottage: A Retreat In Southwestern France

Great. Now that you said your youngest is eighteen and your kids have left the nest, let’s talk a little bit about what you’ve been up to. I know from your newsletter, you have this enchanting-looking cottage. Can you tell us more about it?

When we came back here nearly twelve years ago, we didn’t actually live where we’re living now. We were twenty minutes down the road, twenty minutes close to the coast. We always wanted to have a guest cottage. We really liked the hospitality business. We’ve done a lot in the hospitality business together.

That was a dream to be able to bring people to France and not just the cottage that we rented out for money. That’s really stayed the same now that we’ve moved here. We also have a guest cottage. It’s purely for two people. It’s very small. It’s very exclusive. We want to be able to bring people here and welcome them so that they feel that they can come and escape and we can chat with them and offer them a glass of wine.

Very often we have a meal with them and we invite them over to our courtyard for dinner. We want it to feel like a wonderful experience for them, not like they’ve just rented somewhere like an Airbnb and that’s it they come and they go and write a review or whatever. We want this to be something really special, which is another reason we don’t do a booking calendar or anything because it’s emails before people come so that you get to know people and I want people to really experience France when they’re here.

Tell us a little bit about what a typical day might be for somebody coming to stay in your cottage.

Here we’re really lucky, because it’s a little village of about 650 people, probably near a thousand in summer, but not very big. It’s on the river, and it’s only two designated swimming areas on this river, on the river Charente. It has been a designated swimming area for 80 years. We also have three restaurants in the village and a riverside cafe, which is open from April until October, because that’s only outdoors.

We have a boulangerie, we have a couple of little shops, a little grocery store. People can really come. There is no parking on site. There’s only public car parking in the car park because the access to the cottage is down through the garden. They have their own access. They’re totally private from us. They don’t have to see us at all if they don’t want to, but they do have the pool which we use as well. If guests are there swimming, we won’t go and intrude on them anyway. They walk through our garden. They can have breakfast sitting on the south-facing terrace.

They can go for swims. They can walk down to the river. They can walk to two different chateaux with fascinating stone carvings because our local Charinters stone is very famous. You can go swimming in the river, you can rent boats, you can rent a kayak, and then if you want to go in your car you can go off and explore the Roman city of Sant, which is fantastic, modern but really old at the same time. There is just so much to do. Also, you can throw away your car keys and just say, “I’m just going to walk.” There is also high-speed Wi-Fi because some sadly that’s the world we live in. We all like to be connected at the same time.

That’s the world we live in—we all like to be connected at the same time.

 

From Property Search To Online Boutique: A Multifaceted Entrepreneur

That sounds great. Let’s talk a little bit about your property relocation service like describing the type of person and properties you’re matching up and how you want to.

That’s like saying how long is a piece of string because we have clients who are in their 30s who want a second home that is $110,000, or we have clients who are in their 70s. We have people looking for properties that are $800,000, we have people looking for tiny places that are $100,000. It literally is what people want. People want a town, other people want something in the country and don’t want any neighbors. It’s literally what people want, some people want to move here permanently, some people want an apartment, and some people want something they can come to once a year. It’s really all sorts of things.

It sounds like a potpourri of a lot of different people.

I think when you’re going to buy a property, you spend the biggest investment you make in your life pretty much and I think often. I know I spend longer thinking, “Am I going to buy a dress or a skirt or something than I do a house. I’ll go and look at something and I’ll go away and I’ll think if I like it in a couple of days time.”

A house, very often you look at for an hour and a half, and then you spend hundreds of thousands and you think, “Why would I not spend just a few thousand and really a very tiny percentage more and get a lot of expert advice and second opinions and everything else at the same time.” We made two very costly mistakes and then we helped somebody find a property here and they said, “You should really do this to help other people.”

