I thought I would share some of our funnier moments in France with you, and this one came to mind because RD and I were chatting and giggling about it in our now jumbled kitchen the other night.
In our first few months here some lovely friends, Katherine and John, came to visit us. I decided to cook us a lamb roast with all the trimmings, including some good thick gravy to soak up the mint sauce.
All was going well, and whilst we waited for the food John fell asleep in our old comfy leather chair (which has now gone to the great dechetterie in the sky) and Catherine, RD and I decided to have a few glasses of red wine. Well lamb is notorious for taking a fair amount of time to cook, as are roast potatoes (especially when you have had over half a bottle of wine, and are putting the world to rights, thereby forgetting to put them in!) A few glasses turned to a few bottles and before you knew it poor John woke up to three pissed people in the kitchen.
Now me being the cook it was not helpful that I was also ‘three sheets to the wind’ and had a roast dinner to muster. But ‘muster’ it I did, the table was laid and out came the food. I can cook, pissed or not, so all the food was looking and tasting good, except I had forgotten to bring in the gravy. Despite RD offering to assist I insisted that I would get it.
Off I staggered into the kitchen, I poured the gravy into two jugs, and all over my kitchen Island, and staggered back into the living/dining room. It was a long way from the door to the table, or seemed to be, but off I set with the two jugs firmly gripped in my hand, but limply where my wrist was concerned. RD, Catherine and John, watched with amusement as I staggered across the room, pouring gravy from the said to jugs as I went, leaving a gravy snail trail all across our wooden parquet floor. None of them dared to laugh, none of them had a lot of gravy either!
Good times seem such a long way away now.
Rosie
Christmas 2019, the gravy was available this time.
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Nearly three years ago (in March next year) I wrote about our youngest cat Tilly, and how we had lost her. She went out one day, and never came back. We were heartbroken, and every time I drive past the woods in our lane I think of Tilly.
Last week we had all of the animals vaccinated, including the rabies jab. We smiled and chatted about our naughty black kitten, and how we wished we were taking her with us, despite the huge expense! We hoped she was with someone who loved her, or hadn’t suffered if she had left this mortal coil. We knew she had always been a free spirit, and naughty (which is why we love her so), and that there was a high likelihood that she would not live a long life.
Last night Tilly came back to our garden! Harley the Welshie was barking incessantly and wouldn’t come in, no matter what we did to persuade him. So poor old RD had to put his trainers on and trudge off up the chemin to the very farthest part of our garden where he found Harley who was clearly barking at something up the huge oak tree. When RD shone the torch there she was, Tinky Tiny Tilly, from Tinky Tiny Tilly Land. RD was adamant it was her, because she responded to her name and closed her eyes in love at him, and let out her little meow that only she could do. He grabbed Harley, and was frantically calling me. In the meantime I was going into the garden to look for him, he called me and I blindly made my way up the chemin in the pitch black, but Tilly was so spooked she ran off like a Jack Rabbit before I could get there.
There we stood in our jimby jamby’s and dressing gowns in the pouring of rain frantically calling her, whilst the dogs were locked indoors.
Daisy Pussy Upsy was Tilly’s bestest friend, and she joined us sniffing inquisitively up the tree, at the bottom of the tree, and at the part if the fence where Tilly had made her exit. She even went out again later looking for her.
I am convinced now it was Tilly, but what do we do? We leave this house a week on Sunday. Even if she had come back today it would be too late to take her to Ireland, she needs twenty-two days minimum before she can travel. We are in turmoil, we can’t stay, but the thought of leaving her behind is beyond our comprehension.
We have been searching for her today, but no sign; and are just about to go back out in the dark, when she must feel safer, to call her whilst the Welshies remain indoors. If we find her between now and when we leave we will get her jabbed and put her in the cattery to settle her, and RD will come back earlier than planned from Ireland to collect Tilly and our furniture. I have also asked our lovely immoblier and friend Aidan, if I can give him her passport, and if she turns up after we have left will he arrange for her to go into the cattery and get her jabbed. It’s all we can do.
