Seven years ago today we started a new chapter in our lives; all our belongings were safely in storage with the exception of the basics, which we packed into our 2 cars and set off in convoy to Folkstone with 2 one-way Eurotunnel tickets and lots of hope.
Ed has now lived 2/3’s of his life in France, we’ve spent more of our married life in this house than any other and our lives have changed irrevocably. We all have a better understanding of the language (but still lots to learn), we are a fitter family then when we arrived and spend much more time together and enjoying the outdoors than we used to and we have definitely slowed our pace of life to match French time! The quality and production of our food has also become a very important focus for me especially.
It hasn’t all been idyllic; we have had our problems with understanding, loneliness, dodgy workmen and bureaucracy as have most expats and despite having more time there still isn’t enough time, a bigger house doesn’t mean enough space for everything and 3 bathrooms just means more cleaning! Also, although we travel back to UK more than most, there is still never enough time to see family and friends for long enough.
But it has been and still is an adventure that I am glad we started and wherever we end up in the future we will have these memories and experiences forever - there will always be a bit of my French village in my heart.
For more on our life in France http://www.frenchvillagediaries.com
Thanks Karen, and well done to you too.
well done on your 7. We were 7 three weeks ago too - still loving it.
Thanks Catherine, silly question, but when you say ‘add your blog to SFN’ I have the blog RSS linked to my page and I joined the bloggers group and linked from there months ago and then every so often I re-post a post like I’ve done here, is there something else I’m missing? Thanks, Jacqui.
Hi Jacqueline - don’t forget that if you add your ( excellent) blog to SFN, you will increase the traffic - Mark Sampson will testify!
I agree totally about the adventure element too - life is for living!
Thanks James.