I’d intended to have some time off when I’d moved in to my new abode, but the weather’s been very cold for the last week and the heating in the apartment is frankly pathetic, it’s only achieved 17°C on a couple of occasions so far, mostly staying around 15 or 16. That’s fine while I’m busy, but not ideal for sitting around.

Gemma sent me a lovely warm dressing gown, which I put on over my many layers in the evenings, along with extra socks, while I wrap my feet in an old quilt.

So the cold is one reason for keeping busy; the other being the horrible, old lady style, salmon pink, vinyl wallpaper that adorned the walls of my workshop. I want to be able to fill my workshop with my textiles stuff, which is currently filling the spare room. So the paper just had to go!

I stripped the top layer, hoping I could just paint the backing paper, but it was too much of a mess. I found lining paper and paste in one of the many DIY shops (oh, the luxury of having a choice of shops!) and reclaimed my pasting brushes from Kieran, but wasn’t sure what to use as a pasting table as the paper is a metre wide – wider than a standard pasting table. All became clear when I read the instructions on the paste packet; you paste the wall! That was a first for me, as was the screaming pink colour of the paste – it dries clear.

I’ve papered the first wall today and it looks ok. Another couple of days will see the papering finished, then I’ll paint and will be able to start filling shelves and cupboards. Once that’s done I can have some time off, as the weather should be warming up a bit soon.

Now that the dust has settled, it seems about time to bring the blog up to date.

Our beautiful, dream home in Caupenne now has new owners and I’ve moved into my new home, an apartment in St Paul les Dax, nearer to Kieran.

I’d been preparing for the move for so long that the “déménagement” itself ran like clockwork.

My brother, Peter,  and his partner came over for a few days in the week before moving day. They hired a big car at my request, so that we could fill it and my car with boxes, which we took to the garage of the apartment. On the Saturday of their visit, friends joined us, to make up a group of eight, with 3 cars, a van and a trailer, all of which we packed with the furniture I was taking and as many boxes as we could squeeze in. The apartment owners had given me permission to put stuff in the bedrooms that day, which was great; I was delighted to see that my furniture fitted easily into the two small bedrooms. When I’d looked around the apartment initially, it was absolutely crammed with tables, chairs, cupboards, even a piano, to the extent that you could hardly move. Not my style at all.

Peter and Penny left the following day, the same day as a constant stream of buyers came to collect various purchases they’d made through a selling page I found on Facebook (yes, it does have some uses!). When everyone had left, the house looked and felt so sad and empty, it was just a shell, no longer my home. I have to admit to shedding a few tears before I phoned my friend Mart, to take up her offer of a bed at hers for my last few nights in Caupenne.

I continued to box up last bits and pieces, and clean through until the morning of Thursday 16th February, when my buyers arrived. I was inconsolable when the moment arrived that I’d been anticipating and dreading in equal measure for months, when I had to say my final goodbyes to the house in which we’d invested so much time, energy and love and called home for the last 11 years, but life moves on and so must I.

Kieran and I went out to lunch with the buyers, then spent the afternoon at the notaire’s; first we had to sign off probate, then the sale of my house and finally the purchase of the apartment; we were both exhausted by the end of the day.

Kieran took the trailer back to his garage that night and I met him at the apartment the next day, when we moved furniture, installed the washing machine and assembled a bed for me to sleep in.

My friend Adrian came over on the Saturday; we spent the day moving boxes upstairs from the garage (thank goodness there’s a lift). Ade also insisted on removing the large mirror that graced the wall behind the toilet cistern, it seems it was extremely disconcerting for blokes! It’s now in the pile of items left by the previous owners, destined for the charity shop or the tip.

