Counting our blessings
As the sun shines gloriously and the temperatures reach well into the 30's We sit with a glass of something fantastically cool overlooking our little pied a terre and count our blessings, we moved to France to give ourselves a better life and I have to say we have not been disappointed thus far, don't misunderstand me there have been many times when I could have quite easily booked a ferry and packed it all in but I am not a quitter and I always like to give everything a good go....we have been here just over 5 years now, we have made many friends, some of whom have become very good mates but sadly as in all areas of life there are the kind of people who you would rather not be part of their crowd but enough said about that :)Do we have any regrets, yes one that jumps to mind, we are sorry that we didn't make a better effort to learn the language before we came and I would wholeheartedly encourage anyone who is thinking of making the move to do so, someone this last week made a comment saying "how on earth do you manage without being able to communicate" the answer is with great difficulty, one thing I certainly will do if ever I get my tongue around this language and that is I will be more than happy to help others with translations, we do have several friends who speak French and they help us out when necessary but there have been some in the past who although they are able to help they haven't always been obliging - I guess it takes all sorts.
Do we miss England, what's to miss... well if we didn't have good friends who bring supplies over when they come we would miss things such as -Tea bags, real bacon/gammon steaks, sage & onion stuffing, real cheddar cheese etc; that said if you look long and hard you will find cheddar cheese and of course the supermarkets sometimes have an English aisle but you will have to pay the price.
But the quality of life is second to none and most of the time we feel like millionaires.
This weekend it is our village fete, the marquee's are up, there will be pig roasts, dancing and singing and Breton costumes, there will be a race round the village which runs by our house so we can hang out of the window and cheer them on, a good thing as they go by about 5 times....rather them than me.
Yes we are blessed - we have a small garden which gives us a lot of pleasure and now we have one of those round blow up pools to dip into when it gets too hot...
30 ° and a bottle of wine nom nom
Then in the pool yey
