Welcome to all those that have joined my blog over the past couple of weeks, good to know that you are joining fast and furious now! And I know that a lot of you have just moved over, or are thinking of chasing that dream, and having that adventure; so this blog has you all in mind.

I live in the Pays de Loire, which is primarily a farmland community; and I now understand why farmers wives have boot rooms and clean their kitchen floors so often; or just say “Sod it! It is just a piece of dirt!” because I have never cleaned so much in my life. If you don’t clean, because you are decorating, or busy writing a book you find that you will have dead flies accumulating on your window sill and many dead beetles that have made their way in under your front door, only to die once they  have made it!! It is like they are saying “I know lets squeeze under that old door and then die once we get in there, won’t that be fun!” Silly sods!!

I will be honest I looked around my house the other day and, having five cats and two Welshies, realised that their was what looked like hairy tumbleweed cascading down my stairs. So out came the hoover and the resolution that I must clean something other than my kitchen every day. Then along came my book edit that was due, and my blog posts which, as you know, are often left behind;  or the bedroom to finish decorating (if I say so it is starting to look fab, so watch out for other posts!), and embroidery to do for the pillow cases I am going to put on my friends bed when she comes out to visit next week, and it all went out of the window. I cleaned last week, and have come to realise that I like the sound of hairy tumbleweed Schloooping up my hoover. I like to watch the balls of fur hiding in the corner and saying to them “No good hiding! I have found you!” In an accent reminiscent of an American cowboy!! So I am going to save the cleaning for the end of the week just before my friend arrives.

But seriously living in the country means you have loads of fresh air, but also loads of dirt. In the winter there is the mud and the leaves, and the mold from where the roof needs repairing, and in the summer there is the dust, and the beetles and the flies. But when I look out of my window whilst sitting at my desk and I see this …….

And this…..

I welcome the dust, and the critters that the countryside brings.

But life is more challenging out here just to survive, if like Rich and I and so many others you are surviving on a small budget. You have to buy logs, and if you have a burner the chances are you have to chop and split them, in fact the bigger you buy them the cheaper they are so we have bought one metre logs and will have to chop them down to thirty centimetres. Hay ho, burns the calories!

Then in the winter you have to argue who will go out in the cold and get them in, we bring them in by the wheelbarrow for my wonderfully designed log cabinet (all designed by me!!)

But you still have to stand in the cold unloading them and carrying them in! Then there are the twigs for kindling. Yes you can buy kindling but once you have lived out here on a budget you come to realise that you are burning something on a bonfire that you can use and then going to buy it! Which in anyone’s book is madness.

We have chopped down fourteen pine trees since living here, and chopped up less than half of them. The time has come when they must be cut because they have been seasoned for two years. Add to the the cob nut trees that have been cut back with still more to cut back and chop and leave in the garden to season for three years (Oh yes I am a member of woodcutters incorporated and all that entails!)

Rich and I have come to understand the importance of preparing for the winter, with this being our third winter here and after the HUUUUUUUGE electricity bill we had after the first winter here. The old stone houses are beautiful folks but they are cold!!

There is the lawn to mow, the pots to water, the walnuts to gather in September (let alone the cob nuts!)The trees to trim, the hedges to cut, the chickens to clean out. The cherry’s to gather in the spring, the leaves and cava apples to scoop up into the compost, and the big old fire to have in the autumn. So before you move here, ask yourself do you really need that much land? We have just under an acre and trust me, although others have said that our “garden is not that big!” (methinks that might have been the green eyed monster!) just under an acre is enough. Also if you are new don’t forget the potager that you are going to do, see just call us Tom and Barbara and Ooh Matron it’s gone Pete Tong and you may change your mind!

Every day I clean my kitchen thoroughly because my cats jump onto the work surfaces and God knows where they have been or what critters they have been handling.