I’d asked the estate agent what to do about the electrics; he told me I just had to call EDF a few days after moving. I hadn’t had time Friday or Saturday, so was planning to ring them on Monday; unfortunately they cut me off on Sunday morning! As the shutters are electric, I couldn’t even open them to let some light in, and it was very cold. I sent Kieran a message and set off for a walk around the local lake, to warm up; I got horribly lost and had to cross a little river on a bridge that was no more than 12 inches wide, with no handrails – I was shaking like a leaf! Eventually I found my way home, Kieran called and invited me to his, where, having fed me, he contacted EDF and got the electrics reconnected for me. What a star!

I think I’ll be comfortable here, there are a few jobs to do and a lot of decorating, but nothing too major.

I haven’t had the big computer for a few weeks now, but Kieran has enabled me to publish the blog from my phone now. So this is a post that I wrote two or three weeks ago.

I’ve made so many trips to the local tip over recent months, with carloads of all sorts of rubbish, from half empty paint cans to long dead printers, boxes of old art gallery brochures to heaps of plastic plant pots. The men who work there recognise me now and are always happy to help me lift heavy stuff out of the car and occasionally claim stuff for themselves; such as the two gaudily painted walking sticks that we were given – not my taste at all, but one of the guys was delighted with them.

My most recent trip was just after Graham left; we’d sorted stuff in the attic into “tip”, “charity shop” and “keeping” piles, so I loaded the car with the rubbish and drove down to the tip. I thought I’d been through all the boxes, but as I was emptying the last one, a cardboard folder, which must have been near the bottom of the box, flapped open, showing a small corner of blue paper. I grabbed back the box and took out the folder. I knew exactly what the paper was; a handwriting sampler, done in 1937 by my grandad, in India, during the war, while he was recovering from malaria, and which he had given me when I was about 12 or 13. I’d always intended to have it framed, but had never quite got around to it and since we moved to France, I’d been unable to find it. 

I brought the whole folder home ; what a treasure trove! Amongst a selection of old postcards and Frank Meadows Sutcliffe photos I found a birthday card, embroidered for me by Gemma when she was small, a painting by my step father, inscribed for Gemma, and a professional photo of my mum that I don’t remember having seen before, taken when she was probably about 19 or 20.

To say the find made my day would be something of an understatement; the folder is now carefully packed in a cardboard box, ready for my move to St. Paul les Dax. Once I’m settled, Kieran’s going to teach me how to make simple picture frames – I know what the first ones will be for.

If I’ve learnt anything over the past few months, it’s who my true friends are. Graham, my son in law, offered to take a week’s leave to come over and help me in January. He arrived at Lourdes airport on a bitterly cold, windy, wet day; he’s never been here in winter before and was shocked by how foul the weather can be. All the energy I’d put into my vide maison had left me feeling flat, but with Graham’s enthusiasm I was soon back up to speed. 

We sorted stuff from the attic; piles to go to the tip, to the charity shop or to be kept and with his encouragement I started the task of rationalising my fabric store. Some fabrics I’d had for over 40 years! If I hadn’t used them yet, I was unlikely ever to do so, so they were boxed up for the charity shop; I actually managed to get rid of quite a lot. The rest we boxed up and put into the now nearly empty wood workshop, along with my sewing machines, threads and other equipment.

We also packed into boxes all the jars of chutneys, sun-dried tomatoes, lime pickle and other home produce from the arrière cuisine ; I had no idea how much there was!

My house buyers arrived with what they had described as their first load of stuff, to put in the garage. The weather was so awful that it had taken them 9 hours to drive from le Mans, instead of the usual 6. They brought three lorries full of stuff, one of which scraped and damaged the guttering on the back of the house and pushed a load of roof tiles out of place. Kieran put the tiles back in place, but could do nothing about the guttering; at least it’s not my problem.

Some local hunters turned up to help them, friends of Jeff, the buyer, as well as several other family members. I gave them all coffee to warm them up, then closed the door on them and left them to it. The garage is bursting with their stuff and there’s a lorry and a huge wooden box on the drive too. They came back the following day with workmen to estimate for various jobs; I just tried to ignore them, I don’t want to know what changes they plan to make. They both seem like nice people, but when they told me that I’m welcome to come back anytime, I just burst into tears; once I leave this house, I can never come back, it will live in my memory as it was.