This was seven years ago now. We did and it’s just wonderful to help people find out exactly what they want and then find places that probably aren’t on the open market. A lot of agents we work with left us to know about properties long before they even hit the open market. We get first dibs on things. We help people say, “Look, this is a really great place, but this maybe is not for you because it’s going to need so much work and we can get costs and things for everybody too.”

It’s wonderful to help people find out exactly what they want.

I guess that involves you having to have a big resource list of people, if people are willing to renovate or whatever, as opposed to turnkey. You would be aware of that.

We have a list of artisans and electricians, plumbers, and roofing people that we really trust. Some people, we have some clients at the moment who their property is going through, but they absolutely wanted no renovation whatsoever. They’ve bought a house that needs full renovation because they just fell in love with the location of the house, the village it’s in, everything about it, the history, the views and they just said, “We’ll do the renovation, but can you get us some quotes first and an idea? It’s even got asbestos in the property that needs removing.”

We got all of those quotes first. The agent we worked with was really good. She said I will take it off the market and hold it, but you’re not committed to anything until we’ve got these quotes back. They’re abroad, they’re on a different continent. They could not possibly have done this on their own. If they did, it would have cost them a fortune way more than we charge just to come back and forth and stay places and try and find artisans to give them quotes when you don’t know anybody. I mean, some things like this are just so hard to do. We know we’ve been there and it is so hard. I wish we’d had somebody that could advise us back then. We’d have saved so much money.

It’s so nice that you’ve taken your expertise and been able to help other people. I think that’s wonderful. I’m curious, like are the people that are coming to you to relocate, are they mainly from France? Are they from other countries or far away?

 

 

Everywhere. We have, just to name a few, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, America, of course, the UK, French, Germans, Italian everywhere. Even a couple who live in Paris, because it’s just too much for them to keep coming back and down. The problem with French estate agents or real estate agents is their details are quite often quite far removed from what you actually get in reality. They show you what they want to show you.

When you sell a house for example, in the States, they tend to be staged and you can see almost a blank canvas. Here you will see a photo with somebody’s washing up all over the sink and laundry all over everywhere. You’ve got to be able to think outside the box to even imagine what half of these places look like. Very rarely any floor plans. Some of the better agents do, but a lot of the really good properties are not necessarily the better agents.

They’re with more of the local French agents and then the details are really useless. You come and look at something and then you find out that there’s a great big electricity pile. Next door there’s an old rusty old factory next door or a pig farm next door or something but nobody’s going to tell you that.

If you’ve come from another country and then you look at all these properties and I’ve seen so many people go away and feel so dejected because it’s just like, “How can we do this?” We do the shortlist. We go and view properties for people and take videos. We do virtual tours. We do live virtual tours with them. We just get them up on WhatsApp and say, “We’re going to walk around so you can ask questions.”

People come here and they normally have a short list that we’ve drawn up of maybe 5, or 6 properties with them. They know what they’re looking at. We can show them where the nearest cafes are, where they’re going to be able to do this, where there would be a doctor, how far it is to the hospital, and just all those things that we all need to know in. Often if it’s in another language as well, it’s pretty hard.

It is. My husband and I were in Tokyo a few months back. We were trying to catch the bullet train at the Tokyo train station. Nobody spoke English. It’s very scary.

It is. If you don’t know and it’s something I don’t think you realize until you go to another country and suddenly you’re like, “How can I express myself?” It’s quite scary.

It is. Let’s chat a little bit now about your online business. What is it called? What kinds of items are you having on your online business?

It’s purely Faucon, vintage, and antique French items that I find. Mostly, it started off when we first came here, so I would go around Faucon and buy things. I don’t really do that anymore because Faucon’s have actually changed a lot and you get far fewer bargains and there’s an awful lot of clothing and plastic things that have come in.

Now because I’ve got no and I get invited to private sales when people are selling manure and chateau and I tend to go around and then just pick very few. I don’t have a great big inventory, maybe 30 pieces sometimes only 20, not a huge amount at all. I just pick things that I would want. Things that I think I would like that in my home. It’s a very small thing. It’s not a mainline part of the business at all. It’s something that I find very interesting, and fascinating.

