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Category Archives: Change is a coming

As I sit here

22 Monday Jul 2019

Posted by in Change is a coming, Dream, Reflections, Simple things, The continuing adventure, Us

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It is just after nine on a Monday morning. Rich aka Danny (I will need to unlink this blog!) has gone off to work, and I am left contemplating.

I just had one of those moments that you get in life, where the sunlight coming through the window, and the silence, and the clocks ticking, the birds singing, and my beautiful Welshie boy asleep on the chair, made me stop and commit this moment to memory.

It is one of those moments where you are reminded that the simple things are the most precious.

Rich and I are back to ‘do we stay, or do we go’. We sat yesterday evening in the garden and we talked about what we want, or that we don’t know what we want, but we do know some of the things we don’t want, and it got me thinking:

I have said many times that we need to write down some of the things we discuss, because being a journal keeper I know that writing something down gives you clarity; and also reminds you how quickly what you thought you wanted can change.

I have been absent quite awhile because I have been concentrating on my book (under the pseudonym of Rosie Joseph) and the blog linked to it has just hit over 72,100 views with over 11,000 visitors. Every day I wake up a voice in my head says ‘you need to get that book out there before you can make any decisions.’ Every day when someone messages me to say how my blog helps them: the lady yesterday who told me she was going to buy a journal, because my blog inspired her; the lady who told me that after reading one of my posts she knew that going back in time was not going to help her; the people who say you have put into words how I feel, at a time I cannot understand, they all inspire me to get that book out there; because I know it will change lives, including ours.

So is now a time to be making decisions? Not yet. I finally got there, the book is going to the publishers today.

Lets see what life shows us.

Rosie (aka Moisy)

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So much to say, so little time, so much change

22 Saturday Jun 2019

Posted by in Change is a coming, Dream, Making our own way, The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure

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I cannot believe that I have not blogged for over seventeen days, so much has happened but time has truly run away with me.

At the end of May I signed up to self-publish my book. There have been so many people asking where they can buy it, the blog is just about to have it’s ten thousandth visitor and has just hit fifty nine thousand views. I couldn’t wait anymore, I am confident of it’s success and life will show me the way where a publisher is concerned. But….

Due to the nature of the book I have had to use a pseudonym I didn’t want to, but after a weekend prevaricating I came to realise that it is the right thing to do You can read about my decision here and as a result Rosie Joseph was born. It is an homage to my mum and dad, using their second names, hopefully I will immortalise them forever, as a big thank you to my dad, who taught me to read. So now when you look on this blog it will be RJ who is posting but I have kept the title the same.

Due to all of this I now have to re-edit my book, but now I have a deadline of the end of July! In addition I have nearly 100 blog posts on the blog of the same name to edit, so that it can be linked with the book, but sadly I will have to unlink the blogs. To say that I am busy is an understatement! Add to that new social media accounts, rebuilding followers, and continuing promotion, including Danny’s business (yep another name change my husband is called Danny now!), and doing admin for the business and I am now having to remind myself to switch off!

The French bureaucracy is driving me nuts! (Another story that must be told) and some additional galavanting and I have lots to tell.

So tomorrow I will be sitting in the sunshine of my beautiful garden, surrounded by the ever changing fields of gold, editing, editing, editing. We will also be pulling together some lists for some life changing decisions we may make in the future.

Please bear with me as I change my name, my adventures will be the same, but perhaps in Spain!

Rosie ❤️

He’s a keeper

05 Wednesday Jun 2019

Posted by in Change is a coming, My family and other furry creatures, The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure

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You can read about Claudy’s adventure here

Here is Claudy, with his new girlfriend. The boy don’t take long!

I received a lovely message from the lady who had re-homed him to say that he is utterly charming and that he is a keeper.

Claude has found his forever home, and he deserves it.

Life really does show you the way.

Moisy

And we all want chickens…..Goodbye Claudy

02 Sunday Jun 2019

Posted by in Change is a coming, My family and other furry creatures, My home, The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure

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This is Claudy our cockerel. It turns out he is a Creole Pekin Bantam, and what a handsome boy he is.

