I didn't really know what to expect when we decided to move to France, but I was up for it. I wanted to make my life unpredictable again. I feel like in my early 20's my life was fairly unpredictable. Kind of unstable. Between the ages of 20 and 25 I lived in 5 different houses, I had two long term relationships (not at the same time), I was a student, then unemployed, then I volunteered, then I had two jobs and then went self-employed. I spent 2 months in the Middle East, I went through at least 4 bikes and then learned to drive, got engaged, got married and bought a house.
It was quite a lot of change and then you kind of want a bit of stability. It would be nice to not move house every year, imagine living somewhere long enough to bother to find a window cleaner. That would be nice. And we had those things for a bit and then we had kids and job changes and two more house moves. And then we had a whole 5 years of a lovely house. It was big enough and no body was murdered directly outside it. We had a nice little local community with our church and the kids school. I had my comedy mates too and work started going really well. I easily could have lived that life forever and I would have been happy. But, there was just a little niggling feeling that this was the time to swap everything we knew for something different, just to see what it was like. It's like that old saying, "the grass is always greener..." in England because there's too much rain. It was my dream to live somewhere grass struggles to live, and butter is perfectly spreadable at room temperature.
I had no idea what to expect and in the stressful time when we were clearing the house I wondered if I really wanted to go at all, but I didn't give myself any time to think about that. I thought it was best to get on with the job and worry about if I'd made the biggest mistake of my life later on. I knew it would be sometimes amazing and sometimes I'd find it hard, but my predictions about when I'd find it hard and easy have been totally the opposite way round.
We arrived at the end of April just as the weather was getting hot, so I thought, "we'll have a great summer enjoying the beach and being in the honeymoon period and then as it gets to October/November it's going to get hard. The weather won't be so good, there'll be less to do and we'll be really missing people by then." But in actual fact the summer was really hard. Way too hot and we didn't know anyone. But November was great, it was still warm for a few hours a day and we were thankful that it wasn't as hot as the summer and the best bit was, we started actually getting to know some fun people.
My birthday last month was a strange but lovely time. It's odd inviting people over that you've only known a few months. I was a bit nervous that it would be awkward because I didn't know anyone well and they didn't know each other at all. I was joking with my friend that we go way back, we're practically childhood friends, because I met her in May. She is my artist friend that I met at the English church. She has 2 teenage girls and a 6 year old. She does very cool messy abstract art and is exhibiting in "The other art fair" in London next week (you should go if you live near London). Then we had our board game friends who we met on an English speakers in Perpignan Facebook group. They are two girls (a couple), one is French and one is German, but their common language is English. They both speak very good English but they have asked us to correct anything they say wrong, so when they kept using the word "somewhen" e.g. "I would like to play this game somewhen" we had to inform them that that is not actually a word. They are super fun, very generous and they are great with the boys too. They now come over every Wednesday for board games and Haribo. I also invited the one person from my French course that spoke English, he's Nigerian. I really liked everyone on my course and we had good banter even though hardly anyone spoke the same languages as each other.
The course was pretty dull so there was a need for some laughs. Once I made everyone laugh when I didn't know the French word for fireplace, so I acted out a whole elaborate scene where I was chopping down some trees and then cutting them up and setting fire to them. Sometimes I come out with the odd Arabic phrase which amuses the Sudanese guy. Sometimes I've made French jokes that most people get, but sometimes I just wanted to make a sarcastic comment in English and then the Nigerian was the only guy I could say this stuff too. It's hard work being a repressed comedian.
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| Birthday party |
Anyway the party was a beautiful mix of nationalities and ages in every decade from under 10's to 40's. It was actually nice having the kids around for it too, they had a great time and stayed up till ten. When we put Percy to bed at night he said, "My hot water bottle wasn't hot but I cuddled it anyway and the happiness I was feeling was keeping me warm." I think he's a people person like me. I felt the same. I don't love that at 37 I'm into my late 30's now, but I'm very grateful for all my family and friends and that I get to live in this beautiful place.
We had a few other cool weekends recently. There was one saturday where we had no real plans for the day but it looked so nice out. It was really sunny but also there was a lot of snow on our mountain. We'd made one failed attempt to find snow before when we arrived in April and could see snow on our mountain, but couldn't get to it. But now there was a lot more snow and we had better knowledge of where to go to get to it. We drove for an hour to near where Percy had gone skiing with school. First we found a good slope but too near a road, then we found a safer flatter bit, but then we saw the perfect sledging hill. Amazing views, pretty steep deep snow, and no one else around.
And last weekend we went to Marseille to visit Dan's Auntie, who lives right in the centre and gave us a tour of the city, as well as taking us to this massive outdoor and indoor adventure playground.
It's still hard sometimes. I see some of my comedy peers doing so well and I am genuinely so happy for them and they deserve it, but I always wonder what would have happened to me if I'd continued, would I be at that level now? And I really do miss work now, I loved my art job, it was the best job in the world. I worked really hard to make it be a real full time job and then both times after having kids, I had to start again pretty much from nothing, so it was pretty sad to give that up and you don't get the kind of good bye that you would get if you were working for over 10 years in a real job. My last day was painting a mural in Prescot by myself and I took a photo of it, sent it to the boss of that job and then packed up and went.
If I start thinking too much about the future it becomes a bit of a head wreck. The idea of living in France for the rest of my life is weird, and the idea of going back to my old life is weird. I think I just have to be ok with not knowing what is going to happen next and hoping that things will fall into place for a job, or something I can do that I feel passionate about, after I've learnt a bit more French.
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| a painting I'm in the middle of |
