We moved to France and five months on!

Planning our Life in France

In lieu of actually being here in France, we had been planning moving to France. Buying books like Living in France, working in France and  Restoring French Property, lurking on the many internet forums like French Entrée and Total France we even managed to tune the car radio into a French station and kidded ourselves that we had some idea what they were talking about. 

All in all we had completely created our life in France in our heads, so completely in fact that it came of something of a shock to find we have to do it all again now we have moved here. 

Of course no-one and nothing else had learnt their part in that work of fiction “We Move to France and It’s Great”. Life’s like that. Why are we surprised? After all we do have over 45 years experience at it.

Moving to France

The weather in Limousin France was supposed to be warm and sunny with just enough rain that we didn’t have to water the garden. It has been the coldest Summer that anyone we’ve spoken to can remember for this part of France. 

Making a home in France

We’re still doing stuff to our  house. Strange because when you say it quickly “put in a kitchen downstairs, create bathroom and bedroom first floor and second bedroom in attic, paint shutters and front door, fill in holes in plaster and decorate it’ll be lurvley” then surely that’s hardly anything at all. In fact there is an unfinished job lying in wait in just about any direction you care to look. On the plus side we have started many many DIY projects. 

Gardening

Then there’s the garden. Create a patio here, flower beds, bit of lawn French style vegetable garden, outdoor kitchen, chicken house and run, fences gates. Well they do it on the television in a half hour programme for goodness sake. We have started the patio, grown some vegetables, we do have SOME flowers and the chickens are polite enough to mostly stay in what we call the run. Oh and we put in two fence posts the other day. 

 

So then, life in France five months on. 

 

We get up when we wake up, no more alarm clocks for us. If we are not self sufficient and living off the land then at least we are eating something we have produced ourselves every day. We go to work on the house or in the garden, no more sitting on the M62 motorway for three hours a day. Since we moved to France we have not enough time in the day to do everything we want to do and more jobs get added to the bottom of the “to do” list than we ever clear off the top. We have time to drive round or walk in the beautiful French countryside, time to make home cooked food, time to chat with friends and neighbours. 

 

 

So then life in France five months on,  

It’s not the dream life it’s real life and it’s a really good life.