We strongly believe that life will show us the way. For Tilly to come home now, as if to say don’t forget me, is surely a sign. Or was she just coming to say goodbye?
Come home Til Til ❤️🥲
Rosie
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Normally at this time of year I would be doing my favourite Christmas thing: decorating my Christmas tree. But this year we’re dismantling our lives, so this one from 2017 will have to do. I chose it because it was the first time our son Tom came to visit us in France, and it was truly a magical time.
Christmas 2019
For us now Christmas isn’t about material things, it’s about the people, the simplicity and the memories we make. This year the memories will be vastly different from all others.
Our First Christmas in France 2015
We are on a countdown now, and I am not going to lie it is a little bit frightening, and trust me I chose that word carefully; because as we dismantle we know that we will not have our own place for some time, and those little voices can kick in and start whispering the ‘what if’s’. Over the years of living here and reading philosophy, psychology and the Tao I have become a lot better in closing them down, and mantras have become my saviours.
RD has been working so we have a limited amount of days we can clear out the two ton (sometimes seems like more) of crap we have accumulated in our lives, which involves many trips to the dechetterie (dump). Add to that the fact that the dechetterie is only open three half days and one full day a week and it all becomes ever so slightly desperate!
So on Saturday we had no choice: dechetterie it was! But the weather has turned decidedly cold here, and on that dictated day we also had the pleasure of freezing rain and sleet to contend with. There we were, in our fleeces and waterproofs, putting metal here, plastic there, electrical goods somewhere else, wood in one container, dirty wood in another container, whilst contending with the driving sleet in our faces. Let me tell you it was a joy! Luckily we had the dechetterie controller ‘Stig’, as he likes to be known (a la ‘Stig Of The Dump’) to help us. By the time we got home with the rain and snow still driving into our faces and soaked through despite the waterproofs, snd we decided to call it a day.
RD cleared out the cellar weeks ago, but he isn’t as definitive as me when it comes to making decisions to let things go, and asked me for help. I knew this meant that he wanted me to go with him and boss him around. So yesterday I did just that and the cellar was sorted into a pile for the dechetterie (yep here we go again) and the rest was loaded into the van and taken to our friends, who have kindly let us store our worldly goods in their outbuildings. It was all done in an hour. I am very methodical with things like that.
So having said that I have to go to pack up some more, and sort out our paperwork, which will be complicated because I need to ensure we have the basics to start our new life in Ireland, on our initial trip, because the rest will have to remain here until we can collect it in a few months time. We cannot take it all, not with two Welsh Terriers, and two cats, and clothes, food, and so much more, the van can only carry so much.
But before I go the cold weather has provided us (because I know my readers like them too) with some fabulous sunrises and sunsets. Here are some to enjoy…
Rosie
French Sunrise from my garden December 2020French Sunset from my Garden December 2020
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Yesterday I booked our boat to Ireland. It’s no mean feat when your booking two Welsh terriers into heated dog lodges, arranging for two cats to remain safely and warmly in the van, and booking a cabin for yourselves for the eighteen and a half hour crossing!
It was weird because I felt very excited about going to Ireland, as did RD . But last night as we sat in our dismantled living room we both agreed that whilst excited we still felt a little sad. It’s part of the process folks, I have learned that now: part of the process of letting things go is to allow yourselves to feel the poignancy as one chapter of your life closes and another opens. We don’t always have to put our chins up and pretend that we’re not sad, or ignore our feelings and just look to the future (which we are incredibly excited about). I believe that we should allow that feeling of poignancy wash over us, and then keep going. Too many people try and have a ‘stiff upper lip’, when, really, they don’t need to. It’s just what it is.
Yesterday one of my best friends (thirty three years and counting) put a beautiful comment on my last post asking me to hug our house for her, because it had healed her at a time she needed it, just as it has healed us enough to go back into the ‘throng’. I have evolved from living here, so much so that I am ready to go back out there, albeit a different Rosie sometimes.