Add to all of this the house repairs, the decorating, the replacing of electricity cables and putting up lights, which my lovely husband is brilliant at – this is the last set of lights he put up for me over my sink, using the beautiful 1940’s lampshades I found in a vide grenier.

Don’t forget the knocking down walls, putting the waste in the compost, shabbying of the chic furniture, and then changing your mind and doing it again! And trust me life will be busy, and I haven’t even mentioned work yet. Then there is cooking because there ain’t many takeaways that deliver out here! And even if there is can you afford them? And most importantly of all there is the drinking of wine!

You will have to buy gas bottles, and make sure you have a spare; and it is another job.

But would I change it?

Never in a million years. My life is rewarding, I know why I have to do something and what I am going to get from it, without a pie chart, or report that people don’t read, or take any notice of in sight!!

So my advice to anyone moving out here for a more relaxed way of life….

Especially the line ‘Ponder the difference between want and need.’ I think that says it all.

Look out for more to come

Moisy

As you all know from my previous posts we have had serious problems with no water.

I always said that my blog would be an honest blog.  I set it up to inspire people who always say “Oh I would love to do that, you are so brave, but I just couldn’t.” Or those who say “I want to do that but I am scared.” to consider the adventure, consider living life to the full, as one of my favourite quotes says “my aim is not to live life and die with a perfectly preserved body, but to slide into the grave sideways shouting “holy shit what a ride!!” But to do this, to inspire people the honesty is essential and I am going to tell you today about a recent wobble. Rich’s recent wobble.

Since living here we have had what some may say bad luck, or as other’s say lessons to teach us how to move forward in life, and if you don’t listen to the lessons they will just keep happening, over and over again, worse and worse until you sit up and f*****g listen! What have our lessons been?: When we moved over we bought a truck specifically to help us with our life here. It was only a 2009 model and had only 59,000 miles on the clock. But the engine blew up less than a year after we got here! We had checked the oil, done all we had to but the engine still blew up!! But… a dear friend sourced a van for us, and do you know what? It is better than the truck ever was, and the truck sale helped us pay for the wood last winter!

Some of my readers may remember that in the March after we moved here we had a storm, and as our house is perched on top of a hill (hence the views you have to take the good with the bad!) it took our kitchen roof off; and then the insurance company refused to pay out because they said we had not maintained the roof, we had only just moved in! So we are going to learn how to replace our roof at the end of this summer  that has to be a good thing right?!

Then we had a tornado go through the garden and rip some of the trees apart and decimate our gazebo. We burnt the wood from the silver birch in the spring as they season so quickly they will rot if not used. We got firewood from it.

Whilst we knew our cesspit did not conform what we did not know is that it leaks into the cellar. So we have put some things into place to help this, not least spraying the cellar floor with bleach. You do what you have to do. We have learnt you won’t die from it!

Rich has had people tell him that they want him to work for him so many days a week and then been dropped without any explanation. But looking back they were not particularly nice people to work for and our lesson was that we only work for people who are polite and all the rude and ignorant bastards can sod off!! We did not move out here to humour arseholes any more!! (That has to be a positive right!)

In the past month as you know we have lost water – which is now on it’s way to being sorted out thanks to good friends, and we have a temporary fix; and whilst driving home from work the brakes went on Rich’s van and he was over a fourty minute drive away- but a wonderful friend fixed them for him the next day.

But at the end of June, beginning of July Rich began to feel down. He tried to be his normal cheery self but you could see in the morning as we sat in our ‘morning corner’ with our cup of tea that he was miserable. He would huff and puff, and when I tried to be positive he would just shrug; but I knew that he was in a bad place when he commented how easy it would be to hang yourself from a tree in our garden! In fact it frightened me. I asked him to tell me something good about living out here and he looked at me and thought for a while and then said that he could not think of anything.