Once they’d left, we went back to sorting the attic; Graham, being a photographer, was delighted to come across a slide projector and boxes of slides and we spent most of the following evenings digging out boxes of slides at random, mostly having a good laugh (and occasionally shedding a few tears) at what we found. Kieran’s promised me a digital scanner for my birthday, so I’ll be able to share them with the family. 

All too soon it was time to take Graham back to the airport; next time I see him I’ll have moved and will be living in a much smaller space, where I fully intend to live by the ethos of William Morris, who’s quoted as saying  “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful”. I must say that decluttering has lifted a huge weight from my shoulders and now that it’s nearly done I certainly don’t want to leave to my children the sort of nightmare task I’ve had to undertake over these last few months. 

Over the past several weeks I’ve been trying to clear as much stuff as possible from the house, the garage, the workshops, the bike shed and all the other outbuildings. It’s been a mammoth task, but with the help of some very good friends, I’m making progress.

Last weekend was my vide maison (garage sale); Nico and Edwige came round on Thursday to help me install trestles and planks as makeshift tables and to move all the stuff I’d collected together onto them and elsewhere in the garage. Every time I came into the house, or anywhere else, for that matter, I’d find more bits and pieces; but eventually I felt I was as ready as I could be. I spent Friday pricing every item; mostly at 1 or 2 euros, way below what stuff was worth, but every item sold would be one less to dispose of later.

Saturday dawned cold, but with the promise of warmth in the afternoon. Maithée, Mart, Nathalie, Fleur and Régine turned up to help with the steady flow of people. Things I hadn’t thought of selling, such a plants in pots, were requested, so I sold enough stuff to be able to see a difference.

Sunday was a filthy day; rain, hail and sleet were all blown into our bit of shelter by a driving wind. It was bitterly cold; I was frozen, in spite of 5 sweaters and jackets and thick tights under my jeans. I’m not sure if Isabelle, Laurence, Mart and Paul were wearing quite as many layers, but we all took turns coming into the house to warm up and make hot drinks.

Naturally, we had very few visitors.  We did, however, have a very enjoyable day, with plenty of conversation and lots of laughter.

At the end of the day we packed the less saleable stuff  into my car for the tip on Monday and the rest into boxes.

An English couple who live not far from the charity shop in Eauze, and whom I’d never met until Saturday, offered to come back, with their trailer, on Tuesday morning, to take whatever remained to the charity shop for me, which will save me hours of driving back and forth in my little car. They say that they received so much help from strangers over their first few months in France that they’re passing on the kindness – what an amazing ethos, it restores your faith in human nature.

I’ve been amazed, more times than I can remember, by the kindness of total strangers, who’ve turned up in my life, out of the blue, just when I needed them.

One day, not long before Christmas, a man messaged me; he’d been talking to a fellow teacher who’d been to my house to buy books, and who’d told him of my glut of bikes; he said he was a cyclist and enjoyed renovating bikes and could he come round? 

He’s been an absolute godsend! He’s taken bikes, stripped them down, cleaned and serviced them, often swapping parts between them to make them more saleable; he’s then put them on le bon coin (an internet selling site) and brought me the money. He refuses point blank to accept anything in return, saying that he enjoys doing this and that I obviously need the help. What a star! It must be driving his poor wife mad, I’m sure she must have things she needs doing; I know how that feels – Nick was exactly the same. Jean Michel told me one day that his wife had asked if she ought to be worried about him spending hours every afternoon at the house of an English woman; “no, of course not”, he replied, “she’s old!”. Thanks, Jean Michel !

The last English class I taught at the “clan”, a former student and lace maker arrived, bringing me a lace book mark that she’d made for me before covid. She was my only student that day, so we chatted for a while and I discovered that she’d recently started to learn to play the saxophone. I mentioned that I had three to sell, so she put me in touch with her teacher, who very kindly had a look at them and advised me what sort of prices to ask for them.