Making Our Home December 2015
Last night we took down my big decorative mirror that was one of the first things we hung above the fireplace. As RD carried it out he stopped and we both just looked at each other, remembering when we hung it in December 2015.
Moving on December 2020
As always life has shown me the way, you know how it does: like little pieces of jigsaw being placed like a path showing you where to go. (I have really learned to listen now.) We are juggling money, with each week mapped out as to what I have to pay. But when I spoke to the lovely lady at the cattery she doesn’t want the deposit until we arrive with the cats; and when I tried to pay for our accommodation in Ireland the money doesn’t come out until the 28th, freeing up enough money this week to book our boat. Moving from country to country is a complicated and expensive business. We were going to sail to Ireland on the 3rd of January 2021, but I couldn’t get the dogs booked into their dog lodges for that date, however I could get everything I needed for the 30th. Life clearly thought we should be starting the new year in a new country. So we will be as I write this we have twenty nine days left in France…….
Rosie
November Sunset From My French Home
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As you can probably tell I am trying to cherish every beautiful sunrise that I see. There are not many left here for me to cherish. I know there will be new ones, I am not sad about our decisions, but those new ones are not here yet, and I firmly remind myself to live in the here and now.
November Sunset in Ambrieres les Vallees France
When I find my new home I will put up a collections of the sunrises and sunsets that I have had the blessing to see whilst living here in France. It’s been a part of my life.
Life has took off now, we have less than three weeks left in this house. I have been packing for the last two weeks, and now every cupboard is empty apart from the stuff we’re using. The home we built is now being dismantled. I have held onto my sparkly lights until next week, just to feel as if we are still at home, but I know I will have to relinquish them eventually.
I have been mercenary, even selling our vintage Blue Willow plates, bowls and side plates, they are just not my thing, I prefer my plain white plates. It was only after I sold them that I realised that I had packed all our other plates and now we have no small plates or dinner plates, just platters! When I gave Daisy the cat some milk and cream she looked at me as if I had grown another head when I poured it out for her on a platter!
Our Beautiful Bedroom. I will create a new one. I always do.Dismantling
The shelves are coming down, our antique French mirrors are packed away and my bedroom that I lovingly put together is slowly being dismantled, but I am still trying to hold on to my sparklies in every room for as long as I can.
Our beautiful French buffet is now in storage along with our armoire, both have already gained scratches but I knew that was coming. No stress they can always be repainted.
The fourteen mirrors we have throughout the house are coming down. The old grandfather clock has been taken to storage and when I woke this morning waiting for it to chime out the time, I suddenly remembered it was now chiming away in our friends summer house. I hope the mice appreciate it, and don’t feel the need to re-enact ‘Hickory Dickory Dock’!
Our furries are stressed to the max, the dogs are getting tetchy with each other, and the cats have finally started to snuggle together after being at odds for years. We feel really guilty about our animals, poor Wiglet looks afraid all the time after her terrible start in life, and we have to keep reassuring her that everything will be okay, that she is coming with us. Harley pretty much takes most things in his stride but even he is getting arsy with Wiglet.
I feel sad because I know they all love this garden, and because I know they will have to move again from our rental into whatever house we find; and God knows what condition that will be in. I do know that the first job will be to fence the garden to protect them all. Despite my guilt I know that part of our decision is based on finding regular work, because we have responsibilities to them, and I know that they will love Ireland just as much as they love here.
We know in our heart of hearts that we are doing the right thing for us all; and we also know that if you want an adventure part of it is discomfort, and apprehension, and poignancy. But we’ve done it once, we know we can do it again. This time we’re just letting more stuff go, and going into the future with our eyes open, using all we have learned from this adventure.
As I packed up this week it suddenly came to me that the last five years have all been about learning things to prepare us for our life in Ireland. We know that life is mapped out, we accepted that a long time ago.
Life’s all about learning and facing your fears ay?
Rosie
Sunsets from my French garden in France
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Memories are popping up on my Ipad. This one was from September 2016. It was the first time we experienced the ballon race that took place (cancelled the last two years) in this area. The balloons would land in the valley after flying past our garden. In fact one crashed into our huge oak tree one year. I had that surreal moment when a man stuck in the top of a two hundred foot tree looked down and shouted ‘Bonsoir’. There was not nothing to say but ‘Bonsoir’ in reply.
