New to France, Cote d'Azur

I am new to the Cote d'Azur in France having come recently from Australia (Melbourne). My daughter is enrolled in a diploma at an ecole superieure and I decided to come with her and lounge around/work from home.  I was an academic/scientist in biological and medical science and now am running a very small business as a scientific/medical editor and sometimes translator (French-English).  This keeps me busy enough but allows me to work anywhere and thus to follow my daughter to France. I am looking forward to living here - at least when we get more established and it feels a bit more like home.  I have lived in Paris, Geneva, Bordeaux and Limoges before, so am not entirely unused to France, but French bureaucracy has not got any easier - or maybe I have less patience with it.  I think, in fact, I never had much patience with the bureaucracy.....