French School

The boys started school on Monday, they seemed pretty chilled about the idea of starting, as if it was just normal. We kept telling them they'd be great and we didn't expect anything of them, we just wanted them to go in and give it a try. We have been doing some youtube French with them over the last 6 months and last week we were going over the French alphabet.

The day before they got a bit nervous. I think Percy especially started realising that it was quite a big deal, he said, "I've not got enough French in me," but they were excited too. I was slightly worried that we'd get there and the school wouldn't be aware they were starting today and they would be turned away. Mainly because I had a whole day of lounging planned, my first day to relax in weeks, maybe months.

They we're pretty excited when they woke up and at 8:30 all four of us headed off. 

At 8am I decided it wasn't shorts weather, by the time we left at 8:30 it was shorts weather.

The school is just 5 minutes walk away. It's the only school in the village, and the French have a revolutionary system of everyone going to their nearest school. You go to your Mairie (town hall/one stop shop) and ask to be given a school place and they give you one. No one chooses a school (unless you want some kind of special school) this means the longest anyone is walking to our school is 10 minutes, so most people walk, but there's also a parent car park which has more spaces than there are cars. This is a massive revelation for me because their old primary school had a car park so small that not even all the teachers could park in it. I didn't realise it until now, but the school run used to be pretty stressful. Me and Percy went by bike, with Eric in a trailer and everyday we had to do a little bit where we turn right off a busy main road. I felt like we risked our lives a little bit everyday. Once a wheel did come off the trailer and a few times cars were impatient and got too close to us. Cars were parked all over the place near the school, people would come half an hour early to get the best spots and if we ever drove it took so long getting out of there. So to walk for 5 minutes on a quiet road is a dream.

The school is really small, I'm not sure how many kids but less than 100 and about 20 per class. We got to the school gates and a man on the door said "Percy and Eric?" which was great! I was so happy my day of lounging had been confirmed ... I mean happy for my kids to be educated. They pointed to where Eric needed to go and Dan took him, which left me without my translator to sort Percy out. Fortunately his teacher has very good English, unfortunately she's only his teacher on a Monday. They didn't really say a lot, they just showed him the classroom and he took a seat right by the door and then I had to just leave him, which was weird. Dan said Eric went really silent before he left.

The school day is very different to how it is in English schools. In this school (and I think this is pretty standard) they go in from 8:45 to 4:30, which is a long day, but they have a 1 hour 45 break for lunch and they never go in on a Wednesday. For this term at least they will come home for lunch. This was really great on the first day for them to know it's only until 12:15 and then you can come back for a break from all the French before the afternoon lessons. There's also a morning play time and unlike in Liverpool the kids are all on the same playground at the same time, so Percy and Eric can play with each other.

While they were in I got on with some lounging. I also hung some pictures on the wall and tried to sort out the kitchen being fitted in our old house.

I'm actually not topless here, it's just a weird angle where you can't see the bikini.

When we picked them up for lunch Percy's teacher told us that there was a trip for him tomorrow! It was to Colloiure where we had just been that weekend. That meant he would be with strangers all day, without coming back for lunch, and we had to somehow buy insurance for both boys. Not just for the trip, but for the whole rest of the year. It's like public liability insurance in case they hurt themselves in school. That was pretty random.

On the first day Percy said he didn't know what lesson he was in, but after further questioning we think the lesson was a maths lesson about angles. I wish they would give him a maths sheet with just sums on it, he'd love that and he's good at maths, but apparently all the maths questions were sentences.

Eric gets a quiet time after lunch where he can have a nap, or if not he has to just be calm. They have a little room with cot sized bunk beds for all the kids. The class room is very nice, it quite like what he's used to, there's a little toy shop and toy kitchen and the room is attached to a bigger cafeteria where all the kids who stay in for lunch eat. That's also the same place where you can go to a Wednesday club if you want. He was very chuffed when he came out at the end of the day because it was another boy's birthday which meant he got a party bag of sweets. We were very proud of them both for getting through the first day.

We were a bit concerned for Percy and the trip, it's great he was going out doing something practical, they were climbing a hill and seeing a castle. It was a full day of strangers for him. At home time we saw the bus arrive and kids began getting off it. We couldn't see Percy anywhere and I was slightly worried they'd left him in Collioure, but it turns out he was in a window seat and the kid next to him had fallen asleep and Percy didn't know how to get out. Aww bless him. 

By Wednesday they were happy to have a day off. We did some English home schooling, Percy learnt the difference between your, you're, there, their and they're, and Eric learned the phonics sound "oi" as in foil, soil, coin. In the afternoon Dan dropped us off in Ille-sur-Tet. I drove for practice (I haven't yet driven without him in the car). We'd been to Ille-sur-Tet before, but not to this particular lookout spot which was incredible and the photos really don't do it justice.

We went for a bit of a wander too, off the main road scrambling up some rocks looking out for lizards and stuff, (there was one in our garden the other day). We found what I first thought was abandoned furniture, but later realised was beehives!

On Thursday Percy's class were learning English, so he got taken out to learn the French alphabet with one other kid, a Ukrainian girl who I'm guessing has just fled the Ukraine. We were told he'll get those lessons every morning, so I think that will help, and I'm impressed that the school can do that for him. I've signed up to go on two school trips next week! Eric's class is going to the next door village for some kind of sports day and Percy's class is doing forest school. I'm sure I'll be no help at all, but it will be good to meet other parents and maybe pick up a bit of French, and every time I put myself in embarrassing situations it's all good material, for all those comedy gigs I don't do anymore. Maybe for our podcast that I haven't got round to editing yet.