It is, it’s great.

I love that why go and buy a pot that is made in China to look old when you could buy the real thing for maybe less money or certainly no more? I think it’s lovely looking at things and thinking like a confit pot was used for preserving duck 150 years ago and they would put it in the ground. Now everybody loves them. The pots are part yellow or part green around the top and about a foot high. They were actually used in the kitchen, say, before refrigeration, they would fill them with fat, duck fat, then put the meat in and then put them in the ground up to the mark where it is painted. That’s why it is only half-glazed. The inside is completely glazed. That’s how they would preserve their meat all winter.

Luxury Experiences And Chateau Stays: Unique Offerings For Travelers

This is interesting. I never knew that’s really interesting. I also know that you’ve talked to me a little bit about some very special offerings that you have coming up. I know our readers will find them most appealing. I’d like to talk first about your first offering, which is a four-night luxury experience. It’s geared basically for a couple or maybe two friends. How would you describe this experience?

This came about quite by chance because last year or the year before, we had quite a few people staying in the Gite and who asked if I would accompany them places, would I take them to the Il Doré? Would I go and do things with them? We thought a lot of people, sometimes solo travelers, sometimes groups, sometimes a couple of friends.

They want to see more, but they’re a little bit nervous about how to see more because this isn’t your mainline tourist area where everybody knows you should go here, here, here. We thought there were so many people offering huge retreats for a lot of people. Why not offer something really just for a couple at far more basic prices in our own jeet?

People can come and tailor-make for what they wish rather. It became so popular that we did first of all, started with just one date that we said, “We could do this.” Not a huge amount because I don’t want to do back-to-back ones my husband doesn’t either. We’re both very adamant about that because it’s got to stay a passion for us. It’s more about people loving it than making money, which is probably why we’ll never be rich because even our property business is all about helping people more than a business making money.

 

 

Your life sounds very rich to me.

Exactly, it’s rich in the fact that we love helping people. People can tailor-make what they want, not everybody wants workshops. Some people would rather just do antique hunting, some people would like to tour chateau, some people would like to just tour domains and see how wine and cognac are made, and other people want to do just workshops.

We said, “If it’s just two people, why not tailor make this to what they want precisely?” Let’s say rather than just the set four days which sold out instantly, and therefore I had a lot of people saying, “What can we do? Why not say we can do this anytime from the 1st of May until the 30th of September?” A four-night thing, you let us know. We have very limited dates because A, the G is booked, and the guest cottage is booked for people on general vacation anyway. B, we only want to do it once a month.

I don’t want to do this all the time because as I say, “It won’t be special.” Why not let people choose their dates and we will see if we can work with them and then let people choose? “I want to do a mixture of this, this, this.” It’s totally everything is all-inclusive. Their breakfast, their lunch, their dinner. Some people want to meet other local expats, which we’ve found have a cocktail party and let them meet other people who have made this their home. It’s a tailor-made holiday.

That’s great. There’s another offering you mentioned that’s geared to a much larger group and super special because the guests are going to stay for six nights at a special chateau. Can you tell us more about that?

That is something that I am doing with a really dear friend of mine, Wendy, who is based at the Phineas Wright House in Massachusetts. We do this together. It’s a joint venture. She’s been doing retreats for several years now, notably to Paris, hugely successful. She’s a lovely lady and a dear friend. She knows somebody here, which is how we were first introduced, that we do this together.

This is the thing, I found a chateau quite locally, went to meet the people, and toured it. It was absolutely perfect. We rent the Chateau. This is very different, as you say because it’s a larger group. There’s a minivan to take everybody around. We have a Parisian chef who cooks at the Chateau. It’s a very different experience. There’s a set itinerary, obviously, because with a larger number of people, you have to do that. Again, it’s fabulous for solo travelers. You still get your own ensuite bedroom in the Chateau. Chateau Live swimming pool.