I know that many people read this blog because they want the inspiration to make that change, I know because they contact me and tell me. But this blog is about explaining that wherever you live, no matter how good life may appear there can still be times when life just gets on top of you. Do you know the thing that pushed my husband over the edge, despite all the shit that has come our way (literally at times)?  He went down when the wheelbarrow got a puncture and when he fixed it, it went down again and could not be repaired. Seriously! Despite everything else it was the wheelbarrow getting a puncture!!

I have asked Rich if I can write this post and he has agreed because we know some people out there (as do we all) who are really struggling and we hope that by sharing what most people think will be perceived as a weakness it will help others, because trust me we all struggle at times.

The amazing thing was that I shared this with close friends and my sister and so many people rallied round. My sister called Rich and had a chat with him, our friend Karen called Rich and had a chat with him, my lovely and dear friend Jan just turned up with seventy five litres of water and a bottle of wine (perhaps she thought it was best to emulate Christ!) She sat in the garden and had a big chat with Rich. Another wonderful friend (who is considered as our mum over here because she acts like it!) called us from another continent when I emailed her and told her what had happened to Rich’ she talked on the phone to him for over fifteen minutes and told us to go and live in her house whilst we had no water. The kindness and love that they  they all showed really helped Rich, but I have to say here folks, because he listened to them. They showed that they cared about him, and showed him love and support; and for people who know people who need that please remember it is invaluable.

So on the Saturday it was Rich’s birthday and the night before we went for a drink with a friend, who came because he knew that Rich was down, and some other friends who we have met also came down to celebrate his birthday.  It was a quiet night but enjoyable.

The next day on his birthday  Jan was not allowing Rich to wallow at home. She turned up with her wonderful friend Jacques and made us get ready and go out with them into Ambrieres. We went to the Tabac (a shop in town where people can buy tobacco products, papers, cards, have a drink, and place a bet on the horses.) We had a lovely time, had a couple of drinks and Jacques (a truly lovely man who can speak many languages) showed Rich how to put a bet on (you cannot bet more than two euro fifty at any time.) It really cheered Rich up and brought him back out of the doldrums, because it reminded him that he is on an adventure.

As we left the tabac to purchase a baguette for some late lunch I suddenly had one of ‘the’ moments as I looked up at the houses around us and thought “Wow! I live here!”

There are a couple of reasons for this post, one is to those who are thinking of making the move, remember it is hard, but by God it is exciting. If you accept that sometimes you will feel down, that you will struggle and feel overwhelmed, then it won’t bite you on the arse quite so bad. At the end of the day whatever crap comes your way in the words of a dear friend “it wouldn’t be an adventure without a pot hole or two!”

The other reason is a message to other people we know who are struggling with life at the moment, and I know it is so hard to see the good when you are down that black hole of despair. But look at all the good things I have put at the end of each piece of crap that came our way. There are good things! Crap happens! But what lessons have you learned from it? Don’t believe that spin doctor in your head when he tells you that everyone else has got it cracked, they haven’t the spin doctor is lying!!

So a big thank you to all who helped us, a big thank you to all who read my blog, take care of yourselves.

Look out for some more – hope this helps some people.

Moisy

When we lived in England Rich and I were never really ones to be actively part of a community. We always felt that to be part of a community in England involved other people wanting to force their opinions, and what they wanted down our throats; it also seemed to always end in things getting snippy and everyone wanting to know everyone’s business. I do believe that some of this is an English attitude (and as always folks I am not making a sweeping statement because I don’t know everyone in England! I can only speak from my experience.) but you only have to look at the way that English people behave on some of the Facebook sites out here to see exactly what I mean. You would think that everyone out here would wish each other well, support each other, but they don’t as you well know from other posts I have made. But enough of them! The point I am making is that Rich and I were always wary of the so called “community.”

But since moving here we have changed, we have been taught by our French neighbours and so many others (yes lovely English people we have met) that you can create your own communities and you can support each other just because you want to without any agenda. Let me explain….