Sadly the last of our girlies died on Wednesday night, leaving Claude all alone, and he crowed and cried all Thursday and Friday. I was so worried for him, not many people want cockerels and I didn’t want someone to take him to kill and eat him (although it turns out there would be no meat on him anyway so that would just be cruel). So how could I get him a home?

I went onto a FB site called chicken keepers in France and explained the situation and a lovely lady told me exactly what he was and said how beautiful he was. Then the haters joined the party (well one silly cow anyway) but that did me a favour and the lovely lady came back to say she would have him.

So today we boxed him up and said goodbye, and took him to the ladies chicken farm, full of chickens, ducks and young geese who shout at you and any bush they take exception to!

It was as if Claude knew he was in a good place. He started to cluck in his box, and then chirrup and then he just wanted to get out. At the moment he is in quarantine, but a new lady will be joining him to keep him company.

The lovely lady who had him said she may not keep him, although she took a shine to him as soon as she saw him and said ‘oh you never know, I might start breeding Bantams!’ She promised to send me pictures if she does.

So that is the end of our chicken keeping days. Welshies and chickens don’t mix! Another chapter of the adventure closes, but a knew one has just opened.

Au revoir Claude have a wonderful life.

Moisy

Dreams

22 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by in Change is a coming, Dream, Making our own way, Reflections, The good life

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When we were planning to move to France I had a little dream in my head: I pictured myself sitting in my garden writing. I had some pretty clothes on and a jaunty French scarf around my neck, and the sun was shining. So as I sit here in my garden today, writing this blog, the sun is shining, and I am in paint spattered clothes (hey you can’t have everything!) and I realised that my dream has come true.

I am editing my book, surrounded by tranquility and birdsong, with two sleeping Welshies at my feet and 3 sleeping cats around me.

I realise again that my dream has come true.

My book is half way edited from the printed version (so much you cannot see when it is on the laptop!) and I will be contacting a publisher on Friday. My blogYou can read it here just hit 50,000 views, with over 8,000 visitors.

I always knew our story would help others, and from the interaction and feedback from the people who read it I was right. Someone once told me to ceremoniously burn my journal one day; but I always knew I couldn’t because it is part if me: keeping that journal made me the person that I am today.

It brought a tear to my eye today. Dreams can come true, you just have to believe in them.

Moisy

Galavanting: Vitre’

28 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by in Change is a coming, Galavanting, Making our own way, The continuing adventure

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Vitre castle Brittany

I said a while ago that as part of our decision making we are going to get out at least once a month and see other parts of France. I am going to share these adventures with you.

Due to the bank holiday we decided to visit the stunning medieval city of Vitre’ in Brittany. We loaded the Welshies into the car and off we went on a sunny April day and found this….

Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. To add to that all of the little pavement cafe’s and bars were open, including some shops!

It is one of the things that drives me nuts about where we are that everything just shuts down. It drives our French friends and neighbours nuts too: Here on a Sunday the bars are open but only until afternoon, even in the main cities of Fourgeres and Laval. Here in Vitre they were all open and it was humming, classic French cafe culture and we loved it.

We walked around the castle, promenaded on the ramparts and sat and people watched whilst enjoying a reasonably priced coffee (only three euro fifty for two coffees!).

It got us thinking: step over from Pays de Loire to Brittany and everything changes. Is this the place for us? Maybe! Let’s see what life shows us.

Here are to more trips. There is so much in this city to see that I am sure we will be visiting again. Here is to galavanting.

Moisy

Moving forward – Coming back

25 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by in Change is a coming, Making our own way, My home, Reflections, The background story, The continuing adventure, Us

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When we undertook this adventure what I did not see was just how much it would show me: with regard to the way I look at life. Since moving here I have read the Tao, still not completed reading ‘The Road Less Travelled and Beyond’, and I have touched on the great ‘regarder of life’: Byron Katie. I have learnt a lot from them all. In addition living here has given me the peace and tranquility that I needed to find myself again, I have written before that I am back, but never really fully explained why. You can read some of my posts on this here

As  most of my readers know due to the pressures of my job in England, and being an empath, I eventually became very ill from stress. I did not realise just how ill I was until I fully recovered this year.

