To our next au pair. Last year we had the great privilege to host an au pair who became a vital and much loved member of our family. Unfortunately for us she left to continue her university studies in September and we thought we could manage without her, but we can’t! We are now looking for the next new member of our family! Our situation is unusual and we are looking for somebody who holds the same values and interests as us. If your main interests are cities and coffee shops and cinemas and shopping then you may find yourself rather bored here. If you like mountains and sunsets and animals and fresh air then your opportunities for amusement here will be limitless. We live in the deep countryside of central France in a very old house that we are renovating. We have many different kinds of animals and a very large garden and forest. Our young children are fearless and independent and most of what we require help with is supervision when we are called away on the farm, doing craft projects with them for example when we have work to do on the farm, helping us to get ready for school in the mornings, tidying up around them and making meals. Your timetable will be varied every week, but we will make sure that you do not work more than the hours that we agree with you. You will have a room in a separate building from us so you must not be nervous about living on your own! It’s only a few metres from the building we are staying in, but it might be a little quiet at night. The upside of this is that you’ll have a lot of your own independent space and you can walk away from our family when you need your time alone. We live a 15 minute walk from a small French village and from there there is a bus once or twice a day to a small town in the Rhône valley. From this small town you can take a train to Lyon, one of Frances’s biggest cities, which takes about one hour. So you can see that we are actually quite remote, but because of this, we are very happy if you want to take weekends off from time to time to go and stay in a larger city. We would welcome somebody who loves the outdoors and who has experience looking after young children. French law surrounding au pair visas means that you must have just finished studying or still be studying and you must be 26 years of age or under. We would prefer you to have already had a pair experience in Europe, but you do not need to be in Europe right now. We are willing to help you with the Visa but will give priority to those who have already spent time in Europe as an au pair and can provide us with the details of the families that you worked with and allow us to speak with them. I’m sorry but we cannot accept anybody who does not fulfil the legal requirements for au pairs in France.