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Tag Archives: letting go

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.

what you needed at the time

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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Changes are coming: The crap we keep

10 Monday Sep 2018

Posted by in Change is a coming, My home, Reflections, The continuing adventure

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So here I am at 18.30, my time ,and I started to write this blog at 14.30!! That is what it seems to be at the moment busy, busy, busy…

As you know from my previous posts, with the titles including the words changes are coming, we had water fitted last week, took the pool down, met the bank manager, and decided it was time to clear out our barn.

That is one of the things when you embark on a major life change such as this, the crap you bring with you! Heed my warnings all you adventurers, you may have thought that you had got rid of all the crap you did not needm but guess what you haven’t!

Then three years later, when you decide that perhaps you should go through those boxes of stuff that you thought were so essential you paid a fortune in storage for them, and an even bigger fortune in moving costs; the same stuff that you then leave in your barn for three years (obviously because it was that essential!) only to go through it one day and say ‘What the fuck did we bring that over to France for?!

So as we climbed over the crap, (treasured possessions as once was) we realised that we had a task on our hands.

 

 

As I have said before when we moved from England we were on first name terms with the little old ladies at the cancer charity shop (sorry I don’t give cancer a capital c anymore, it doesn’t deserve it!); so much so they all shouted ‘Rich’ when he went in with even more stuff that we gave away (like an episode of ‘Cheers’ only in Herne Bay in England!)

When we moved we thought we had been mercenary, we thought we had been hard, only to discover during this task, four boxes of our son’s stuff that we could not throw away ‘because he might need it one day.’ He needs it so much that he doesn’t even know it is here. Then there was the box with chipped plates, one random saucer that had not cup to go with it, and (I kid you not) glass jars that I used to put candles in!!

There were the broken lamp shades (it is safe to say not one surived the move), broken lamps, a plastic chair (which was weird because we have never owned plastic garden chairs), old cards ( I swore I threw them all away) old postcards, T.shirts, peices of random paper and even open envelopes!! There is no room for sentimentality when you do something like this, you have to let go of the old to make room for the new.

In addition a lot of the things we had brought over with us were reminders of people who stopped being in contact when we made this move; perhaps they decided that we were a bit too ‘out there’ for them, or that we made them feel as if they may be boring. (Yep, there is an irony there!) But let us not forget I was inadvertently told recently by someone that I was ‘full of hot air.’ At least I think it was inadvertent,other than that they were just being fucking rude!! But only if I gave a crap! (Oops there goes my hot air again! Better to be that than boring!)

So we went through everything (in one half only and it took two days) and let it all go (again)

 

We also discovered that other people had used our barn as a dumping ground and we had so many empty cardboard boxes (‘for Moira’s etsy’ they used to say) some with no lids and some with shit that other people had dumped in it!! Thanks one and all, and just to get it out there, I don’t want any more boxes. If I want them I will get them, I’m that sort of gal!!

But we did find our memory box, and, because we have changed we let some of that go. You cannot hold onto the past; I let my mum’s top go. I thought that I had let it go when we moved over here, I kept it at first, after she had died, because it smelled of her, it was her favourite top and she had worn it often;  I had moved it with me three times, because I thought it kept my mum with me but when we made our move over here I clearly remember saying ‘I need to let this go’; but I must have decided that, at a time I needed moral support, then I needed to bring it with me one more time. My mum died twenty one years ago, that top is not her, her spirit is free, not in a top from Marks and Spencers! So I have, now, let it go.

We did keep George, the wooden snake that Tom picked on our first holiday together as a family to Menorca; and Srog, his frog that I bought him from London Zoo, and there was some stuff we put back and said ‘Perhaps next time we go through this we will let this go then..’ We know that we are changing all the time you see.

There is stuff that needs to be researched, as I believe it has a value now, and it would be good to pass that money onto Tom, because most of the things are his after all, like is train set, and his action men still in their packaging.

I am going to sell Tom’s beautiful cherrywood cot/bed (yes can you believe I  moved his cot over here, because my mum bought it for me); but I am letting it go. I have learnt so much over the past three years, and one of them is that material things are not necessary to keep the memories. That is such a beautiful cot that I would rather a family who needed it, had it to cherish.

On Saturday we loaded up our new van and took half of the stuff to the dechetterie (the dump) with the other half to go on Wednesday. Most of the cardboard boxes are going on the bonfire (quick all those who say you shouldn’t have fires calle the Marie!) and our barn is tidy with boxes in there (also waiting to be burnt) and we now have less than half of what was there and a tidy organised room.

 

Now all Rich has to do is sort out this lot on the other side!!

 

You might have guessed, still lots of work to be done.

But most importantly my post is to say, let go, let go, let go, life is too short, let go of the crap and good will come your way.

Moisy