The little girl in the front of the photo is the daughter of our lovely neighbours Manu and Lucie. She is almost a teenager now, how time flies….
Rosie
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It’s official: we hand the keys over to the new owners of our house just before Christmas .
So Christmas as we know it is cancelled this year, no decorations (the one thing I love about Christmas). But there is a chance our son will come to visit with his friend so we will all be in a gite together, and it will be a an alternative Christmas, which will be good, not least because it will be different.
One of our lessons from living here has been to to simplify, to realise that we don’t need ‘stuff’ we just need good people around us. I read the linked post before I linked it, and it made me cry.
I have changed so much from this adventure, isn’t that what stepping outside of your comfort zone is about, to change and evolve?
So it’s busy, busy, busy. Rich is working I am packing up, and the poor animals are stressed to the max.
A new day is dawning…
Rosie
Today’s sunrise no wonder this house healed me …
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I am currently sitting in bed, it’s 11.45 in the morning and we have allowed ourselves a morning lie in. It’s a busy time.
We have a very atmospheric sky today, and the pictures above are what I can see from my vantage point as I write this.
I am surrounded by sleeping Welshies and RD snoring away, and after our scare last weekend I have again been reminded to only ever live in the here and now.
This will be our second move in six years. In fact in our twenty- two, almost twenty- three years of being together we have moved four times, this will be our fifth move.
Over the week as well as frantically taking as many photos of the fabulous sunsets we are blessed with, I have been packing up our belongings and I was making decisions about what to keep and what to let go. As part of this I was boxing up the shoes that we had, supposedly, decided we were taking with us, after letting so many pairs go; and as I did so I found myself putting additional pairs in the clothing bag for charity. In fact it was as if I was having an epiphany: you HAVE to let go of the old to make room for the new.
The shoes weren’t the only things that led to this. I have my son’s cot in the barn, he is thirty-one years old, why the hell did I ship it to France? I know why, we were moving to another country and for the first time I would not have my son near to me, that first Christmas without him being there was a hard lesson. But now it’s what it is, he has his life, and I want him to live it, and I have learned to let go of the idea that we always have to be together.
Then there is a blue top that belonged to my mum, it was her favourite top, she wore it often. After she died I kept it, and dutifully moved it three times. I thought when we came here I had let it go, but no, when I sorted our cupboard at the top of the stairs there it was again, buried in amongst all the clothes we have never worn in five years. I let it go this time, with all the other clothes. Only this time was different: this time I held it up and said to RD ‘This is not my mum, this is a top. My mum is in my memories.’
After that I was then on a roll: the fridge magnets we bought in Disney twenty- seven years ago (when I was married to my first husband ffs!) off they went to the great dechetterie (dump in French) in the sky. Sentimental mugs, faux flowers, old earrings, and watches and bracelets, tarnished, were in the bin before they knew it.
All of this got me thinking is life really just one big on-going lesson about learning to let go? Is life really just a lesson in learning about why we hold on to things which then enables us to let them go?
I understand why I bought so many things from our old house with me. I loved that house, I found it hard leave it, and so I bought the things I could from it, because it was too hard to let it all go at once. But as the years passed here I realised I didn’t want to re-create my past, that I need to make something new. My old house had gone, and I was then ready to let the things associated with it go too. There are some things I love that I will take with me because I love the item itself, or the memory it conjures up.
As I packed away my thoughts developed further and I found myself asking does that apply to everything in life? Including the loved ones we have lost? Someone once said to me ‘every time you cry about your mum, you pull her back, and you never let her spirit free.’ I found it difficult to understand at first, but after reading and learning and listening and reflecting it becomes clearer every day.
When my mum was dying she promised she would come back for each and every one of us, so when my beloved Westie dog died I thought I would feel my mum’s presence, and my heartbreak was even more compounded when I didn’t.
