What shall I do with my life now? (part a)

Welcome to 2023 everyone, I'm glad you all made it this far in life. It's been a tough few years so give yourself a pat on the back. We are just back from two weeks in dreary old England, with our dreary old families. Just kidding, it was great to see the family, especially Dan's brother Josh who secretly flew back from Korea so he could surprise his parents. He had to endure 21 hours in Dubai without a hotel just wandering round trying to sleep in cinemas, so that he could be with them for just four days after not having seen them for three years.

The 5 Jones siblings

When I got off the plane and walked into the airport I realised I must have a hole in my shoe because my foot was a bit wet. I've been wearing these shoes since I moved to France and had never noticed before, because it virtually never rains. In some ways being back felt very familiar, like we'd never left, but Christmas is not the same when you don't have your own house and your own car and the independence to do what you like. You don't get that break between seeing big groups of people. We didn't get to see everyone we wanted to see, and most of the time we were all sleeping in one room together.  We are super grateful to our parents for putting us up and lending us a car so we could visit other people, but we're gradually getting used to the fact that we did actually make a pretty big life change, and it effects the whole family and Christmas dynamics.

The obligatory Christmas dinner photo where you can't quite get everyone in.

Marshall Christmas

Cousins on Dan's side.

One highlight of being back was taking the kids back to their old school on the last day of term, so they could see their old classmates. When Percy walked into his class they all shouted "Percy" and ran to hug him. They both showed a little powerpoint of photos, and the kids got to ask a few questions. We had a playdate with my school run crew, which was lovely. We saw a panto and we saw the new Matilda film at the cinema. And we went to the dentist because I'm trying to get everything possible from the NHS while I can.

I tried to get a smear test too but they wouldn't let me. I meant to go on 10th Jan, (I have to go every year because of having cervical cancer once) but I'm back in France now, and they won't let me just go when I'm in England in August because being that late looks bad on their records. So now I'm going to have to figure out French smear tests. As if a smear tests isn't embarrassing enough as it is, do I really have to do it all in a language I'm an idiot in as well?!

After a few nice days of seeing lots of people before Christmas, I got ill and stayed ill for the rest of my time. Mainly with bad headaches. Thursday was the first day I felt normal again. I was gutted to have to cancel our new year plans with Zac and Jude. They are the family who were going to visit in the summer but their plans were ruined by chicken pox. We still met them in Delamere forest for a bit, but it wasn't the full house party shenanigans we had planned.

Arriving back in France (via Barcelona) felt good. It would have felt better if it wasn't 1am on a school night, but it did feel like coming home. The next morning was tough, I was still a bit ill and had to be at French lessons and the kids were in school. I really can't remember making the decision that a flight that got in so late was a good idea, but there must have been a reason. The following day was great though it was a Wednesday so no school and no French lessons. The kids played with their new Christmas lego and we all enjoyed being back in the sun. It's still cold in the morning and evening, but the quality of light is just beautiful. it's virtually never grey or rainy and for a good few hours around the middle of the day it's really warm. We sat outside to eat lunch almost needing suntan lotion. The feeling of the sun on my face is such a lovely restful thing. I don't know if maybe I had seasonal affective disorder but I definitely craved the summer months and Dan did too. Every winter we'd dream about moving somewhere, and we did! I can finally say we fixed that problem in our lives. Unfortunately while fixing that problem some more problems that we didn't have previously have arisen:

1) I have left my art job that I loved and can't easily earn money.

2) I was slowly making my way up in the comedy circuit and now I can't do any of that.

3) There's a big imbalance between me and Dan now where he has to do 90% of the admin for four people because he speaks French.

4) Our house is smaller than before and although it is a nice house I miss having a bath and more rooms.

5) I'm 1000 miles away from all my friends and family.

But hey, you can't feel down about those things when you have beautiful mountains to look at.

This is the view a few minutes from my house that I cycle past most days.

I don't I regret the France move, if we hadn't moved I would have always wondered what could have happened. But I really didn't think it through that much. At first I thought we could just go for a year and come back if we didn't like it. But even before we moved I realised that was a stupid idea. Now that we are 8 months into that year I realise how completely stupid it would be to move back in April. Firstly our old house would not be available until the summer. Then I know the kids school places have already been taken by other kids. We sold all our furniture and our car. We're not even all the way through what we have to do document wise. e.g we stopped getting UK child benefit ages ago but we're still waiting to be on the French system and hoping to get some back dated French child benefit soon. The kids wouldn't remember much French at all as adults if we went back now. We decided to be here for three years minimum, but we didn't ever consider what if one person wants to go back then and the others don't. I find it hard to imagine any scenario for 5 or 10 years time. The idea of still being here seems weird but the idea of moving back also feels pretty weird. I guess we could always be somewhere else that isn't Liverpool or Perpignan but that seems a bit pointless too.

I don't know what this year will hold, which is sort of exciting. After changing our whole lives in 2022 I hope for a calmer 2023. My resolutions are to not move house or move country or have a baby. I would however love to be at least a bit further on the journey of deciding what to do now. At the moment I am pretty busy doing French lessons for 3 full days a week and then I have the kids on Wednesdays, so I don't have much free time, but when my French is better I need to start looking for a job and a purpose in life. Let me know your suggestions, I need all the help I can get.

I've got more things to write about this but I will write them another day.