The house and the Poo.

 I haven't blogged for nearly a month, because when interesting life stuff is happening I have no time to write about it. When I last wrote we were still in this weird game of "house chicken" where we had seen a beautiful house that we wanted to buy and we really couldn't wait to leave our ugly house but I was scared to commit to a not particularly desirable village in France and just France in general. Especially while Dan doesn't have a job. And the sellers accepted our offer but kept pushing back the signing date.

So we arrived in England at the end of July and we had been told we will sign for the house (which we could do digitally) before 3rd August. After a few days of seeing family we were out at a pub with my parents when Dan got a phone call from the estate agent who said sorry but they don't want to sell, they had some new news that the guy is much more ill than he first thought, and therefore doesn't want to sell.

It was pretty disappointing and really ruined that pub meal. being in a pub with your parents and your children is one of the worst places for emotions, along with on stage or when you've just done your make up. I prefer to cry in the car or when everyone is asleep, or just with Dan. So that was a weird time, but by the next day I felt o.k. It's not really a net negative its just different stresses, I feel less trapped overall but also like there's no way to escape our less than ideal house any time soon. 

sister time

 The next day we went to see Joy and Philp an their boys, and they were the perfect people to see because they have gone through many parallel life experiences. Originally they were meant to come to my parents house for a fun day out on the boat, but their son broke his leg on the first week of the holidays so they were stuck indoors. But we had such a good time hanging out having big laughs and a few serious moments sharing stories of how we both have lived mad lives between countries missing people and living in weird situations. They were about to move into a new house that they were renting in Liverpool. and this was the first time in I think 11 years that they had lived just as a family of 4, I don't think they ever even lived as a 2, because when they were in New York they shared with people and when they were in L.A they lived with Philip's mum. 

I had seen Joy in Paris in April and at that point in time they didn't know if they would be going back to America or staying in England but since they Joy has found a full time job in Liverpool and so for now they are staying, after years of living abroad.

 

After seeing my family a little bit we went to stay with Dan's side near Southport. His parents have quite recently moved to a house near Southport with a massive garden. All his siblings came to visit and the cousins played a lot of the game sardines. I may have got involved, and I may have got in a compost bin. 

While we were there Dan checked his spam emails and found he'd been offered an interview two weeks earlier! He wrote back apologising but they never replied. So gutting. He was very annoyed with himself, he is busy applying for more things right now. We didn't do anything special that you would do as a tourist all holiday. We went for a great meal out at the Morrisons cafe though! it's 15 quid for 2 adult hot meals and kids eat free in august so all 4 of use ate for 15 pounds. For the kids meals you could choose a main a veg and a carb based side so Percy choose pizza beans and a Yorkshire pudding which he was very happy about.  

 

We also stocked up on our regular English items, English kids books, decaf tea, hobnobs, a chocolate orange and paracetamol, and in a charity shop I got a brand new looking Levi's red cord skirt for 7 pounds. (I don't have a pound symbol on this stupid laptop)

It was really nice hanging out with all the nieces and nephews. We have 7 between our two families from age 0-11. We got to see a good amount of friends too, it is really nice to see people you've known 20 years and to hear how everyone's lives are changing, and to see people's kids, too. I got to meet Katie and Mike's new baby Emma. She was so cute! and her big brother was equally adorable. I saw my friend Cat too, her eldest is only 13 months older than Percy but he is a giant! Way taller than me. Her youngest who is just turning 6 is only slightly smaller than my 9 year old. 

In height order but not age order, Cat Joy and my boys

 

Dan only stayed about half the time I stayed, because I chose to stay longer to see more of everyone, and he has a little side job to be getting on with plus he needed some time to apply for jobs. After he left, I took the train down to Birmingham to see my first ever friend Bex and her family. It was much more fun taking the train than driving, and I enjoyed the adrenalin rush of successfully doing a 4 minute train change with 2 kids. They're at a fun age to be onboard with the challenge. I can't imagine trying to do it with a 2 year old those guys have no sense of urgency.

Bex has 3 boys a similar age to mine, plus a bonus younger one. They are all such fun kids and in general they all get on well. We taught them the wide game "dragons" in the woods and I realised I can only run as fast as an average 8 year old. Her husband Doug is a trainee police officer and on his first day on the job he had to go to a house with a dead body that had been there 4 days in a heat wave. It sounded horrific but I do think it's cool to have a job that you come back with good stories from. I know I couldn't come home and sleep after catching a criminal while on a night shift, but Dan really wanted to be in the police once and from my selfish point of view I would like to hear his work stories. Not that many interesting things happen in the marketing department of a swimming pool company.  

what's more fun than a trampoline a hose and a slide?

 For the last week of my time in England my parents were looking after my 5 year old nephew Zac. He is very cute and very confident. We went to West kirby beach which was the first time I've been to a UK beach since living in France. I thought it be interesting to see if I could cope with UK beaches, since I've been a little spoilt with the med. and the answer is no not really, it felt like IA had read a description of a beach but got a few fundamentals wrong. Firstly the water was brown, and cold, and secondly I walked out for ages in the sea in high tides thinking I might swim but the water only came to my knees. 