Times like this seem to bring out the best (or sometimes the worst) in people; I’ve certainly learned who my real friends are.

I woke at 4am today, feeling thoroughly chilled. I got up and put an extra cover on, but that didn’t help, so I found a hot water bottle, which did help. When I woke again, it was to discover that the hot water bottle had sprung a leak, the end of the bed was soaked.

That dealt with, I came upstairs for breakfast; it didn’t feel very warm – the heating wasn’t working. I went for a look in the chaufferie, where the “working bits” are, but all was silent and I was none the wiser, so I phoned the heating engineers (fortunately I took out a service contract earlier in the year), who will send someone round early next week.

It’s not desperately cold at the moment, so I can just light the wood burner in the daytime as well as the evenings; however, a lot of my remaining firewood is logs that are too big for the stove – they need splitting. I do have a log splitter, so I dragged it out and plugged it in. It’s not my favourite tool; it’s so powerful, it scares me, so I push the button and run away.  It made all the right noises, but nothing else happened; no movement of the two ends to split the log I’d put in. Humph! Maybe if I move the pile of logs around, I’ll find enough smallish ones. Kieran’s coming over this week ; I suspect the splitter just needs cleaning and lubricating – I hope so.

Not a great day so far!

Gemma started nagging me to visit her in Australia shortly after Nick’s death and eventually I agreed to go over in November; she did all the booking of flights for me, deciding I should stay for almost the whole month.

I was petrified at the prospect of travelling all that way on my own and nearly called the whole trip off on several occasions in the preceding weeks, but I needn’t have worried; I didn’t get lost in the airports, didn’t miss any flights and my luggage arrived in Perth with me.

We had an amazing time together; Gemma’s long awaited redundancy came through on my second day there, so we were able to spend the whole time together. It was lovely to get to know Chris a bit better and to see their beautiful home.

We visited Gemma’s friends who live on a station in the outback; 700km north east of Perth and covering 185000 acres, it extends as far as the eye can see in every direction. The earth is bright red, the vegetation is very scrubby and there’s an amazing variety of wildlife around; kangaroos, émus, bungarras (a sort of big lizard), snakes, etc, etc. Blair, Jared and their three delightful children were so welcoming, we had a fantastic couple of days with them. I will never understand, however, why anybody would choose to live in such an isolated, harsh environment, where even the nearest shop is 60km away and you have to rely on rainfall for drinking water.

Another day we went to Mandurah, a bit like a modern Venice, in that many of the houses front onto canals. Gemma’s friend’s parents live in such a house and took us for a wonderful trip around the canals on their boat. How the other half lives!

Some other friends, again boat owners, invited us to join them on a trip to Rottnest Island, so we headed off. The less said about that day though, the better , as I discovered that I’m not a good sailor. I was just pleased the family was staying overnight on Rottnest and we were taking the ferry back to Perth.

It was a fantastic holiday; I borrowed Gemma’s bike to ride up and down the coastal cycle path, joined Gemma in her yoga classes and met so many of her wonderful friends. We went to markets and visited a jazz club, went out to meet friends for breakfast and spent Sunday afternoons watching the salsa dancing at the amphitheatre on the beach. I was able to wind down a bit for the first time in months. 

Coming home wasn’t easy, but I was better motivated to start on the major pre-moving clear out than when I’d left. February is looming fast; I’m making progress, selling what I can online, giving other stuff to charity and taking yet more to the tip. Nick was such a hoarder! It’s far from easy, but in some ways it feels quite liberating to be having a good clear out.

Our friend Adrian has  played in a rock band for years; they’re good, they write their own songs and are all very proficient musicians. A few years ago Michel, the lead singer moved away; they found another singer, a nineteen year old girl called Nadia. She had a fabulous voice and for a while all went well; but gradually Nadia’s mother took over, installing herself as the band’s manager, wanting them to buy lighting systems and smoke machines; after all they were her daughter’s ticket to stardom. Eventually the base player and one of the guitarists walked out and the band folded.

