Lucky and Brave

I'm writing this at the airport. We've got through the stressful bits and we're sat in the fun shopping bit. I have 49p of English money I want to get rid of but the cheapest thing you can buy is chewing gum for 60p. We've emptied out all our waters to get through security and are now drinking warm water from the toilets. mmm.

Two phrases that people have said to me a lot recently that I think are slightly weird are, "you are so lucky," and, "you are so brave." Brave is a funny word. I'm not quite sure in what situation I would call someone brave but it wouldn't be in my situation. I'm basically retiring to the south of France. I'm giving up work for a while to live somewhere sunnier because I want to, and I'm in the privileged position to be able to move because Dan is half French and we have enough money (we hope!) to pay for the cost of moving. It's hardly brave, I'm not moving to a war torn country to do humanitarian work.  I get that I'm taking some risks, financially and leaving people and also putting myself in awkward French situations, but I already put myself in plenty of awkward situations in the UK anyway. 

Lucky is an interesting word too. I am lucky in almost every way, I'm lucky to be with Dan not just because of his EU status but he's actually quite a nice guy! We've been lucky to have two healthy boys who are pretty chilled about all the change and the idea of moving. A few weeks ago I was sitting on the sofa reading a story to them when a man turned up to buy the sofa, and we had to continue reading on the floor, and they were kind of fine with it. 

We're lucky that Dan has a job that is remote so we can actually choose where in the world we want to live. Hardly anyone actually chooses where they want to live, I'd say at least 90% of people live somewhere because either that's where they were born, that's where they found a job or that's where their family or partners family live. 

But when people have heard I'm moving to France and have said "I'm jealous" or "you're lucky" its felt a bit weird, because the last month has felt like one of the most stressful of my life. I don't want people to see nice pictures of us on the beach without having seen the time about two weeks ago, when I was manically trying to shove a frying pan into a public bin by a bus stop because our bins were overflowing. But funny enough I didn't take a photo of that. There were days I woke up motivated to get stuff packed, and days that I woke up so overwhelmed by the task of packing or getting rid of everything I owned, that I just couldn't get anything done.

For most of March I was constantly putting things on facebook marketplace. Some things sold well and when it works it's great, but then there's other times when a man comes to the door to buy a house plant and as you bring it out it's shedding it's leaves everywhere, and he asks if it'd dead. Oops.

The last two months have been so stressful, with the stress peaking around three weeks ago when we didn't have a move in date, the boys french ID cards hadn't arrived, and I found out it was impossible to get my visa sorted on time. Even two weeks ago we still didn't have a confirmed move in date, and the shipping people were threatening to give our dates to someone else if we didn't pay our deposit immediately.  

The visa issue never got sorted, which means at the end of May I have to come back for 25 days which is a super long time to leave Dan and the boys for. I'll make the most of my time here seeing people, staying at my parents house on a river and maybe doing a bit of paid work, but poor Dan will have the kids and still have to work.

I had to got to the pharmacy to pick up some medication and I explained it was more because I'm moving to France and she said "lucky you!" and I really am lucky, but really most people can do fun exciting things with their lives if they are willing to put in loads of work and stress to make it happen.

The last Days

Dan's last day at work was 12th April and we got our flight on 22nd April, so those 10 days were mainly filled with mad packing and French admin. We had to completely clear our house, the estate agent we're renting out house out with wants it to be unfurnished so everything had to go including the loft stuff and ideally it needed to be painted white, so there was a lot to do, but we did have a few nice days off within that time. 

Eric's birthday is 3rd May, but we wanted to do something nice for him before we left. He originally wanted a whole class bouncy castle in a hall party, which I was not thrilled about (his class are lovely but I really didn't have the capacity to organise that the week before leaving the country). One day he mentioned he wanted to go to lego land Manchester and I was so happy when we agreed to go there with another family, instead of a party. It was a lovely chance for him to hang out with his best school friend Theo, and for us all to hang out with a family we love and will miss, and I didn't have to make 30 party bags!

The next day we had off packing was my sister Sarah's wedding on Easter Saturday! She was originally meant to be married in Easter 2020 and managed to get legally married then with just two witnesses, then she had a little garden party wedding with just her household (Luke's family) where she wore the dress and got on the news. But this was the big party that she paid for ages ago. It was so lovely to finally get to celebrate it. She looked incredible in her dress and the whole day was beautiful. I was a bridesmaid and the boys were page boys. Percy and Eric got super into dancing in their very original way (sort of skipping mixed with breakdancing) and a lot of people including me were very happy to watch a totally uninhibited 7 and 4 year old go crazy on the dance floor rather than dance themselves. I'm really happy Sarah and Luke finally got to celebrate.

The next day was Easter day we had our last day at our church, they all prayed for us and they bought the kids some lovely gifts, and took this photo. 

Then we had lunch with the legends that are Zac and Jude. They are the loveliest friends. They let us live in their house for a few days while we cleared everything out of our own house, they were on holiday for a bit and then we lived together for a few days too. We were the worst guests. We were tired and stressed and only brought the dregs our our fridge to their house and they looked after us in every possible way. On the day of our big leaving party I had planned to make a big cake, but then there was lots of left over wedding cake from Sarah's wedding and Jude spent all day making cookies with her kids for the party too. They even gave us a spare fridge they had which has made its way to France, meaning we could leave ours for the new tenants. 

The day of the party was crazy, I was awake at 5:30 am feeling anxious about everything. By 7.10 am I was on my bike cycling to the house to do more sorting, which mainly consisted of walking room to room wondering what to do with the bits that were left that we weren't shipping, like all our post, a half empty bottle of shampoo and an old pound coin. I went to Morrison's to pick up some helium balloons and bumped into a mum friend Jo. I was embarrassed to be seen un-showered and with no make up on. In the hour before the party I was manically trying to get the kids ready in their little suits while Dan was at the venue. I also had to get myself ready and pack a bag for the kids to go straight from the party to stay with my parents. At one point I was shouting at the kids, "where are your socks?! you were wearing socks earlier, where are they!?" They both didn't know, so I grabbed some new ones from Zac and Judes tumble dryer. At this point Eric innocently asked "are they dark socks?" and Zac smiled remembering the wedding two days earlier when Dan was in charge of dressing the boys and I told him, "you could have put them in dark socks!" (instead of lime green ones). We then got in the car and just as I was strapping them in I noticed Percy had his trousers on the wrong way round. 

Then began the least relaxing party I'd ever been to. I arrived late and they were a lot of kids running round trying to take the helium balloons off chairs, which I'd carefully arranged in the colours of the French flag. We had a ceilidh which we had at our wedding, it's like a barn dance where they tell you what to do which I like because I'm bad at real dancing. It was fun and lots of people came that I hadn't seen for ages, even people who didn't really know anyone else came and that made it really special. 

The band were great and they adapted it to make it easier because there were so many young kids. I have to say it was a relief to get home. After that we spent one more night with Zac and Jude and then moved in with my parents who had the kids all day while we were at our house again and then fed us at night which was a real treat. They've also already booked to see us in July and Dan's parents are coming in May.

I've written a lot, sorry. I can't wait to get onto the next blog where we actually leave and arrive. Spoiler alert: it's amazing and shoving a frying pan into a public bin is now just a distant memory. 

Bonne Nuit.