Today (Friday) Percy was not that happy to be going into school again, but at lunch time pick up his teacher was telling me he is good at maths. They finally gave him a worksheet with questions just in numbers. She said he can bring in an English reading book too, which he's very happy about. I tried to tell her he is good at reading, but I could remember the word for reading so I said, "he look at book good," like an absolute idiot.

I'm enjoying trying to get myself into a little routine when the kids are in school. So far I've been dropping them off at 8:45 then trying to get in a bit of exercise before it gets too hot. I went for a run a couple of times, and today I cycled 2 villages east to Le Soler. I bought a baguette and some kind of half bread half popadom with sugar on and cycled back, only stopping to take a photo of the funnest bus stop I've ever seen. 

For the rest of my mornings I do a bit of house work while listening to a learn French audio book, it's hot enough to dry three washes a day which is very exciting! I have a few other French learning things I do too. The kids are back for lunch and we've tried doing the main meal then, it means less washing up and stuff in the evening. 

In the afternoon I've tried to make some time for creative stuff like blogging or painting, but there is always boring stuff to do too. Today we had to collect a parcel from a place 10 mins away, so I drove for driving practice. I'm getting better but Dan is away in the Czech republic a week tomorrow for work and I don't feel ready to be driving them around places yet.

At least I've discovered we do have a corner shop in walking distance, so we won't starve. It's a mixture of a pub, a coffee shop and a corner shop. It doesn't sell a lot, just a really weird selection of stuff, but if you're in the market for a baguette, a mood ring, a bit of dried pig (possibly it's face), and a frozen fish that still looks like a fish, it really is the best place. 

A la prochaine.

Surprising Dan

Hey. Thanks for reading my recent moving to France blogs, it's been hard making time to write them and everyday I don't finish it more stuff happens, so they get longer. But they've all had a good response and a lot of views, so I really appreciate that. After this one I'll go back to my normal frequency of just writing them whenever.

Birthdays

So we moved into our new house on 23rd April. Dan's birthday is inconveniently 30th April and Eric's birthday is 3rd May. We'd given Eric's birthday some thought and arranged a trip to Manchester Legoland with another family. Also, on the last day of school, we invited both Percy and Eric's classes for a little party in the park after school, which was a fun but manic time. I'd planned some sports day type races and team games, but I just remember running around throwing packets of sweets on the floor while kids chased me. I was like the Pied Piper on crack.

Dan knew his birthday was going to get forgotten, but after his last two birthdays being affected by Covid I did want to do something. It was hard to think about it back in England, in the phase where Dan was chasing the French estate agents everyday, we were having our kitchen wall knocked down, and my main aim in life was trying to sneak bin bags into other peoples bins. There seemed no point buying him a gift in England, but having to get it once we were there was tricky. I didn't (and still don't) have a french bank card. There's one we both use, but he gets a text whenever it's used saying how much was spent and where and also we don't live near any big shops, and I've only just started learning to drive our new big car so the options of getting him a nice surprise gift were limited.

In fact gift-wise I did not do great. On his birthday I suggested Dan bought himself a raclette machine while he did a full weeks shop and bought a washing machine, and he did. Ah the romance.

I really did want to do something nice though. His family come from north west France, so it is very far from where we are, but that's my fault. It's all because I said, "I'm not learning a new language for the weather of Cornwall." But his cousin and one of his aunties are in the south. I messaged them and his auntie was free, plus it turns out his grandma (he calls Mamie) was visiting the south for the weekend. So they very kindly offered to make the trip (over 3 hours from Marseille) to come and surprise Dan, even though at the time of arranging it we had no dining table or chairs or sofa or working oven, so I was a bit nervous about this plan working. I invited them for an evening meal on the Friday and they planned to stay over in a nearby airbnb to be around for Dan's birthday on the Saturday. 

Dan was working on the Friday and had arranged to go and pick up our new car on the Friday morning. Dan's a massive car enthusiast, so I imagine getting to spend a big chunk of money on a mum bus from 2011 was an absolute dream for him. It's a Renault. But how the french pronounce Renault is very different. It's sort of like how you pronounce the word gnu but with a "ren" in front. Anyway in the morning he went to get that and a bunk bed, and after work in the evening he went out to get this table and chairs we were given. I had been saying how much the chair and table were important for days, trying to make sure he could get it by Friday, when really I think a sofa is possibly more important but obviously for eating lasagne, a table really does come in handy. 

So Dan was out and I started cooking this big lasagne. I was bit nervous that we could run out of gas, because our gas supply is just a massive gas bottle and you have to just buy a new one when it runs out, they sell them everywhere. I have no idea if ours was full when we moved in, so it could run out at any point. The gas was fine, but I did manage to set the smoke alarm off and the kids were yelling at me. While all this was going on I was trying to go over the French for, "would you like a drink" and, "thanks for coming." Dan's family arrived at 5 while Dan was out, which was the plan. Dan's Auntie speaks very good English, which is great, I don't think I could have arranged it without that. My spoken French is bad, but writing messages is even harder, because I'm not sure how to spell hardly any French words.

We've visited auntie Beatrice once before in 2013, when we cycled to Kuwait. She was living in Paris at the time and we stayed in her very trendy flat for a few nights. France was one of the best bits of the trip. I loved cycling because you get to see all of the city, from the fields on the outskirts where you can just see a tiny tiny Eiffel Tower on the horizon, to all the rough looking inner city suburbs, to the really fancy old buildings right in the middle.