In 2019 they got back together, minus Nadia and her mum, of course, but their resurrection was short lived thanks to covid.

A while ago, Adrian phoned me to say they’d started to play again, they’d got a gig booked, so would I like to go along?  I thought about my divorced friend Jan’s words; that the best advice she was ever given was NEVER to turn down an invitation. So I said yes, I’d love to.

I saw Ade at Kieran’s a couple of weeks later; he mentioned the gig again and I assured him that I’d be there. Well actually, he said, they wondered if I’d like to do some backing singing; I thought of Jan’s words, took a deep breath and said yes, I’d love to.

They’re a great bunch of guys and real perfectionists in their music; at my first rehearsal I asked what they’d like me to do, only to be told “whatever you like”! No pressure then!

The original gig was cancelled due to covid and rearranged, but I then had covid, so I haven’t sung with them in public yet, but I love rehearsals, when I can immerse myself totally in the music and forget everything else in my life.

As they say, as one door closes, another opens.

Houses don’t generally sell very quickly around here; in fact one estate agent who came round told me in no uncertain terms that my house would take a very long time to sell. Obviously that wasn’t the agent I chose.

I felt I needed to put it on the market as soon as I could and certainly before winter set in; eventually I found an agent I felt comfortable with, tackled a few bits of DIY that I felt would be useful and signed the forms. It went live one Friday evening.

The following Tuesday morning the agent brought a couple round; they’d travelled down from Le Mans and had another two viewings that afternoon, after which the agent promised to call me. He didn’t hold out much hope as this couple had been looking since June and had seen nothing they liked, but while we were speaking later in the day, he received a text….. was I sitting down?….. they’d made an offer. 

We haggled a bit over the price, and agreed that I didn’t need to have the back wall crepied. But the best bit is that they don’t want to move till mid February, giving me some time to clear stuff out and visit Gemma. I’m still reeling a bit at the speed things are happening; we’ve signed the compromis de vente (the initial commitment) and they’ve been back to choose items they want to purchase, the mower etc. So all I can do now is get on with the clearing out, a massive task, and start the search for somewhere to live.

Moving out is going to be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done; this house has been such a labour of love and is absolutely full of precious memories, but it’s far too big for me to cope with on my own, so I must be practical. Life goes on.

There’s a link below to the advert for the house; I don’t know how long it will work, but the photos are nice.

https://www.rue-principale.immo/fr/maison-vente-caupenne-darmagnac-32-141014075.html

Last Christmas Gemma gave Nick and I an amazing present; a voucher for a hot air balloon flight over the Dordogne. Obviously we hadn’t taken it by the time of Nick’s death, so Gemma agreed to go with me.

The date we booked was very close to the end of Gemma’s stay and the weather forecast wasn’t great for the Thursday morning, so the company suggested we do Wednesday evening instead. 

What an experience it was! 

There were several balloons flying in the area, it seems to be quite a centre for it.

Our balloon was enormous, as was the basket; big enough for 16 people plus the pilot. We were 12, so we had plenty of space as, once the balloon was inflated, we climbed aboard.

I don’t think I was the only one wondering if our pilot knew what he was doing at the beginning of the flight; we lifted a bit, but then stayed on the same level as we crossed above a road. We needn’t have worried however; on the far side of the road was a big field of maize, which we skimmed, the top leaves of the maize just brushing the bottom of the basket as we flew over the field. We then rose quickly before a row of trees along the edge of the Dordogne river, again just skimming the topmost leaves. 

Our pilot, a New Zealander, had done over 3000 flights in 87 countries over the past 23 years; he certainly knew exactly what he was doing. 

We rose higher and higher, though there was no sensation of movement, just a feeling of total peace and tranquility, ending up at 2200 metres altitude. No wonder everything looked so tiny below us!

All too soon, we began to descend, landing in a farmer’s field, where everyone helped to pack up the balloon before we were offered drinks and nibbles. 

An unforgettable experience.