As part of this adventure I have written my book ‘Making This Better; and I have serialised it on another blog (you can click on the link at the top of the page.) I always knew that the story of what happened to Rich and I would help others, and serialising my book has proved to me that this is the case. (Nearly 10,000 views this month alone and on it’s way to 42,000 views in seven months.) But more than anything as I re-read some of my journal entries from so long ago they have showed me the one true asset that I have had all my life: my strong personality. In fact in one of my journal entries I have commented how I was fighting ‘the essence of me’ to stay with Rich. You can read this entry here

As I have said in that post when I read it I had tears in my eyes, because I knew that I over the intervening years I had suppressed it and I realised what an asset I have been given in my life. The teachings of the Tao are to be kind, that is true; but they are also to turn the other cheek, and with that I cannot always agree. This adventure has shown us people who will take advantge of that, I have written about them often; and perhaps all of those experiences was life telling me to take back the one thing that God gave me that mattered: my strong personality. you can read about some of the lessons here

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Now when I read what I said all those years ago, knowing that I have taken back my strength, I feel that I am finally where I need to be with regard to what to do with life. Since doing this, it has been as if life is saying ‘thank Christ for that! She has finally realised what she has to do, now I will help her’: and since then Rich’s business has started to take off. I said many years ago that integrity was a commodity out here; and now I am managing his Facebook page and have designed his website, which I am also promoting Rich is doing well, and I believe it is because we are being us and using the skills and integrity that we have. We don’t rip people off, we do over and above what is needed and we can be trusted not to steal.

One of the things that really got to me since living here was that people can be so vicious, especially when it comes to hustling for work; we were in some ways afraid to put Rich’s services out there because of what they would say (this would never have been me before my illness!)  and so we relied on others to offer us work. Now I am back that is not working for me: I want us to get our own work, I know what we are capable of as a team and I don’t want to be beholden to anyone.

In  addition I will not put up  with an ounce of unnecessary shit from anyone. Now if people want to  be rude to us, or try to undermine us, then I will answer them right back, in a professional and businesslike,  sometimes terrifying way.  In fact I  already have, and we got a job out of it. I find nastiness unecessary, and whilst I understand that often it is because people feel insecure or vulnerable, we all have to step up to the plate, if you are feeling vulnerable then find out why and change it; stop taking it out on everyone else.  I am not unnecessarily nasty to anyone:  unless they are nasty to me!

The other day I was saying about something to Rich and about how I was not prepared to put up with it and he giggled; when I looked at him he said ‘I love that so much about you: that you won’t let anyone beat you.’

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We have also realised that when you undetake an adventure like this, many people  who are afraid to do the same are often waiting for you to fail; add to that you also feel like you ‘have’ to keep plugging away at it because you chose to make such a huge change, and because of that you fail to see that the whole point of an adventure is change: when you embark on it, and when you are in the midst of it. As part of me coming back this year, Rich and I have been honest with each other in that we didn’t know if we would stay: and from that we then realised that was all part of the adventure to make change as we needed.

A few weeks ago I met a couple who were returning to the UK. As you know I have blogged about the fact that I was reconsidering whether I wanted to continue our adventure here in France, or whether to move to pastures new (although we know that England will not be an option.) This lady said to me that she had loved living here, but that they had been here twelve years and she believed that life went in ten-year cycles: when it is then time to move on to something new; and it got me thinking: I do believe tha life is about moving forward all the time; perhaps it is also about accepting that when we get itchy feet we should listen to the message that life is sending our way.

When we moved to the Pays de Loire area of France four years ago we chose this are because we had holidayed here twice, and we loved the peace and tranquility. We loved it because we were having a break from out two notoriously hectic careers; mine even more so. England is a notoriously crowded Island: you queue  to go anywhere even to the supermarket; and I wrote very early on in this adventure how people in the UK generally seemed so angry. All of these things led us both to want somewhere in the rural countryside, where life was extremely laid back and was not overcrowded with people and so we made the choice to move to the Pays de Loire region. I have come to realise that at that time that is what we needed; and you can only ever make life choices based on what you have in the here and now.