Dan and Beatrice 2013

Then in 2019 Eric was almost two and we thought this would be a good time to try a new adventure. Because he was free on a flight, we looked at a map. I quite fancied going to Barcelona, somewhere we'd both never been, and we'd also not done much of southern France, so we rented a camper van and drove from Nice to Barcelona. That was the time we spent a day and a half in Perpignan, and have since decided to call it home for the foreseeable future. But before we got to Perpignan, we stoped off in Marseille, where Beatrice lived then (and continues to live). Her and her partner Olivier were beyond generous and bought me a lobster to eat, even though they were on a weird diet of drinking the water leftover from cooking vegetables. Not even eating vegetables!

2019 in Marseille

So it was really nice that Beatrice and Oliver were up for coming over, because it really is a long way. But equally exciting was that Dan's grandma Rosalie (from the north) was staying with Beatrice, and so she could come too! I've met her a few times and she's absolutely lovely. Her English is a bit better than my French, but I hope in a year I will have surpassed her. Rosalie is one of 10 children and one of those great aunties to Dan came with her on the journey to ours.

So four French people arrived at our house, one of whom I didn't know the name of. Dan was delayed getting the table so I was actually with them for an hour without Dan (and with no chairs or sofa to sit on). They were all staying in the nearby town of Millas, about 2 miles away, so when we got the message from Dan that he wouldn't be there until 6 Beatrice and Olivier went to check in at the airbnb. We were all a bit concerned that they wouldn't get back before Dan, but it made sense to go. This left me with the boys Mamie (the grandma) and the random French aunt that I didn't know the name of, and who spoke no English whatsoever. We managed to have a few conversations, mainly by me just showing them things. I did a house tour and then showed them our photos that we had framed ready to go on the wall and I got the boys to show some of their toys. 

Mamie asked how long we were renting this house for.  I can easily say in French, "for one year" but I can't say, "it's actually on a rolling contract, so we just need to give three months notice if we want to leave." I really tried but that just confused her, so in the end I just said one year and got Dan to explain later. 

Beatrice made it back just in time, but Olivier, who was parking the car somewhere a bit further away so as not to be seen, didn't quite make it. We talked about how to do the surprise, but it ended up with the three French ladies hiding in the down stairs loo. I later thought a cool idea would be to put the visitors in the back garden and put the shutters of the French doors down, and then reveal them legs first. Like they were on the horrendous show Naked Attraction, but not naked obvs.

There was quite a lot of Dan going in and out, before the surprise. He picked up this table so we were carrying that in and then all the chairs. But it was a really lovely surprise when they finally came out. Especially that Mamie was there, I don't think we'd seen her since Dan's youngest sister's wedding three years ago. 

It all worked out and we squeezed round the table to eat my lasagne. I asked Dan the name of the random auntie and he didn't know! (We later found out it was Victore.) They bought us some gifts, including a card game called Papayoo which is fun, but at the time we played it I was so tired and didn't really understand the rules. The were a lot of laughs, including some quite rude humour from the oldest French people. It turns out bum holes are funny to old French people too. - Thats a top tip if you're thinking of holidaying here and want to strike up a conversation.

The next day (Dan's actual birthday) was a bit less successful. It started with a little dip in the pool of their airbnb, which looked amazing but it was actually probably the coldest day we've had since we've been here. Then we wanted to go somewhere nice, but not far because they had traveled so far to see us and had to get home. We tried to have a picnic at a very local lake, but actually just spent ages driving our new massive car down tiny farmyard tracks, following a sat nav and then giving up and going back to ours for lunch. Ah well, it was so nice to see them and I'm very grateful for them for making Dan's birthday fun.

On Sunday we went to our local mountain. I can see snow on it, so we took sledges and coats. We got nowhere near the snow, it was boiling hot the whole time but still beautiful.

I can see you but I can't get to you, snow!

The rest of the week was reminiscent of lockdown. Dan was working, I can't go anywhere far with the kids because I can't drive. I've had two little lessons with Dan and it is pretty hard, mainly the fact I'm driving a big car on small roads with ditches, more than the driving on the right thing. So we were mainly in the house, doing a bit of homeschooling, because Eric's only learnt two thirds of the phonics sounds he needs to know to be able to read. Also, just to confuse them, we started learning the French alphabet because even though the letters look the same they don't make the same sounds. Like J and G are pretty much the other way round in french and "T" and "H" don't make the "th" sound that they do in English, they make a different sound that sounds like it's got a "w" in. It was a tiring and a bit boring time. I feel the need to say that because my photos look like I'm having fun 100% of the time. It's quite hard to capture boredom in a photo.

Tuesday was fun though. It was Eric's 5th birthday and I tried to give him as much fun as I possibly good within the restraints of: we don't know anyone and I can't get anywhere and Daddy's working. We did have a lot of cardboard though and I've got a degree in making stuff, so making a cardboard castle was a good way to spend the day until Dan clocked off work. 

This beanstalk has, over several days, grown right round the corner and to the top of the castle

In the evening went on a road trip to the toy shop, followed by McDonalds, followed by the beach!

Toy shop purchase.

Well done for getting this far, sorry it's so long. This is a good bit though:

Today was a beach day too. We went to a different beach with some people from the english speaking church, and then stopped in at this very picturesque town called Collioure. 