Where exactly is this church located, Susan? Where is it located?

It’s located in the Chardente-Maritime near the village of Saint-Savinien. It’s about ten minutes from where we live and about fifteen minutes from the historical city of Saint and beautifully located. It’s in many acres of its own parkland. It’s absolutely beautiful, built in the late 1700s, and has been in the same family ever since it was built.

Sounds beautiful.

It is, and so totally different experience. For people that want to come and meet other people, some people like doing things on their own. Other people like larger groups and going around in a more knowing exactly what they’re doing months in advance.

What’s the timing on this one?

That one this year is the last week of August. Last year we did it in September. This year we’ve moved it forward to the last week of August. We do have a couple of spaces still available. It is absolutely superb. I’m fully on board. I join every single activity, there at night, eating the whole thing in the Chateau. We have a Parisian chef who does all the catering in the Chateau. There are dinners out there are incredible workshops. I think one of the favorites last year was a jeweler who makes sterling silver jewelry and that was fascinating. Again, in a chateau and lunch was served in the chateau.

You are cooking classes?

We do, our Parisian-trained chef, rather than accept cooking class, he will cook dinner and then explain and teach people exactly what they want to learn while he’s cooking dinner. Last year, the last night, we had everybody eating in the kitchen rather than in the more formal dining room. Everybody sat around and first, we started with the basic knife skills, which even that is quite mind-blowing. Showed how to make what he was serving for dinner that night, which was actually fish. Just everybody is welcome to come and ask. Any night when he’s cooking, people are welcome to go into the kitchen and join him and ask questions, and watch. You can have a cooking class the whole time if you want to.

Reach Out To Susan For More!

That’s incredible. That sounds like so much fun. Susan, this has been such an interesting and fascinating conversation and you definitely are a fabulous example of somebody Growing Older with Gusto. I want you to tell our readers how they can reach you, whether it’s for wanting to buy property near you or come to one of your special events that you’re holding, or trying to buy something from your wonderful online business. Let our readers know.

There were two, the best way is either on Instagram or if anybody’s on Instagram, my Instagram handle is @OurFrenchOasis and always send me a direct message on Instagram and I do answer every single one. There are quite a lot, so sometimes I don’t get back within the hour or even five hours, but I do always answer every single one. The other way is through our website, which is www.OurFrenchLifestyle.com. Join the website you can also sign up totally for free. I’ve never charged for anything to our newsletter which has several thousand subscribers and emails go out. It’s most weeks.

It is a great newsletter I will add. I can tell you put your heart and soul into it.

I do and sometimes I think that’s why sometimes it doesn’t go out every week because sometimes I don’t have time but it’s nearly always every week.

It is.

It’s sometimes Saturday, sometimes Sunday, occasionally it’s a Monday instead. I mean this weekend we were taking our daughter back to university in Normandy so it went out on Monday because I wanted to write about where we’d been. Because I don’t charge, it’s a totally free thing and it’s something I love doing, I’m not setting it to a clockwork time.

It doesn’t matter when it arrives, whether it’s Saturday, Sunday or Monday, I always love it.

On our website, there is also a contact form so you can email me. I love getting emails from people. On our website, you will also find under the heading experiences, everything about stays here. How you can join the retreats. There are also details on our guest cottage and the online shop. Our property business just loves chatting with people. People love France because that’s what we have all in common. We love France, so I’m really happy to talk about that.

From one Francophile to another, I thank you so much for this conversation. For my readers, please share this podcast and listen to it on any podcast platform where you get your podcast or our YouTube channel at Growing Older with Gusto or go to our website at www.GrowingOlderwithGusto.com and subscribe and please share this podcast with your friends and family. Thanks for reading and remember, stay curious and stay connected. Thank you, Susan.

Thank you. It’s been an absolute pleasure.

 

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