I understand now that it was never going to be, because we are all spirits learning what we need to learn in each lifetime, and we then move on to the next stage of our enlightenment. Perhaps those who love us stay near for a time, but eventually they have to let us go, to enable us to grow.
Then there are the friendships that come and go, and sometimes come back again after we have all learned and evolved. I believe the right people migrate back to you, as I have written about often. But more importantly how often does life show us that we need to let the relationships go? Show us, as we evolve, that they weren’t what we thought they were at all? That the people were not what we thought? Or, thinking even more deeply, perhaps they were, and it is us who have changed.
I think that is one of the hardest lessons of all, we don’t want to see negatives in those we have spent so much of our life with. But if we are able to objectively, it can enable us to decide whether to still have the person in our life or not, without rancour or pain. It’s just what it is.
Letting go of pain, letting go of hurt, just letting go without bitterness, is probably one of the hardest things to do. When RD left me I learned from writing my journal that if I allowed myself to be consumed in bitterness I would be destroyed. That was nearly fourteen years ago, now I use what I learned to help some others who find themselves where I was, but now I also know it applies to so many things in life. But I can only help ‘some’ because the others do not want to ‘let go.’ And so they continue to suffer in pain. That experience has taught me to let go of the hope that I could help everyone. I can’t, people can only ever help themselves.
I have learned over the past five years that we cannot have the sunny side of life all the time. The Tao has taught me that where there is good there is bad, where there is love there is heartache, where there is life there is death. I had to remind myself of that last week when Harley was ill, I had to say it as a mantra, and despite the pain I felt, it gave me comfort and strength and it has made me live every day this week cherishing every small moment.
It’s amazing isn’t it, what you learn as you unpack and pack your life up again? And the time will come, in the near future, when we let this house go, and this adventure go, and we ‘let go,of the rice.’ (Mark Nepo, The Book Of Awakening
Have a good Sunday folks.
Rosie
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Anyone who follows this blog knows that I have always loved the sunrises over the valley. I have shared them often with you, the photo above is todays sunrise and I promised more in one of my recent posts, I hadn’t forgotten.
At this time of year the winds can whip up quickly in the valleys, but despite their ferocity at times I have always loved laying in bed with my beloved husband and Welshies and listen to them whooshing around the house. and more than anything I love to hear the rain hitting the drawn down shutters. I lay in bed with all my blessings around me and I listen to that rain and I feel safe, and blessed to have shelter. It is a small thing to some, but living here listening to that calming sound has made me understand that it’s not a small thing, it’s the thing that people search for: a home, safety, love.
This week we were reminded again, to live in the here and now. Harley has been a little off colour over the past few weeks, and I noticed he was drinking more, and he had some accidents in the house. On Friday he literally wet himself in front of us, so I took him to the vet on Saturday morning. The outcome was that they wanted to test him for ‘Cushings’ disease. Of course I had already looked up possibilities of what could be wrong with him, and I knew that this possible outcome was not good. Harley is nine now, and I want him to live forever (tears in my eyes now.)
We booked the test for today, and we cried all day on Saturday, and I just kept saying my mantra ‘here and now, here and now’ over and over again.
I joined numerous Facebook groups to ask for advice. The outpouring of support from those sites, and our wonder Welsh Terrier Fan Club site was overwhelming. In these difficult times it was a joy to know that people are still good people, it appears thats especially where our beloved animals are concerned.
Our vet is a lovely vet, but he is an agricultural vet primarily and after much discussion, taking into account that many people who have had to deal with this disease advised to have his urine tested in a lab and a culture grown, that we are moving to Ireland in ten weeks approx, the complexity of dealing with the disease (if he has it) and the complexity of diagnosis (get it wrong and give him the meds with terrible side effects and it could kill him), and that he would have to be monitored we decided not to go ahead with the test. We feel that for now we have made the right choice. It would appear that Harley does too, as he has stopped drinking as much and has perked right up.
So that will be something to keep my eye on, because we have approximately forty days before we have to leave this house, and there is still so much to do.
A bientot.
Rosie
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