3 Rules All Great Leaders Follow When Facing Change

The last four years have been glorious they have replenished me; I still love my house and the beautiful countryside around us, but as I have written recently I am back to being the real Moisy and I don’t think in the long-term that will be enough. I now need a little more stimulation, I am ready for it again. Who Knew that would happen?

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A winter sunset from my garden in France 

It has made me consider that perhaps we all hold on too tightly to things, and don’t embrace the fact that life is a constantly evolving adventure. Now that is something that I learnt from the Tao: no matter how much you plan, no matter how many contingencies you put into place life never goes to plan.

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Add to all of this my book which means that I now interact with people whose lives have been turned upside down, as ours was many years ago; and I can see that was another life event to make us stop and change direction with our lives (we had been together nine years!) It was also an event that we have now been able to use to help other people; and I never thought that I would encounter so many wonderful people as I have. Who knew?

When I moved into my house in Kent all those years ago I thought it was my forever home; and now I am here: in France. Who knew?

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Now I have come to realise that life does go in cycles, and only by embracing that knowledge can you truly find peace. So the biggest lesson I have learnt: We make decisions based on the here and now (as we should) and given that we should all expect change as the here and now changes!

I  know that whatever decision we make we will make it based on the circumstances at the time and that in the future when those cirucmstances change we may well adapt and decide to do something different.

THAT is life.

So here is the thing that I have learnt so far from this adventure:

Understand that when you make a decision in life it is based on what you need at that time; but over time your needs will change, you will change, and it is okay to change direction, change your adventure and move on to something new. It is not failure it is in fact strength and bravery.

Never let go of any strength you have, if you have been blessed with it use it for all your worth: look at what has happened to us this year since I have got all my strength back. Don’t let others undermine your strong personality, it is your asset and they are envious.

So here is to strong personailities, here is to the adventurers, here is to changing direction when it is needed, or every ten years, here is to listening to life.

I am never saying never about staying here; because I do not know where my life may change again, as I said to Rich who knows what we will be doing this time next year!

I’m just going with the flow because I know it will take me where I need to go.

Moisy

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The view from my garden in France 

 

Hares

21 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by in Change is a coming, My family and other furry creatures, The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure, The seasons

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I love hares, perhaps it is the Irish in me, as hares are revered in Ireland, seen as a communicator with the other world of the little people: faeries and leprechauns. But I really fell in love with them when I moved to France: I was up early and driving along one of the long country lanes on a sunny morning, taking care I was driving at about thirty miles an hour when I looked out of my open car window to see a hare running along the hedgerow right beside the car, keeping up with it. It was a sight to behold, a big animal full of power, and it was at that point that my fascination, and utmost respect for hares began.

As Easter approached this week it was also a full moon, and on Friday Rich and I were up and out early, very early. Europe is experiencing really good weather and even at seven in the morning it was already twenty two degrees. The sun was shining, and France is in bloom, and as we drove down our long lane from our house we were met with the sight of two hares boxing in the middle of the road.

As we stopped and watched they ran off (or hared off as the saying goes) into the field in flight; truly, truly amazing. But that was not all: on our journey through the winding lanes of France we saw another five hares, in the fields, in the hedgerows, to the point that I turned to Rich and said ‘ it must be a hare convention!’

Hares are revered by many cultures: they represent positive change, because of their connection to spring; and new beginnings. In Ireland they are a protected species and were featured on their half pence coin until it went out of circulation. Perhaps my love for hares and the abundance of sightings is telling us that we should consider that move to Ireland after all – we are still not ruling that out. To have a hare cross your path is a sign that you will receive abundance and joy; as we have had five cross ours then I am in no doubt that is the case for us.