Matisse has painted Collioure it and now it's my turn. 

We got an ice cream, and here's a tip about ice cream pricing:

1 boule = 3.50 euros

2 boule = 4.50 euros

3 boule = 5.50 euros

4 boule = 6.50 euros 

So, if a family of 4 get 1 scoop each in a separate bowl the total is 14 Euros. If they get two bowls with 4 scoops in (2 flavours each and you have to share a bowl with 1 other person) it's 13 euros!! That's my top money saving tip ever. That and never buy insurance for anything you don't legally have to, because either it might not happen or we're all going to die anyway.

Anyway, we didn't get two ice cream scoops each (sorry to disappoint) we shared. I shared two scoops with Percy and Dan shared two with Eric. The reason I bring this up is because Eric loves to pick blue flavour, or unicorn flavour or something mad. This particular blue one was called Smurf flavour and Dan picked nut flavour, and I took great delight in telling him his combined flavour was Smurf nuts. Ha Ha Ha I am hilarious.

School starts tomorrow. My real retirement begins then. I bought a lounger for the garden and I'm going to lounge so damn hard. 

The First Week.

In case you didn't read my previous blog, I arrived in France on Friday, saw our new house for the first time on Saturday and just like God and Craig David we chilled on Sunday.

Monday (25th April)

Today was the last day that Dan was not in work. We had 10 days between being in a functioning house with food and internet and beds in England, to being in a functioning house with food and internet and beds in France, and actually four of those days were days we were doing other things (Eric's fake birthday, Sarah's wedding, Easter day, and the Sunday we chilled.) But for the other 6 days we worked really hard!

Monday was the day we went to the Mairie and all of the shops. 

The Mairie is like the town hall/one stop shop, even though our village is tiny and its walking distance to the town hall of the next village. In England if you want to sort out stuff like council tax or school admission or getting child benefit you have to go to all different places. It would normally involve you being on the phone on hold for ages, or if you did go to a physical place it would be the One Stop Shop. I don't know of you've ever had the misfortune of having to go to a One Stop Shop, but it's basically full of desperate people with no money queuing for ages to talk to someone about Britain's incredibly complicated benefit system. All while being made to feel like the absolute scum of the earth. The Mairie is like that except nice. There's no stigma about going, everyone is polite and helpful. It's for everyone, not just the poor and desperate. So we went to sort out the kids school admission and also asked about French classes for me, bin days and council tax (which luckily, unlike in Britain, our landlord is responsible for paying.) The Mayor of Saint Feliu d'Amont personally welcomed me to the village in English! You wouldn't get that as a new immigrant in the Picton road One Stop Shop.

We had a lot of our stuff shipped. There was a fridge, 3 chest of draws, our mattresses, two desks etc, but we didn't take our table and chairs because it was too big and we didn't take our sofa because it was ugly and we want a sofa bed. We didn't take our washing machine because its rubbish and noisy and we didn't bring the boys beds because Eric was still in his toddler bed and we wanted to get them a bunk bed. So we still had a lot of basic stuff to get. Perpignan has an Ikea, so after going through their website we headed there with a list of what we needed. When we arrived we saw the tiniest Ikea I've ever seen! It turns out it's just a shop you order stuff from, which since the internet exists makes this Ikea pretty pointless. Opposite was a very French sofa shop. I went into for a browse and it was clear straight away we were not the clientele for this kind of shop: 3000 euros for a sofa, no thanks. I walked in and the man asked if he could help me. I didn't know the french for "I'm just browsing" but I had just learnt in my online classes the phase "canape lit" which is a sofa bed. So I said in my best French, "je voudrais une canope lit" and then he showed me some. I had to go and get Dan, who was outside with the boys eating sandwiches on a bench. And then we had to all pretend we were considering buying these totally overpriced sofa beds and then leave, with the kids asking, "why aren't we buying it?"

So we went next door to the tiny Ikea to order some stuff. It was like a game of charades, where me and Dan acted out what furniture items we wanted to this poor guy, who had to translate it into French and then into Ikea language. Dan's french is very good but he's never lived in France and only knows the kind of French that you would chat about with your family. He didn't even know the word for 'that little shelf that sticks in your shower that you put your razor on', because even in English no one has a word for that. I mimed shaving my armpits and then putting my razor on a shelf. I don't know if it helped but I was enjoying myself. We finally came up with a big list of things we wanted. Dan went to pay and they said they only accepted certain kinds of bank cards, and not the kind he had. It was super annoying and even more annoying for the guy, who had played a 30 minute game of charades with us and received no commission.

We went to several other shops that day. Two were a bit like B&Q and then we went to Decathlon to get Percy a new bike. We hadn't brought Eric's bike with us because it was so heavy and rattly. We planned to get Percy a new one and upgrade Eric to Percy's old one. Percy was very chuffed to get a bike in his favourite colour yellow (it's his favourite because its the colour of beaches and giraffes). It's also the first time he's had gears, which he was very happy about. 

We got back to the house exhausted in the evening and made a quick dinner, and then annoyingly went out after tea to two different supermarkets, because this was the last day that Dan was off and we had the hire car. Nobody wanted to go, but it needed doing. Especially because I was planning a secret surprise birthday for Dan this Friday and this was my last proper chance to get food in for that.

