My last blog was about all the houses we’ve viewed, back then my biggest dilemma was choosing the best house we could in an area we would like. Now unfortunately it feels like everything in my life is a massive mess, again! So we went to view a house in Thuir, I really loved it instantly, it had 4 bedrooms and a garden, it was quite like our house in Liverpool. Dan was a bit less sure, but he really likes Thuir as a place and agreed that logically this was the best house we could get with our money in this area. After the viewing we wondered down the street to Thuir centre and it was a Saturday so the market was on and everyone was out in the street eating croissants and having a lovely time. We decided we wanted to put in an offer but we said we just needed a bank meeting before we put in the offer. (In France when you put in an offer, it's kind of serious you sign a thing, you get a 10 day cooling off period and then if you back out you have to pay 10% of the purchase price.)
The bank meeting was set for Easter Saturday, but the day before Good Friday (which is a work day in France) Dan got some very bad news. He works in marketing and writes google ads for a swimming pool company but a new boss has just come in and decided to “shake things up” she thinks that it would be better to outsources his job to an google ads expert. Which means this is the 4th time Dan has last his job since we moved to France.
If you want a little recap, when we moved he had a really good remote job the best paying job he’s ever had, but a year after they took him on the company were not doing that well, and since he was forced to go from a proper contract role to a freelancer for tax reasons after moving to France, it was very easy for them to fire him. Then he briefly worked in sales for PO life magazine who didn’t really give him a chance to learn sales and then fired him after a month and only paid him half of what they owed him for that work. Then after a long time of looking he got a job based in Toulouse which he mainly did remotely but at the end of the 3 month trial they said, “you’re just not quite the best fit" and "it’s annoying you’re not in Toulouse.” He said he would move to Toulouse for the job and they said “nah don’t worry about it” and then exactly a year ago we gave up on France and just as I was trying to teach Percy how to use a QWERTY keyboard for our move back to England Dan got this job. (And Percy has now happily settled into secondary school and is very much an AZERTY keyboard user)
My initial reaction to the news was kind of weird, at first I didn’t really think it was that bad compared to the other times, because it was a proper french contract you get some ok benefit money, not like the first time when we got zero because we hadn’t been here long enough. The big problem is the mortgage. We are quite far through the process of remortgaging our UK house to get a deposit for a house here. We’ve paid around 3 grand to do this and if we cancel it we won’t be able to get that money back but if we let it go through, we won’t have enough money to buy a nice house here without a french mortgage, and we can’t legally move back to our house in the UK because it’s a buy to let mortgage. The only way to do it would be to pay it all off straight away and then face an early repayment charge.
My first reaction was to say that the boys can’t wait any longer to have their own rooms. They’ve shared a room since Eric was 6 months old, and most of that time has been fine but now it’s really not going well, there a lot of conflict, because Percy likes things tidy and Eric doesn’t care and is just living his best happy little life never putting anything away. So we are in the process of rearranging the whole house to give then separate spaces. We have just moved our bedroom into the loft space, so we have no natural light and are surrounded by boxes. I don’t mind too much though, I’m mainly closing my eyes when I’m in this room.
We didn’t tell the kids straight away, we thought we’d let them enjoy Easter. On the Saturday I thought I should probably cry and some point, that would do me good. I had a little cry but then a big cry and then the next two days I was on the edge of tears. I started thinking about Liverpool and how much I miss everyone. It wasn’t really my choice to stay here, Dan got a job and it made sense to stay and I told myself if we get a house with a guest room so people can visit and if I keep trying at learning French and make some new friends then it will be ok. Going back wasn’t really an option (or it was kind of a psycho option) so I had to be ok with being in France, because if I move back I’m ruining the lives of my kids and Dan and the four people who live in my old house in Liverpool. The logistics of going back would be insane, like all of the stress of coming here but with none of the momentum of excitement.
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| I would miss this view (sunrise from my village) |
On Easter Monday we told the kids, Percy was upset and was asking about if they would let him into secondary school in the UK because everyone has already got their places. Then Eric in his beautiful positive way said “better news would have been there’s a chateau for sale in Saint Feliu d’amont and it’s 4 euros” you’re right Eric that would be better news. Although to be honest I do want to live in Saint Feliu forever but it would be hard not to buy a chateau for 4 euros. Their responses remind me of their responses years ago when Dan first lost his job: Eric “what do you love to do daddy?” Percy: “it doesn’t matter what he loves to do, he has to get a new job so we don’t all perish”
So yeah it’s been a lot, Dan feels awful about everything and is still having to go into his weird workplace and keep working. We have a lot of options to discus but none of them seem good. One option we talked about is buying a wreck of a house with the remortgage money and then doing it up. It could work out and be a good option, but it feels pretty high risk. If I do come back after a bit more crying and possible therapy I think this whole story could all be a great Edinburgh stand up show.
And in pointless irrelevant news I’ve painted a new painting:
and you can buy a print of it on my website or you can buy it on a bag. Bon weekend.