Rich’s business has taken off (with a small amount of help from his social media savvy and writer wifey) he has bookings into June now with more to come. My book is nearly fully edited with some additions because of the research and wonderful comments from people who follow my blog: over 40,000 views and counting. I promised my dear late friend in my last post that I would get my book out there and I will. you can read that post here I aim for it to be available in the autumn for all the people who have asked where they can buy it.

The evening before our sojourn with the hares the moon had risen full and red over the fields, and I thought back to the posts where I have said that I am  not sure if living here for me holds enough, but that I would wait and life would show me the way: it seems to be, at the moment. Later that night though Rich had an experience with the werehare!

My husband is over six feet tall and weighs over eighteen stone (I am being kind here). I went to bed with the Welshies and he went outside for his last cigarette. The moon was full and our cat Daisy was sat on our drive with wild staring eyes and her tail puffed up to four times its normal size. Rich spooks easily with regard to anything unexplained or supernatural; so he looked at Daisy and realised something was wrong. Then he heard a noise of something very large snuffling behind our hedge; he turned to Daisy and said ‘what the f**k is that?’ Daisy responded by high-tailing it indoors. On the sound of Rich’s voice whatever it was ran across the garden quickly and loudly, and Rich could hear something heavy stomping on the oak logs. With that he high tailed it indoors, made sure all the cats were inside and locked the door. (He is so brave!)

When he came to bed he told me the story; I was just glad that Wiglet the serial killer had not been out there as chaos would have ensued. Rich was clearly spooked and proceeded to build up a pile of pillows down the side of the bed by the door to stop any ‘ghosts’ getting him in the night (didn’t realise that pillows were a ghost deterrent!) We then discussed that it could have been a deer or a wild boar, or even a fox but that seemed unlikely with the dogs scent. Neither of us thought that it may have been a hare, moonwatching from the pinnacle of the hill on which our house is perched.

As I turned off the lights I then said ‘it could have been a werefwolf, it is a full moon!’ To which my husband replied in a wail ‘Why would you say that man? Stop trying to frighten me!’ I giggled and said ‘well we are in the middle of nowhere, perhaps all the neighbours are werewolves and we are living in the midst of a werewolf colony!’

Rich then shut the door!

So the next morning when we saw all the hares I realised it was probably a hare, or as I said to Rich: ‘perhaps it was a werehare!’

I am sorry I have been absent from Mois French Adventure, folks but I will be sharing some more posts with you this week, but I know you understand that the book has taken priority.

Have a wonderful Easter weekend.

Moisy

Here & Now

17 Sunday Mar 2019

Posted by in Change is a coming, Making our own way, Reflections, Simple things, The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure

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I deliberately adapted this photo, of one of the wonderful sunrises and sunsets that we are privelidged to see living here for a reason.

As you know over the past few months we have wondered whether this is still the right adventure for us; I have fully got back to being me; and this has led us to a better place than we have been for a while. But….

I have loved living here, I needed to recharge my batteries and they are now fully recharged but now I don’t honestly know if this is still the right path for me. I said when I moved here that I wanted an adventure, I didn’t want to just ‘wait for God’; so we did this. But now I am wondering that is this? Is not just waiting for God in a different place? Ambrieres is beautiful, the neighbouring towns and villages are beautiful but I have seen them and for me, now, they are not enough. They don’t have enough in them (nothing in fact but that is for another blog) to inspire; add to that my need (yes need!) to work and have purpose and I will not get that here.

I believe that life shows you the way; anyone who reads this blog knows that. Over the past few months as we have deliberated our way forward I have said how living in the deep and rural countryside is very hard work: you have to clean your house every day, it is never ending. I came out here with the wonderful ideal of open shelves inmy kitchen  – not in the rural countryside unless you want to wash everything every day! The garden is stunning but extremely hard work, and as I have turned 56 I have started to ask myself whether we can continue to do this for the long term and the answer is no.

As I was thinking this we visited a client who said exactly the same: they sold up their sprawling old stone house and bought a new house with a smaller garden which was manageable because their life was not their own whilst they were trying to keep on top of everything. I found it to be an omen because I had a similar conversation with Rich as we were driving there!