Dan's Mum left all her friends and family when she was 18 and came to Britain and since then has become incredibly British, like she doesn't even have a French accent. But all the rest of her family (which is very large) have remained in France (apart from her brother who is in Hong Kong). Many of them are in the north of France, but one of Dan's aunties (who we've stayed with a few times) and Dan's cousin (who is our age and has a family) are in the south. While we were still in England I messaged the cousin and Auntie to see if they would be up for coming over to surprise Dan. It's quite a challenge to organise a surprise party in another language a week after arriving in a new place. But they were very helpful and responded to my english messages, and were willing to travel over 3 hours to make the surprise work. All I really did was cook a meal for everyone, which was still a challenge because for a few days we couldn't work the oven, I can't drive here yet, and we didn't have a table and chairs until the day of the party. And I don't have my own bank card so I couldn't spend money without Dan getting a message saying how much I spent and where I spent it, which does make surprises difficult. So anyway, I went to the supermarket and managed to get enough food to make a big lasagne for eight people. 

Tuesday

Today Dan was back at work and we went to see our local area. 

We'd been so busy trying to make the most of the hire car that we hadn't ever walked round our village, apart from the trip to the Mairie. We headed out in the opposite direction and I was blown away by how close we are to fields and tractors and mountains. Growing up in a village as a teenager I'd perviously been very vocally opposed to fields, calling them "shit parks," because they are really. Imagine going to a park where you're only allowed to walk round the edge and theres no play stuff or toilets or benches, it would hardly score highly on Trip Advisor. But for some reason grown ups were always like, "oh you're so lucky to live in the countryside." It's easy to say that if you're an adult with a car ,who can get to a shop or anywhere you like. It's much harder to appreciate fields if you have to walk 20 mins get the train and then get a bus just to go to a park with your mates.

Anyway, I think at age 36 I've probably reached the age where I can forgive fields for ruining my youth, and appreciate them. Especially if they have mountains behind them.

In the evening Dan went out to give the hire car back. On the way he stopped in to view a second hand mum bus that we have now bought! I'm scared to drive it. We wanted a bigger car so that when people come to visit we can drive them places, but it seems massive. And I've never driven on wrong way round roads before. Also we still don't know what the yellow diamond road sign means.

Wednesday

I was determined to get out and see this city we moved to without ever really seeing. (We came here for a day and a half in 2019 and saw a beach and a castle.) Our little village that has no shops or anything is next to a slightly bigger village with 3 shops and a train station. So I decided we three would cycle to the station (a mile away) and get the train into town and explore. Cycling was a challenge. Percy is very good on a bike but Eric is still learning. In the UK me and Percy would cycle to school and Eric was in a bike trailer. Eric is not a good enough cyclist for me to also cycle, I have to jog behind him to catch him. He's good at going forward, but isn't good at stopping or keeping the right position in the road. Anyway we set off and he was doing really well then I needed a break because I was jogging with a heavy backpack so I asked them to stop. This is where Eric panicked and fell off. He was fine, but he was so close to falling in this sort of concrete stream/ditch running between the field and road. We managed to make our way to the train station and lock up the bikes. There was one other guy waiting for the train with a mask on and I remembered Dan had said "it's very important to wear a mask." Oops. I got on the train anyway and it wasn't an issue. I also didn't have a ticket because theres no ticket office in Saint Feliu d'Avall, so you just buy one on the train if someone asks which, they didn't. 

It's only about 12 minutes and two stops to Perpignan, just like the village I grew up in, a mile from a station and 12 minutes and 2 stops on the train to Coventry. The only difference is that Perpignan is infinitely more beautiful than Coventry. Coventry has a good cathedral and a ring road that everyone hates. Perpignan has mountains, beaches, a river, a canal, a castle, outdoor markets and sunshine. But before exploring all of that, Eric needed a wee. We went to the station toilet which needed a 50 cent piece. I put it in the slot and the door didn't open. So Eric had to wee in a random alley. At least boys can do that kind of thing fairly easily. We continued down a big wide street lined with very tall palm trees, ate our packed lunch and carried on exploring. 

We went inside a really nice bookshop that had loads of beautiful children's books. I considered getting one for Dan to read to them to help them with their French, but then the shop assistant came over and told me this was a specialist Catalan bookshop and none of these books were actually in French. My French is so bad I didn't notice.

There were a signs for tourist information point, but I now know that the sign is about 10 minutes walk from tourist information. After trying to follow the signs I finally gave in and asked a random passerby. She was really lovely and walked us all the way there. On the way we passed loads of interesting looking shops and we crossed over the canal where there was a outdoor market selling old French postcards and Asterix books. At tourist information we picked up some leaflets and, crucially, a map so we could now find all the best places. The lady at tourist information told me about a beautiful park, that was very good for children and was free, so we decided to make our way there. On the way we stopped off at a really cool shop called Flying Tiger. It was like the toy section in Ikea mixed with things like candles, fairy lights, sunglasses, and bags, all good value fun stuff. The boys had a bit of money to spend so Eric bought a wooden jigsaw you colour in yourself and Percy bought some hamma beads, despite the fact I didn't bring an iron here. The also chose Dan a mug with a dinosaur on it. When you put a hot drink in the dinosaur turns into just a dinosaur skeleton.

We then traced our steps back past some of the interesting things we passed while following the woman, bought some post cards and then continued on to find this park. 

When I got to the place circled on the map it turned out not to be the park at all. The lady had circled a few places and this was sort of a library with a little gallery. But we'd walked a long way and I was just glad for a sit down. After a while a member of staff came and told us there were games for children on the top floor, so we headed up to see a big shelving unit of board games you can play in the children's library. After playing for a while it was time to make the long walk back to the station. The trains are only about every two hours, so we didn't want to miss this one. We broke up the long walk with an ice cream stop.

