Our first French Christmas and New Year is over and the decorations will soon be packed away for next year.
It was certainly different this year - the first Christmas in 30 years when I haven't cooked Christmas dinner for a houseful! We had a good time though despite missing family and friends.We were uncharacteristically sociable, met new people, enjoyed good food and company, went for a wonderful Boxing day walk in the snow and even had to turn down an invite for New Years Eve as we had already booked to go to the local salle des fetes for the bal with some friends.
TC retired officially on the first day of 2010 and the months which followed had rather more ups and downs than we thought strictly necessary although as it turns out all those people who said there was a reason were right ( don't you just hate it when other people are right?). In this case they were right as this house was definitely the one for us. Thanks to all those whose encouragement kept us going even when it all seemed hopeless and we were ready to give up.
We have loved our first few months living as French residents and have no regrets about our decision to come here. We were very content and comfortable in England and had a good social life and many friends but retirement offered us an opportunity to have an adventure and follow a dream. This weekend we will have been in our new house for three months - it seems much longer we feel so much "at home". Getting to know other English people has been easy - there are plenty around and it is nice to be able to relax and have a conversation in English after a day struggling to master French. It is harder to get to know French people ( although those we meet are all very friendly to us). We are so pleased that our traditional dancing classes have worked out so well as they have brought us into contact with lots of people and provided us with regular social events ( we could easily go to a dance every week).
We are now busy preparing for a two week trip back to England where TC has a booking to perform at a folk club giving us an opportunity to visit family and also have our "leaving party" in Stoke. We had always planned to have a grand farewell celidh but our eventual sudden departure prevented it. Our old folk club traditionally has a January celidh so we have decided to sponsor that as our leaving bash. It will be great to see everyone and I am sure we are going to have a great time but I am also sure that we will be glad to get "home"- Spring will be just around the corner and we have so many plans and projects lined up.
The year ahead will see some significant birthdays and anniversaries - I look forward to celebrating them in the French sunshine.
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