One year now

Today marks exactly one year since we arrived in France.

When I came here, I brought with me romantic images, captured in my early 20’s and half-forgotten, like photos in an old trunk. 

Images such as ...

- men in berets playing petanque under plane trees

      or driving Citroen 2CVs or Renault 4s through

      medieval stone villages whose church belltowers

      rang out on Sunday mornings.

- signposts like quaint little gravestones by the road.

- seafood markets in coastal towns

      where exotic shellfish sat on beds of kelp

      at 20 francs a kilo.

- art galleries and atmospheric bookshops.

- patisseries and boulangeries where women in aprons,

     unfailingly polite, served baguettes and

     mouth-watering pastries.

- cafés on grand squares where

      travellers sat at outdoor tables dreaming of Fes or Marrakech

      and writers sat ruminating with pen and cigarettes.

   

Some of these images may be quixotic, some anachronistic.

Of course, expectations have not all been met.

The pace of life here is not as slow as I thought it would be.

The French drive fast and reckless on narrow country roads, as if fleeing an outbreak of plague. There are some exceptions.

Real estate agents are lazy and unprofessional, with some exceptions.

The bureaucracy is not as bad as I’d been led to believe, with some exceptions.

And while, after 12 months, we still have not found permanent digs, I remain confident of finding the dream house. I envisage a place in the country built of stone, with exposed oak beams throughout and a large poële in the lounge-room.

The kitchen will be big and warm and have space for my dear Aunt Viv’s farmhouse table and my cedar chiffonier meatsafe. It will have a big range and copper pots will hang down from long metal hooks. 

Outside, there’ll be chooks and a veggie patch and fruit trees and, if I may indulge, a pool.

It will be both a house for winter and a house for summer.

I hope to be able to report, in 12 months’ time, that we are there.