This time I had no excuse not to get a ticket, apart from the fact the ticket machine didn't work and there was no one in the ticket office. (I later learned the ticket machine isn't touch screen, it's got a knob that you have to twist, so it was working fine but twisty knob is nobodies first thought, right?) Anyway, I just got on the train feeling bad that I didn't have a mask or a ticket (in my head I practised the french for "there was no one in the ticket office). In the end four guys who were like the train police got on and asked me for my ticket. In the moment I couldn't get out any of the French apart from "Je suis desole" and just spoke in english. I said can I buy one now and guy was just like ptfff, which I took to mean it's no problem. Then when we were on our way a woman came past quickly and asked everyone to wear a mask. Then the person opposite me asked me where my mask was and said, "I don't care but that woman will be mad at you." She was right, the woman came back and was mad at me. There wasn't much I could do. I wish I'd bought a mask in town, but on the way no one really seemed that bothered. It was much more of an issue than the fact I didn't have a ticket. Luckily it was only a short journey, and then I had a nice relaxing mile jog with a backpack on in 27 degree heat chasing after a kid who can't quite ride a bike: the most relaxing way to travel. But I'm proud that we made it.

Thursday 

We had a chilled out day. We explored more or the local area, going in the opposite direction towards the school. 

That yellow building is where they go for their lunch (unless they come home which they will do at first.)

You might be thinking what a lovely place to bring up kids I bet theres no crime but you'd be wrong...

Some kids have lost their chickens! We actually saw a big group of kids protesting about this at the Mairie on Monday. I hope we find them and we can be the heroes of the village.

We found a big basket ball court too, I think basket ball is a big thing here, more than football, which I'm happy about. I think basketball is much cooler. I've been to see basket ball a few times in Ramallah (when I lived near Bethlehem) and it was a lot of fun. The boys then drew all over our yard, got chalk all over themselves and then all over the house.

Next blog: Dan's surprise party, trying to sledge, and Eric's birthday.

Leaving and Arriving.

 

We've arrived!

Thursday (21st April)

This was the day all our stuff was being shipped. The van was arriving at 8am at our house in Liverpool and we were living with my parents in Cheshire. We left the boys with Granny and Grandad and headed off, nervous about whether everything would fit. On the way we discussed what stuff we would leave behind if we had to. Dan had been taking phone calls from France over the last few days trying to make sure we had electricity when we arrived, it seemed to be needlessly complicated. Apparently our house, number 4, didn't exist on the grid even though 1, 2,3 ,5 and 6 did. It's a very new house, built in 2020, but we're not the first people to live in it. We needed to find the name of the previous tenant to sort out our electricity and connect us. We also had to find away to connect to the internet straight away, because Dan's job is online and I really like to watch Netflix.

The Van arrived minutes after we did and they started packing up everything in the dining room, which was completely full of boxes, bikes and small bits of furniture. outside the room was also our mattresses and the fridge. One double bed was being left by a pervious tenant in the French house, so we decided if there was room we would take our king sized bed and use the double as a spare, but if there was no room we could at least sleep on the double. It turns out there was loads of room, which I was happy about but also a bit annoyed that I could have taken more stuff (or paid less). We had agreed on 20 cubic meters, which is hard to imagine, but the guys packing said everything in the dining room was 10 cubic meters, so I'm guessing with the extra bits it was around 13 cubic meters. So sort of annoying but I guess I should be thankful it all fit. 

I was so happy when the van left it finally felt like the most stressful bits were over and we really were moving. This is me literally jumping for joy as the van left. 

I feel really proud of myself that I managed to pack up a whole house. Dan has done all of the difficult french admin stuff but in terms of packing he really only did his own stuff. I did mine and the kids and the stuff in the loft and the shed and everywhere. We're a good team, if Dan was in charge of packing and I was french admin we would still be in Liverpool. I kind of wanted to celebrate that it was finally done, but it was 9 in the morning and I was just in an empty house I didn't even have a kettle. We stayed for quite a few more hours as I had to paint over all the holes that I filled in from all the shelves we'd taken down. I also had to paint over the kids bedroom space mural, including their rocket heigh chart which was a bit sad. 

I kept thinking we were done and then spotting more jobs. The estate agent that we're renting out the house with came to see it. He is responsible for putting in the new kitchen before they get us a tenant. Just before we left Dan got a call about the electricity they said it will be switched on on Saturday, hooray!! But that it will be between midnight and 11:59 pm- not so great. So we still didn't know if we would arrive to a house with electricity.

Friday

"WE'RE MOVING TO FRANCE TODAY!" the boys shouted as they danced round in circles. We tried to pack the last of our bags up. We went for the Ryanair family package which meant 1 20kg bag between us, a 10kg bag each and a small backpack each. In retrospect that was way too many bags especially as we had to get a train once we were in France. Carrying all these bags around was especially annoying because we had about 7 square meters of shipping that we didn't use and 90% of the stuff in our bags we didn't immediately need and we could have just shipped. But we had all our stuff from the last week of living in other peoples houses. As we'd last minute shipped an extra king sized bed, we also had another duvet we wanted to take, but hadn't been organised enough to put in the shipping so most of our biggest bag was taken up with that.

