About Karine

Karine Chevalier-Watts was born on 8 August 1971 in Lozère, France but spent most of her youth in Provence. 
From a very early age, she was fascinated by foreign languages and by the age of 17, could already speak English, Spanish and Russian which she learnt at school.  After obtaining her A’Levels in Arts with Distinction in 1989, she pursued her studies at the prestigious Université d’Aix-en-Provence where she graduated with an English Bachelor’s Degree with Honours in 1993.
After a year spent in Dorset as a French language assistant in a high-school as part of a University exchange, Karine returned to Aix-en-Provence to prepare for the highly selective French national competitive exam of “CAPES” which she passed with Distinction in 1995, fully qualifying her as a language teacher throughout the European Economic Area.
After 3 years spent teaching English and French in several secondary schools, Karine permanently moved to England in 1998 to join her English husband Tim whom she’d met on vacation in the summer of 1995 in Wiltshire.
Once in England, Karine successfully re-trained as a language teacher for business and worked on a self-employed basis as a French & English teacher, translator and interpreter for both British and French companies. 
Meanwhile, Karine embarked on a 3 year Business Studies course at Wiltshire College and obtained an RSA III Diploma with Honours in 2002, qualifying her as a multilingual and legal Executive Assistant.
She subsequently found full time employment with a number of renowned local companies, using her languages and administrative skills, managing busy offices in the food, farm and drinks industry, the legal sector, garden design, landscape architecture and housing.  In each of these jobs, she dealt with a variety of business partners nationally and overseas thus expanding her multicultural knowledge, honing her foreign languages fluency and started learning Italian as well.
Karine lives in Wiltshire with her husband Tim, her beloved cats and rabbits.  A keen animal-lover, environmentalist and humanitarian at heart, Karine enjoys volunteering for charitable organisations such as The Cats Action Trust (N&W Wilts), Cats Protection League, The Bath & District Tibet Support Group.  In the past, she’s been the secretary for the Leigh Park Residents Association in Westbury, and the White Horse Opera in Devizes. She’s also passionate about the Arts, design, fashion, architecture, gardening, music, and movies…She also loves reading, exercising and socialising.