A few days later on the way to another clients house I said to Rich how I Ioved the countryside but that I had seen it; been here 4 years, loved it but now I needed something more. When we arrived at the clients house I commented on the pretty view and she replied that it was lovely but you can only see so much of it; and  because she was so rural there is nothing to do. Again – just as I had said to Rich on the way there.

Now other things have reared their ugly heads, and made me re-evaluate life as they should and they have reminded me how you should treasure every day; never take anything for granted; and that life really is too short.

It has all got me thinking: is an adventure really about moving forward all the time?

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I know that you cannot stand still and keep everything the same no matter how hard you try. You can shut all the windows and all of the doors and try and keep the world out but life will still take you where you are destined to go and things will still change no matter how you resist: you will grow older, and less able to do what you could do; your children will grow up and move on; people will move away; things cannot stand still.

So is the adventure about not staying in the same place; about doing what you have to do at that moment in time for your life and then accepting that at some point that will change? We moved here because we loved France, we were both burnt out (I was) from our chosen careers, we didn’t want to feel hemmed in any more. But now this beautiful house and our surroundings have replenished me; I no longer feel burnt out, I don’t feel hemmed in; but as a result of that I have changed again and now this may not be enough; and I feel ready to go back to something with more life than where I am. Not full on but somewhere in the middle.

When we chose our house we were moving from a beautiful house with a very small garden,and no outbuildings. So we bought a house with an acre of land and outbuildings, and all the work that entailed. We have enjoyed the time here but is this now what we really want?

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Is life about accepting the changes that happen, and realising that it is time to move forward again?

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So that brings me to my first photo, with the comment ‘Happiness is a state of mind’. Despite what I have said, and despite the fact that we may well move on sooner than we thought, I don’t regret moving here. Rich would look at it as a failure; until I remind him that at the time we made the decision to move here it was because it was what we needed – at that time.

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We have learnt so much from this adventure: We have learnt not to be wasteful; that simple things can bring you so much happiness; that having each other (despite all we have been through) has been a blessing. We have learnt that we do not need material things to be happy. We got Wiglet! All of these lessons will be taken forward to where we go next. You see – my state of mind is that we did the right thing; I did not want to continue with the life I had before and I know that I will honestly not go back to it.

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And again I have chosen this photo carefully. I love to watch washing blowing on the line. I find it so fulfilling: what was dirty is now clean and blowing in the wind and sunshine, it’s a simple thing but one that brings me pleasure; and it is all about change, dirty to clean, wet to dry, free to blow in the wind and sunshine. Yesterday Rich and I (after having many discussions this week) were out in the garden with the Welshies cutting logs and clearing the garden. It was a blowy sunny March day and I found myself looking across the valley and thinking how blessed I was to have lived here; even though now I am thinking of moving on. I know it will be a couple of years before our house sells, and even a year of more before we have it ready to even consider putting it up for sale. I also know that in that time things may change again and we may have a different plan. So right there in that moment (because that is all we have) I looked across the valleys on a glorious spring day, with my beautiful dogs running around the garden like teddy bears, and I still counted my

I looked at Rich, and he looked as miserable as sin! I asked him was there not anything in the day that made him happy; because at that moment in time I was happy. He replied by saying ‘but you said you weren’t happy anymore that there is not enough here for you.’ To which I replied:

‘I am happy in this moment in time; no I do not think that this is the life I want to follow for any future length of time but right now, in the here and now (because that is all I have) I am happy: I am happy I get to spend time with my husband in a sunny spring garden; I am happy that I get to work with him chopping logs, with the dogs running around my feet chasing the rats and chickens. I am glad that I get to feel the wind on my face and the sunshine; I am happy that I get to look out across that view; I am happy that all the little spring flowers are appearing in the lawn, and that summer is on it’s way. I am happy that I have logs to cut and logs for next winter; I am happy that we have made some decisions; Just because I have made the decision not to stay here does not mean that I am unhappy, or that I cannot appreciate what I do have.’

I then looked at Rich and asked him what he was happy with he looked at me like a rabbit in the headlights and said ‘I am happy that I’ve got tobacco!!!’

