🇫🇷1: One year in our new home
Clueless musings from the last year of having a permanent base.
Notes From France was a (almost) weekly post I shared on my Instagram on a Sunday. It was my weekend magazine supplement to share a bit of BTS of moving from east London to rural France.
🏠 1st October marks 1 year since we bought our house in the Var. Being rooted in one physical place has allowed me to feel more settled.
🏞️ We had an offer on a house before we moved here. But then the seller didn’t find anywhere else she wanted to live next and was happy to leave us waiting for an unlimited time. It fell through.
💵We struggled to rent because our payslips were English and we were self-employed.
💸Despite having the cash in the bank from selling our house in Hackney, we were not considered suitable for renting by the French.
⛺️ We split our time between a 40-square metre two-bed apartment in a holiday resort where the English couple let us take a long-term let. We then lived in a mobile home for the summer holidays.
📚When we finally were reunited with our things out of storage, I was surprised at what I felt most attached to. Books, art and a few random decorative pieces like my blue monkey lampshade 💙.
🖼️ I remember counting and checking that all my art wasn’t broken. Many of the pieces I had bought were to mark occasions in my life or were made by my friends. They felt like family.
⏰ I’m still struggling to shrug off the London pace of life. We have rushed to try and do up the house, which hadn’t been redecorated since the 70’s. Lots of grey paint and floral paper - not in a good way.
🛠️Then our builder went bankrupt with a bunch of our money, so the universe has forced our hand to sit still. That septic tank can’t wait though. Nothing quite like spending a substantial four-figure amount on 💩
🎒Coming before the children were established at school in London, I think was key. They are settling in well and don’t have that sense of missing life or friends from before.
👯♂️The kids have also been vital in helping me make new friends. They have chosen well and we have a diverse friend selection, namely down to them.
🌍 Surprisingly, despite being in a small village school, my eldest class of 23 children includes 10 international kids.
📇 Being here makes me want to write more. It is the best and worst part of being like a child. I am getting a chance to do things just for the love.
🚙 I also have to stumble my way in public a lot and push past the fear of embarrassment (driving on tight rural roads and quickly reversing away from a hay lorry or even just speaking French)
🌳 I do not doubt that there have been incremental improvements to my mental health living amongst this much nature. But I did have to push through a lot of loneliness, isolation and even a pinch of self-hatred to get here. It’s still a work in progress.
💔 My second child was born with 4 rare congenital heart defects and had life-saving emergency surgery on a Saturday night when he was 6-days old. Only three surgeons globally could do the complex surgery, and we were lucky to have had one of them.
There is a bigger story about that episode being a major catalyst to coming here and wanting to live harder. But that is another story for another day.
🥖 On a lighter note, I found a boulangerie that sells a curry chicken baguette. Not dismilar to a coronation chicken sandwich. It felt like the best Franglaise hybrid.
See you next week!
Lucy x
Hi 🌊. If you are new here, so am I nice to meet you, I’m Lucy. I have historically written about PR & brand building tips. Since moving to France, I wanted to share BTS and discuss creativity and joy. I am unsure if that is supposed to exist as separate newsletters or what I am doing yet.