We said goodbye to my mum who was ill, so Eric gave her a hug he learnt in covid times (where you hug yourself). She is really sad about us leaving and (falsely) claims that she first heard about our plans to leave by reading this blog. My Dad gave us a lift to Manchester airport and we said a quick goodbye because if you park up for more than 10 seconds Manchester airport charge you!

We checked in our many bags and the Ryanair woman said we didn't really get the best deal and it would have been much cheaper to take two big bags. Easier to carry as well, but I swear that wasn't one of the options when we booked it. I have a fear of flying, not a like a normal persons fear of flying, I just have a massive anxiety about being late to a flight or having the wrong size bag or wrong documents. This is because I once missed a flight, and I once turned up at an airport with a ticket for the previous month and had to buy a very expensive last minute ticket. And then after they sold me that they said "run because you might not make it!" Anyway this time it was all fine, and were were in the departure lounge for longer than we were on the flight.

A cool lady with dead locks from Dan's Grandpa's town Malpas took this photo

The flight was fine and we arrived in Carcassonne around 5pm. This was Dan and the boys first time travelling on their french ID cards. They gave them in so they didn't get a stamp in their UK passports which means they can stay forever. 

I got a stamp and have to come back in May to get my visa. After we'd got through that bit we walked out to a group of Hari Krishnas all singing ready to welcome this guy on our flight, who was wearing entirely orange, including orange socks and crocs. That was surreal. We got onto the transfer bus to the station and Dan said "I can tell you this now, I didn't know if that ID card thing would work, I've never done it before." We got to Carcassonne train station and there were no trains until 8:20pm which was over two hours away. We strolled off with our many bags in search of food.

Moving countries sounds like it should be the most exciting day of your life, it's definitely one of the most significant ones, but actually this was just a full day of waiting around. Really nothing exciting happened. The kids had a little play on a nearby playground, (we know the area a bit from our recce) and then we ate at a restaurant, sitting outside so as to not annoy people without our nine bags! Then we headed back to the station the train said it was delayed 15 minutes but just as we arrived on the platform a good 10 minutes before the delayed time of leaving, it arrived and then left, so we actually could have missed it which would have been a nightmare. 

We got into Perpignan around 10pm and we were all very tired! We had another little bit of a walk to our airbnb, the kids did so well considering how late it was. We stayed in this really trendy little flat with two tiny loft bedrooms off an open plan room. Eric was giddy with excitement seeing how cool the flat was and then immediately fell asleep with the light on the moment he lay down.

Saturday

This was the fun exciting day we'd dreamt of. Dan got up early to collect this hire car which was tiny and electric. He absolutely loved it and we all thought it was pretty cool too. He then went to buy car seats in a big supermarket and paid the same for them as it was to hire them for one day! 

the way the doors open is really cool.

He came back to get us and we sped off to see our new house for the first time (even Dan had never see it in real life before). The surroundings were very rural, fields and country roads and tractors and beautiful mountains in the distance.

We met the estate agent there and went to look round. It's super modern, all white with black tiled floor everywhere. Three bedrooms that are all a really good size. The garden was bigger than expected which made me both happy and annoyed that I hadn't bought my hammock. I really love my hammock, its one of my favourite things, but it's on a frame that takes a lot of space. When I saw photos of the garden I thought if I took the hammock they'd be no space for anyone else's stuff so I left it with my parents. The house is great though and the electricity was working! I love that it has electric shutters on all the windows that properly block out all the light, and I really love that you can see a snow topped mountain out of the window! This mountain is called Canigou, which we have been joking is like a Scottish person saying, "I cannee go." 

The view from our bedroom window!

The kids immediately filled the floor with lego, they had been given a couple of new kits which I was saving for when we arrived at the house and our other toys had not arrived. 

full house tour before our stuff arrived.

Our stuff arrived two hours after us and the driver helped us carry a lot of stuff upstairs. Unfortunately the TV snapped off the stand and is pretty unusable and a computer screen has cracked. The company are not being great about fixing it, saying it's our fault because of the way we a packaged it but the screen was wrapped in bubble wrap and cardboard so I'm not sure what more we could have done. We went to a massive super market to get some essentials in and stared the unpacking, tired but feeling very grateful to be in.

how we are eating until we get a table 

Sunday

Nothing is open in France on a Sunday, not much anyway so it was nice to have this day as a day off. We went to visit an English speaking church, where we had been invited for lunch after. The church was around 25 people meeting in the really big home of the church leaders. It was kind of a similar style to the church we came from. The church is run by a couple who moved to France around 24 years ago. The english speaking church is connected to a bigger french speaking church which we will also check out. It would be easier to just go to the English one but we do want to integrate and know French people, and if there's more kids at the French one then once our kids know French, they might enjoy that one more. 

One of the guest speakers was this lady about our age from Newcastle who was an A&E consultant doing medical work, including helicopter rescue, and then just as a hobby because that's not dangerous enough, she takes 3 months off to help in a war zone. She's just back from Ukraine, but she's also been to Iraq and the Bahamas (after a hurricane) and a load of other places. We had lunch outside in their court yard: us four, the couple who run the church, the war zone doctor and her friend who was also really cool and interesting (she left her job as an accountant to work in community theatre). I respect that a lot. I feel like everyone at the table were interesting cool adventurers, and the fact that we had just moved into a house without seeing it, the day before, made us part of the adventurous crew. 

The couple who run the church know someone giving away a dining table and chairs too so that's a bonus. We've been haemorrhaging money in the last few weeks, paying for a new kitchen in our old house, and shipping our stuff. We didn't bring that much furniture, so we still have a lot of stuff to buy including a car, so I'm very grateful for a free table.