Good job I love him!

It is so clear that happiness is just a state of mind. How often do we fail to look at all the small things that are in the here and now because we have made decisions to change things? How often do we not just do that anyway!

So we will continue on this journey but there are new horizons ahead……

Moisy

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Driven……Part I

12 Tuesday Mar 2019

Posted by in Change is a coming, Making our own way, People, Reflections, The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure

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I have been notoriously absent from my blog; but I can assure you that I have not been notoriously absent from the internet! I have been absent because I have been building another two websites; and promoting, promoting, promoting.

You see as I explained to you all in earlier blogs things have been very difficult; things have happened to us to make us rethink life (as you know in my blog I shared I’ve considered my position- it’s a good one for now), included in that has been rethinking people and also rethinking us, and the people that we want to be on this adventure. It has been difficul but it has been constructive: it brought the Moisy that will never let anything beat her back; and by Christ I won’t!

So  I decided that we needed to make things happen ourselves: gone are the days when we relied on any ‘old boys network’, or even word of mouth from doing a good job, to get work. We had to stop waiting for things to come to us and go and find them instead: I had to put us out there. Rich is totally legal to work in France we even have assurance for his work (which a lot of people don’t) but we were being held back from advertising Rich on local FB sites because of the n’er do wells who always have something to say. Well d’ya know what? I am back and I am not letting people live our lives for us anymore. Hence the websites:

Rich’s wonderful website

On the back of my camping website I decided to make us a professional website for Rich’s handyman/painting & decorating business. I used the skills I have as a writer, and the knowledge I gained over the years of dealing with the public, to make this website for Rich; and then I put it out there for Rich. I have explained how Rich will do the prep work for decorating if someone then wants to do the painting (most people will tell you that they hate prep); and so much more. As a result Rich now has a job to start next week, he has already done some work for a client (who called him back to do more) and we have had over ten enquiries and other jobs are in the pipeline (all in 5 weeks.)

Inspired by it’s success I decided to turn my attention to my Etsy shop, that has been in the doldrums lately . So on a roll I then set myself a website up for my shop where people can buy direct. Here is one of my most recent stock items, I love him and he currently resides in my living room but I have to let him go. He is nearly 100 years old and I have to put my business head on.

But the thing is I  have loved doing it: I have realised that I have a talent for setting up websites, and I have loved doing what I am good at and learning a new skill in the mix;  more than anything I have loved getting results. My website went live last week and this is now on it’s way to South Carolina in the USA.

 

In addition I have always been complimented on my styling and interiors so I am now putting together vignetttes and styling tips on my website.

If you would like to see more then take a peep – I can source items as well and vide grenier season is starting.

Moisy’s shop petitefrenchfancies

you see I was not perpared to give up, we are as good as anyone over here (in fact we both have five star reviews for what we have done) and I am now using that to our advantage.

It has been so difficult that Rich seriously thought about going back to the UK to work; but now I have just started to advertise that he will in fact travel all over France fo work (providing there is a weeks work for him, not for small jobs). We have sourced cheap accomodation for him and this not only gives him work but also provides us with an opportunity to see more of France whilst earning money; because often I will meet Rich wherever he is for the last night and day (with the Welshies of course!) Or I will go with him. We both agreed that if you are going to go back to th UK then you may as well travel around France instead!

This will also stop us getting into what can be a rut of just doing the same ol’ same ol’ (more of that in another post about France and mental health).

As I have said I am back: I will still be kind to people but I will not put up with an ounce of shit anymore; as one of the n’er do wells found out when they put something very rude and unncessary on one of the posts for Rich’s site! I answered them, professionally but also assertively. As always with people who are manipulators she tried to say I was being aggressive, until others started to answer her and say how rude she was. But being professional and kind I stepped in and said that she had messaged me direct to explain and that it was all resolved. We got a job out of that!

Oh, and by the way – we fixed the roof! Ruch and I.

Like I said: Driven!

Look out for more posts folks, buttons are now available on each post with links to our sites.

Moisy