When we moved here we thought that our house was called Montaigu, we have since come to realise that it is our little hamlet of three houses that is in fact called Montaigu, each house, if you like, is Montaigu. We think that our house was built around 1812, because our barn is dated above it’s religious artifact, which you can see if you look closely at the pictures below, there is a small arch which contains a small statue of the Virgin Mary, to the right of the barn, she is there to protect the barn from evil and harm (which it has to as the roof has not been replaced since about 1900!!)

We also know that our house was in fact the farm house for all the land surrounding it at one time, and that the other two houses here were in fact other barns that were part of this house.  Others have told us that it was the part of the land and properties of the chateau that is along the road from us. but after some research this is not accurate as the chateau was not built until 1872.

However the land may well have been owned and sold as one piece of land at some point.

So that is the history, let me explain the commune. ..

Despite the fact that we live in the commune of Ambrieres Les Vallees, there are often smaller communes in each town and as our houses are outside of the town that is why the three houses are classed as a smaller commune; and our wonderful neighbour and friend Marceau (other pseudonyms are available!) is in fact the unofficial patron of our Hamlet. That is why he helps everyone including Rich and I.

It is Marceau who invited us into his house many moons ago to welcome us at Christmas time,  with his beautiful partner Nadine. It is Marceau who called the man to come and empty our cesspit and told him to use his well water to clean it out. (Posts about all are available in he archives.) It was he who has allowed us to use his water so that we have a functional house again, and it is he who yesterday turned up and gave us (yes gave) a thousand litre water tank so that we harvest our rain water. Up he came on his tractor with this bloody great tank and helped Rich carry it into our garden. It is set up and collecting water as I write. Although I have been learning French it is Marceau who always slows down and teaches me many aspects of the language, and it is friends of Marceau who have taken us to their hearts and welcome us into their home.

As we have lived here we have watched help out other neighbours Lily and Marin (no real names are used) to dig out a massive trench in their garden to erect a fence, to move their raised vegetable beds, or to clear their ditch and many other things. He really is a kind man and he cherishes the commune in which we live.

Last week when we asked him to help with the water he asked if we loved living in the commune and we said we did. We explained that we understood that he must have been worried when he realised that English people had bought the house, because would hey interact? He smiled and said that he had been but that they were happy that it had been Rich and I (how wonderful is that?!) We explained that we appreciated that they had welcomes us so much and that we watched their homes if they were not there and he explained that they did the same to us, that they have embraced us into their small community and for that we feel blessed.

The difference that we have found however is that despite him doing all this for us, and others, they do not interfere, they do not want to know your business, French people are very polite and private people. They respect others space and privacy but are there if you need them and Rich and I have come to realise that we love ‘that’ feeling of community. We would do anything for them.

We have come to realise that this adventure had spurred us on to  form other communities as well, without realising we are doing it. Remote communities that have sprung up, with friends that we have been out of touch with for years, who have been inspired by our adventure, inspired that we have had the bravery to do it, and who have supported us when times have been hard, both with words and deeds, and most importantly with no agenda; and yes, they are all English. What have Rich and I learnt? That this, too is a community, and they know that we are supporting them back, with no agenda; and the courage to do this has been given to us by French people. They truly believe in fraternity (mutual support within a group).

We have small communities with other people we have met here, not least my wonderful friend Jan, and my kind and lovely friend Louise. I know that they are there if I need them and they know that I am there if they need me.

We have one other very special friend who wishes to remain nameless, who has helped us immensely and I know loves us so.

But let me not forget one other community that has become an important part of my life and it is this community- the community that is all over the world that read this blog. For that I am truly grateful and please do not be shy, I would love to hear your feedback.

So for those, who I know read this because they are thinking about the adventure, consider this ….. you get so much more than you realised when you take that chance including a change of thinking!

Look out for the next post – and welcome to the newbies, I note you have been reading the archives, please, read away and share with others.

Moisy

This means ‘a lesson in life, treasure your water!’

