What’s next?

One of my goals for the year 2024 was to live in the moment more. It was a goal because I felt like all the time that we were in France and Dan had a good job, I was enjoying a lot of life but I also was comparing my French life to my English life, and think, “well I would be doing this work project now or this comedy night now if I was still in England.” I kept thinking, “this thing would be easier in English, I would get to hang out with that person on their birthday etc.” And then when Dan lost his job things got really stressful and I regretted not just enjoying the great things about doing life here, when things were relatively unstressful. So I really wanted that as soon as Dan got a job that I just enjoyed life and lived in the moment and didn’t worry about little things.

And is there anything better in life than building a hole?

I really am trying to do that now, we’ve booked some French adventures to go on. In May we’re going to go west to the Atlantic coast to Biarritz and San Sebastián, and then in July we’re going to go to lake Geneva and several places on the way. We’re going to try camping which we haven’t done before unless you count campervanning. 

But it is a challenge to just enjoy the now and not think “what’s next?” We haven’t really made a conscious decision to stay in France, but we’ve come to the conclusion that it wouldn’t make sense to go back to England in the next couple of years and so by default I think we’ve chosen to stay. And I can’t see us being more likely to want to go back in a few years. Maybe I would, but I don’t think the boys would, they’re only going to get more and more integrated here. 

But if we are going to stay what’s the plan? We signed a 3 year rental contract and we’ve done almost two years already. We live in the tiniest village because this is the house that happened to be free when Dan came to look for houses.  But do we want to be in this village forever? Much as we love it (the school is great, there are some lovely views and they put on a great party every year) it’s not exactly the most happening place. I’d like to be able to walk to a boulongerie or get some public transport after 7pm for example. We’d love to buy a house here but where would we move to if we moved a little bit?

We could go to a slightly more populated village with a few more shops, if we went east we’d be nearer to the city centre and nearer to the sea. Or we could go west if we wanted to be more in the mountains nearer to the ski slopes and generally cheaper prices.

We know people in every direction so whenever we consider somewhere it’s sad to think who you will be further away from. Ideally we don’t want the kids to have to move schools again but Percy only has a year and a bit left of primary school, so if we were going to make a bit of a move next summer would be a good time. It will still be a big deal and it would be sad if Eric had to move, but I guess it would be sadder to live in this tiny village for the rest of our lives just because we couldn’t be bothered to make a change.

Village life on 14th July

It’s hard to make a decision for the future too, like trying to think of where the boys would be happy to live as teenagers. I loved living in a village as a kid, I was free to explore the fields and woods and make my own adventures, but then when I was a teenager who kept failing driving tests I hated living there. The most out there option would be to move to Toulouse. This was a much more likely option when it seemed that Dan was going to have to commute there two days a week at his own expense, but now that he doesn’t have to do that, we don’t have to, but……would it be cool? Dan would like to be in the office more he said it’s hard to follow French conversations online sometimes. And I would like to move to a bigger place. It’s also better connected to other cities and would be easier to fly to England from. But it is very far from the sea, and I don’t know if I can be bothered to start completely from scratch again in a city where I don’t know anyone.

Toulouse 2022

It’s like I’ve been dating Perpignan for 2 years and it’s not perfect but I’ve got a special little place in my heart for it and I just don’t want the hassle of getting with a new city. Yeah a new city is a good laugh at first and there’s new exciting places to discover, but then you realise you’re going to all the same places, and some stuff about it irritates you and then you think back to leaving Perpignan, all because of it’s size, and it’s a bit smelly in places, but does size really matter that much? It was good to you, it was there for you it picked up the pieces after a 16 year relationship with Liverpool. You start scrolling back to photos on your phone of you in Perpignan, were you happy then? Will you ever be truly happy? Or should you stop thinking that geographical locations will truly fulfil you. 

Wow that started as a joke comment and got deep really quick.

Other things to consider are: what I should do for work? My options are very limited here due to my lack of French. When Dan lost his job I threw myself into anything that might earn me money without really thinking much about what I wanted to do. So I now have a series of little English teaching gigs and some work designing a colouring book. I enjoy elements of the teaching, I like most of the people I teach and I like it when I can make teaching fun and creative. I didn’t like it when someone asked me what a past participle was. But I’ve googled it and good news I think we can live without them.

Instead of singing along with Natalie Imbruglia “you’re a little late I’m already TORN” you’d say “you’re a little late I’m already TORE” it’s only one letter different.

The Disney film/musical would be called “Froze.”

The Liam Neeson film would be called “Took”.

I know it all sounds a bit weird but I think we could get used to it. Maybe I’ll do a past participle detox for a month and see if I think I could live long term without them. It’s definitely easier than trying to learn them.

I’m really enjoying the colouring book digital drawing. It felt very much like I was cheating on real art for a bit but I’ve got used to it now.

A page from my colouring book

So my options to explore, work-wise, are more teaching opportunities, I am trying to get a new group of adults who want to learn through fun at the moment but so far there’s been no interest. I could try and get more schools work or online work. Or I could try doing more stuff with my paintings or with digital drawing, like do some designs for t-shirts and start an Etsy shop. But I really don’t want to be the stereotypical wife that does a bit of craft on the side and earns some kind of lame lady pocket money.  

I’ve got an idea for an art project about doors. This is not really something I’d try and make money out of it’s just something I’m into at the moment, there’s some really nice doors in our region they’re aDOORable. And I’m thinking about trying to get photos of doors from all over the world and put make them into linoprints. Have you seen any good doors recently? Can you send me a pic? Especially if you live in a country that isn’t France or England. I’d love to have a good collection of photos of doors of the world that are really different from each other, to make some kind of art from.

My favourite door so far.
I’m going to England tomorrow, mainly to meet my new nephew. Night.