3rd March 2021
When I first started this blog, I seem to remember that the plan was to add to
it every week - oh well, the best plans of mice and men and all that........the
road to hell is paved with good intentions! well, maybe not quite hell, but certainly procrastination.
20th February 2022
…………and here we are again, almost one year later and I don’t
think I even finished off the previous paragraph (I have now by adding - "but certainly procrastination") Rather than having the
intention of a blog post every week, maybe one every couple of years might have been a
little more realistic! I don’t think it is finding things to write about that
is the problem, the problem is more to do with what not to write about – and the
photos, they make it more interesting of course, visually describe what I am rattling
on about, but they are such a pain to have to find and slot in amongst the
words.
It is quite a reflective time at the moment, it always is at
this time of the year because this is when, four years ago, we sold our house
in Kent and had to look for a house to live in here in France
It was on the 12th February 2018 that we arrived back in France
after the absence of a week to visit this house a second time.
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| The house as it was before we moved in. |
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We have been to our friend Helen for dinner tonight and four years ago. We
popped into the house of this very kind lady called Helen who said we should
pop in for coffee after she saw a post on Facebook asking what it’s like to
live in Montpinchon – we ended up staying for dinner that evening too and then
drove back up to the house to have another look. There were no gates or fencing
at the front of the house then.
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The entrance gates. We made all the fencing from scratch.
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It was a cold, clear starry night and we drove into the
driveway and just looked at the stars. The sky seemed to big and so wide, I
don’t think I remembered seeing so many stars before and then and there we
decided that this would be a good place to live and made our offer the next
day. On the 14th February, we had our St. Valentine’s dinner on the
ferry having made a successful offer on the house we now live in – our home.
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| Valentines
day dinner on the ferry coming home after buying the house, February 2018 |
We have front gates now, a fence and a front garden, an orchard, a chicken coup and six
chickens. The old boiler room is now our kitchen, the back garden is transformed,
and we have such exciting plans for the future.
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The old boiler room was 30m square, it is now our kitchen
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We have a home that we love and
two developing businesses, one of which is a chambre d’hotes ( La Bicyclette Bleue ) the other being
Freddy’s translation and hand holding business, (Shadows25/50 ) both of which are building
nicely. Freddy is now a Councillor in Montpinchon, and he runs both a free
French group which I attend and a small Anglo-French choir in the old village
school. I started a Montpinchon community Facebook page during the first lockdown, I attend a second French group every week and my French is gradually
progressing – this is our home, but home is about more than a house, it's about
building a life, making new friends, enjoying new experiences and fighting
through adversary together. We’ve had plenty of that. Since we have been here,
we’ve lost three of our cats, my mum was very ill and Freddy’s mum died, my face
became paralysed due to Bells Palsy and then it recovered again, and we have
been through a worldwide pandemic. No-one is saying of course that life in France
is perfect, but generally it’s been a good choice for us – through thick and
thin, fun and adversity, it is our home.  |
The back garden as it was before we moved in
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| Working on the back garden during the first lockdown in 2020. | | | | | |
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Montpinchon choir's first concert in December 2021 - the size has now doubled and the second concert is planned for April 2022.
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Wait for the next thrilling instalment………………………….but
don’t hold your breath!
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