So it has been a month since I last posted, and what a month it has been!!

It has been hot here since the end of May and our friends Mary and Den came over just as a full heatwave hit, with temperatures of thirty eight degrees in the day and thirty degrees at night. So we filled the paddling pool up, and sprayed the dogs but in the back of Rich and my mind was that we are on well water and it has been really dry here for months. So much so we re-used the water from the paddling pool to water the plants and veggies.

And then the worst happened! I came home from staying at a friends to find Rich stressed to the max because although the pump was hammering away and pumping as hard as it could (sorry it sounds a bit like a porno!) the water pressure in our tank was not going up. So we opened the well and whilst we could see water it was a long, long way down and way below the pipe line that fed our pump. Our well had in fact run dry.

Most of you know we are working on a tight budget and could not afford (or so we thought as the little spin doctor in our mind told us) to have mains water connected to our house. France is so vast water is not automatically available and the road has to be dug up for the pipe and you have to pay for that. On the Facebook sites there are horror stories of the cost and we just thought “That’s it! We have no water, we are f*****d!!)

But I am not one to give up easily and I calmed Rich down and said that we would manage; and we did. We went and bought numerous five litre water bottles and used them. Our dear friends all rallied around us, some offered us showers in their homes, one even offered us to live in her home because she is away. Our dear friend Jan brought round three twenty five litre bottles full of water twice and offered us baths at her house. In fact the kindness and generosity that we received from so many people was overwhelming.

We bought a new plastic watering can and then filled it up by boiling some water and adding cold and then stood on a plastic stool and showered each other – you had to move bloody fast but we did have a laugh, especially my poor husband who is over six foot tall and I am only five foot four inches! He had to crouch for me to get the height! We even ordered a solar camping shower from Amazon. The loo was filled up by the garden watering can.

When we first moved here we had no facility for water in the toilet so we bought this…

It is an eighteenth century tap, where you fill the copper pot and then turn the small copper tap and hey presto running water (was probably state of the art at the time.) Thank God we did  because Rich set it up in the kitchen, by tying it to our existing kitchen tap, so that we could wash our hands after handling food.

There are launderettes all over France in every town and for eight euro you can have an eighteen kilo wash, so off I went to use their facilities.

What it showed us both is that we have resilience, we are both in our fifties and lived through the summer of 76 when England suffered a drought to such a degree that water had to be ferried from the north of England to the south, and the water was only available by stand pipe at the end of the road. I can still remember queuing with my mum with every available thing we could find to ferry water, buckets, watering cans, bowls and saucepans; and Rich and I did wonder how young people from England would cope with something like this, as we just seemed to slot back into what we had learnt all those years ago.

But I am not going to lie, I missed not having a washing machine, or a dishwasher, as it seemed as if I could just not get the plates as clean; but most of all to not have running water is awful, and made us both realise how much we have taken water for granted. We won’t ever do that again. As we were ferrying in over a hundred litres of water that friends had allowed us to get from their taps Rich started to say “here is Richard, he has to walk three hours a day for water!!”

So after prompting from friends I contacted the water company and it appears that there is a way for us to have the water connected, and a way to pay. I should have known that there is always an answer, and I am glad that I listened to good friends when they nagged me to bite the bullet, not be afraid, and find out.

So I called the water company and managed, in French, to arrange for an engineer to come out and for them to send us the relevant documents. We do not know how much it will cost yet as you have to fill in a form to ask for an estimate (only in France!) which I have done. After three days of waiting for the engineer to arrive, and a bank holiday and weekend in the middle, a lovely young man came out and advised us to ask our neighbour if he would agree to a temporary meter to be fitted to his pipe so that they could bill us separately. Of course our neighbour, who is tres gentile and our friend agreed and the next day we had water.

I cannot begin to explain the feeling of not having water readily available to you, especially hot running water, and I can honestly say that I am ashamed that I did not treasure something so simple, I should have known better!