Because we had the electric car I suggested we went somewhere cool after church, so we headed to Ille-sur-tet, about 15 mins west of our house. It's an area with a little town/village and some crazy rock formations. We parked up and started climbing up this big rocky path, the views were incredible and I can't believe we live so close to a place so beautiful. It was such a lovely day, and I really can't believe that we get to live in this amazing area of the world. I guess the lady in the pharmacy was right (see my previous blog) I really am lucky.

Ille-sur-tet

Next blog: dragging the kids round 8 shops in a day, meeting the mayor of the village, my terrible french, exploring our local area, buying a car, and whatever happens when I take the kids to town on the train today.

P.s we're going to make a Podcast about moving to France with tips about how to move, and funny stories. We've love suggestions for a name for it. The best one so far is "ex-scouse my french" 

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.

Dan found a house!

Since my last blog things have been a bit crazy. Sometimes I'm so excited for this adventure and sometimes I'm so bored of the logistics and I'm not really sure if its a good idea anyway. 

Dan came back from his four day trip to find us a house on Tuesday/ early Wednesday morning (I picked him up from the airport at 1:45 am, yawn). I had to drag the poor kids out of bed, I let them go to school a bit late, but not quite late enough. School starts at 8:55am we arrived at about 9:05 which looks like we were just casually late whereas I wanted to give the impression we were intentionally late for a good reason. Oh well.

After doing a recce in October to Carcassonne, Narbonne and Montpellier we decided that we would go to none of them and Perpignan is the place we will live. We initially discounted it because you can't fly there from the North West, but we changed our minds because it's just such a beautiful place. Here's a photo I took there in 2019, when we did a camper van trip from Nice to Barcelona. Who wouldn't want to live in here:

From April you can fly from Birmingham to Perpignan, but not in the winter months, so Dan flew from Manchester to Barcelona and hired a car to drive up Spain and over the border, which takes about two hours. Perpignan is only 30 mins from the border. He had four days to find us a house and spent the last week trying to arrange viewing with estate agents.

There was one estate agent doing viewings on Saturday but it was in the morning and Dan didn't make it on time, so day 1 nothing really got done. Day 2 was Sunday when everything in France is closed. Dan went to a Church though, and had lunch with the leaders of the church, so Day 3 was the big day. Dan was planning to walk into all the estate agents he could. The first one had nothing to rent the second one "looked a bit weird" but just like the story of Goldilocks the third one miraculously had a house that was almost exactly when we were looking for: a 3 bed in budget in the outskirts of Perpignan with a bit of a garden. It wasn't even on the market yet and so the estate agent said he could see it and if we liked it we could get it. Dan sent me a few excited video messages, I couldn't believe it it was 10:30 am and he'd smashed it. Some of the positives are we can sign for just a year, a lot of places want you to sign for 2 or 3 years, it's walking distance to a school, its energy efficient and a new build.

It's 15 minutes from town, 20/25 minutes from the beach and 10 or 15 minutes from this very cool lake:

 and maybe 10 minutes from this cool area:

A few negatives are: it is unfurnished which is a faff, it doesn't have a bath and the garden is tiny, but overall great and we don't have to stay more than a year if we decide it's not for us. 

I thought we might be in Airbnbs for a while we we tried to find somewhere, but getting a real house has changed a few things. Our original plan was for Dan to take one car load of stuff while the 3 of us fly but now we have a real address we have decided to change our plans completely. We're going to get our stuff shipped so we can take some furniture and mattresses. We'll all fly and we won't buy a car until we're there. It was stressful trying to decide if shipping was the right option as it's pretty expensive (£2600) but the idea of trying to get rid of all our mattresses and then immediately buying a load more as soon as we arrive sounded too annoying. Currently the shipping people are desperate for us to confirm by paying our deposit but the estate agent hasn't 100% confirmed our paperwork and approved the moving in date we want yet, even though it looks very probable for 22nd April. 

The boys French ID cards are done but we haven't managed to pick them up yet. Hopefully they will arrive in Chester next Wednesday for collection (they can't be posted to your house you have to collect them from London or Chester and you can only collect from Chester on Wednesdays.) 

I've previously said that my visa "is easy, it takes a maximum of 20 days and you only have to go to Manchester." So with a date almost confirmed and just over 20 days to go Dan went to get me a visa appointment. That's when we discovered it's 5-20 days FROM THE DAY YOU CAN GET AN APPOINTMENT and the next available appointment was 29th April. As we were staring at the computer screen wondering how we had made such a massive error, 29th April disappeared and the next available appointment was 4th May. So frustrating because if we'd have thought about this a month ago it would all be fine. Now the plan is when I come back for a wedding in June I will have to stay up to 20 days while getting the visa sorted.

There was no real time to process that, because I had to go straight to my last ever day at work, teaching art in an after school club that I do every Friday. Then I went home for a quick tea before getting the train to Southport for my last ever comedy gig. Which actually was a lovely gig and considering the only practise I did was listening to my own set on you tube on my headphones on the train, it went pretty well and was a nice one to end on.

So much to do next week: builders will be knocking down a wall in our kitchen in preparation for putting in a new kitchen to make it nice for our tenants, and I have to make two easter bonnets! As if I have time for that!

I hope all this stress will be a distant memory when I'm swimming in the Med with the boys.

Please come to our leaving party!