So now we are using shorter programmes on the washing machine and dishwasher, not because of the water being metered but because we have had it rammed home to us  what a precious commodity it is.

The other thing I have come to realise is that we are blessed with really really good friends (they know who they are) and each other, because we met this challenge head on, as a team, and with a sense of humor. (Although Rich did have a bit of a wobble.)

I am back folks, thanks for continuing to read my blog, there will be more coming as I have to raise my profile now, I will be sending my book to some publishers in September (and no, it is not about this adventure but another adventure that Rich and I had ten years ago that inevitably brought us to France)

If you like my blog please share and get it out there, I will be forever grateful.

Moisy

This weekend I found myself looking at the sun going down and thinking “Wow! I live in France!”

Our French friends (some of whom are also our neighbours) had invited us to lunch. Rich and I had no idea what to expect so we dressed up (a rare thing these days for two people who spend most of their time in old holey tracksuit bottoms covered in mud!) and off we went with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation.

In many ways France reminds me so much of Ireland; first we went to the home of  Martin and Nadine (privacy has been respected here) M and N invited us in and offered us a drink and aperitifs, even though really we were not staying at their house but going on to the home of Manu and Edith (privacy again respected.) But despite this out came the aperitif dish with nuts, small cheeses, and olives and out came the drink of whisky and a fruit flavoured drink for the ladies. (Always I am offered a sweet fruity alcoholic drink.) After that we were then whisked away to the home of M and E.

It was a beautiful hot sunny day, over twenty eight degrees, so we were invited to sit on the patio and out came the champagne and more aperitifs, of crab balls with cheese inside, melon, small square cheeses (the ones available in England, they are very popular in France), there were mussels, garlic, peanuts, and cherry tomatoes. After drinking two bottles of champagne it was into the the conservatory to sit at a beautifully laid table and out came various coleslaws, cous cous, and bread.  After that came  ice cream as a mouth cleanser (no not sorbet), it was in a glass with the deadly calva (home made apple brandy) pouted over it. I could not drink the calva, seriously I would have been on the floor!

Then on to the main course of beef steak cooked on the BBQ, a selection of vegetables consisting of green beans, thinly sliced potatoes, carrots and peas which had been cooked and then fried in butter (delicious), with a pepper sauce available as you wished; this was then followed by meringue, ice cream and macaroons in all different flavours (which are Richard’s favourite so he was in his element.)

They are really lovely our friends and thanks to my wonderful French teacher I could converse quite well with them (we took some of the printed leaflets from the French lessons to help Rich.) Due to this we got onto the subject of speaking French and much hilarity was had when I recalled the first time I had met Martin and told him that we had five cats and commented on the weather by telling him I was hot. This may sound innocent except chat (cat) is pronounced Cha, you do not pronounce the T. If you do pronounce the T you are actually talking about your fanny (vagina!!!) Also if you want to say you are hot you simply say it is hot, if you say I am hot you are actually saying that you are hot stuff and want sex!!! So when I first met my neighbour I told him that I had five fannies and wanted sex!!! Add to this he was wearing his “petit, petit shorts” (the ones we all rib him about) and God knows what he thought. Much hilarity was had about this and also at the fact they kept pumping Rich full of macaroons because he said he loved them!

After a wonderful afternoon it was all back to Martin’s house (in the small hamlet where we live) for a game of boules. It is the second time I have played and the second time I have been in the winning team. In fact Martin asked if I had played before because I was doing well and I really think it is because my Dad Paddy (bless him,I am sure he was looking down on me with pride) was very good at bowles.

As I sat on their veranda in the hot evening sun,  I looked across the rolling hills, whilst listening to our wonderful French friends chattering away with the family members who had now joined us and thought “Now I am truly living in France!”  It felt both wonderful and surreal.

A perfect day with the finishing touch of the  bright orange harvest moon that was hanging in the sky as the night drew in.

Moisy