We don't have tides in the med so in order to make the most of being in the UK I suggested we made a sandcastle with a moat where the water comes in around the moat. The kids started making one, and this is where overly confident Zac was hilarious. He started going up to other families and giving them unsolicited advice on their sandcastles and if they were sitting too near to where he thought the water would come in to. He also went up to a kid and said "I'm going to need to use that spade" not "hello please could I borrow your spade for a minute because we don't have any?" just  I need your spade. Unfortunately the tide never came in far enough to get to be the moat for the castle so I think my kids will be put off UK beaches forever.

 

The sea came in to here and went straight out again.

Did you watch the eclipse? we watched it through our glasses that my Dad had kept from 1999. It said don't use them on the back but obviously we did and we didn't even go blind.  

1999

1999

2026

Zac's drawing of the eclipse

Thanks for reading this far, the finale of this blog is a story about poo, I asked if I could share this but keep the poo-er anonymous but I was given permission to use the name. So my friend Roz came over (it wasn't her) I know Roz from my student days she was in 3rd year Fine art when I was in 1st year and we lived together the year before I got married and she got me into teaching art in schools. She also paints and sells her work online, but she's not a massive show off that makes loads of videos about it like me. but check her out: here's her website

For the past decade shes been living on the remote Scottish island of Colonsay so I haven't seen her all in that time. Last summer she moved to north Wales with her husband and two boys now aged 5 and 2.

I don't think she'd be offended if I said her kids were full on. They had had a long car journey to get to my parents house and were understandably needing to let off some steam when they arrived.  I got out a small bouncy castle and a paddling pool and giant Jenga, and a hammock but even with all these fun things for the kids, it was still a challenge to still down and catch up with Roz over a cuppa.

So we went out in the canal boat, my parents were both out at this point, but I was fine to take the boat out without them. After a pretty short journey I let Roz steer but gave her no real instructions and we started turning round, so then I thought lets just go back. To come in you need a minimum of 2 adults. One to steer and go in reverse at the right point, and one to jump off with the rope and pull the boat in. But unfortunately at the vital jump moment Roz's youngest kid Tom was not happy to let her go. Miraculously my Dad arrived back from his meeting at that exact moment and I was able to throw him the rope.

I was tying up the rest of the ropes and arrived back in the garden to see Tom on the potty. I noticed he had poo all down his leg. Then me and Roz were frantically searching the house looking for the poo. At this point a delivery driver arrived with a parcel and Percy opened the door to him while standing right in front of the poo. I'm surprised he didn't report us for neglect. The poo was on the stairs. Which was actually a big relief as it's one of the few places in the whole house that wasn't carpeted. While we tried to get the poo and Tom cleaned up Eric strategically asked for screen time and got it. Then my boys started arguing about what switch game they would play and I had to remind them "YOU'RE ONLY GETTING SCREEN TIME BECAUSE THERE'S POO EVERYWHERE"

In the airport on the way back I saw this book and sent a photo of it to Roz: 

 

Next blog arriving back in France, having visitors, my Dad's crazy sponsored challenge and my exhibition (which is this Saturday, you should come!)

 

Would you rather?

I've made a fun quiz. My auntie Hilary gave me a book when I was a kid called Would you Rather. It had dilemmas like "would you rather have breakfast in a hot air balloon, lunch in a castle, or tea on the river?"

So to help me decide about France vs England, I've made myself and you a more grown up quiz called, "would you take?"

1) 90% of the time the sky is blue, but you have to use a translation app every time you send a text.

2) Childcare in school holidays is only 12 euros a day, but you can never use grandparents for childcare.

3) It's warm enough to swim in the sea 6 months of the year, but you live in a wild fire zone.

4) You get almost free university, but no 12 grand tax free, and you have to pay 26% tax on everything you earn and wages are not high.

5) You go skiing in the mountains at least one day a year, but you never see your mum on her birthday.

6) Good wine is very affordable, but you have to drink UHT milk.  

If you would answer yes to most of these, you should move to France. 

I left the last blog on a bit of a cliff hanger and I'm sure some people reading this want me to just hurry up and make a decision about France or England, and stop chatting on about it. 

So tiny recap: 

We had an offer on the house accepted in mid June, but they said they don't want to sign until mid July. Then we asked for a date and they said, "before or after 24th July" which is not mid July! Then on the 23rd we said, "are we signing tomorrow then?" and they said, "how about the first week in August?' So then we decided to say our offer will expire on the 3rd August. Which was a bit of a risk because they could have just said, "stop pressurising us, we don't want to sell." I get the feeling they're not 100% sure they want to sell and we're not 100% sure we want to buy, so we're playing this weird game of chicken.

I said to Dan that buying a house without a job is like announcing you're pregnant after a one night stand. People want to celebrate with you but really were all thinking, "is this a good idea? I hope it all works out in the end." 

Anyway they got back to us and said we can sign before the 3rd of August and we can do it digitally, because we'll be in England. After we've signed there's then 10 days where you can still "abort" with no consequences. After that you have to pay 10% of the purchase price to the other side. Which is kind of a good rule, because when we once tried to buy a house in the UK the woman pulled out 3 days before we were due to move, for no good reason, which in my analogy is just like aborting a full term baby.

On a lighter note... we went camping and it was fun. After cancelling our Italy holiday we just wanted cheap fun, so we got a tent and went to a campsite that we'd already been to before. I'm not someone that normally repeats holidays, and I did once try to argue that people who go on holiday to the same place every single year are the worst kinds of people. But it was really comforting in all the chaos to just go back to the same little family run campsite where the kids can be free range. They had a pool, trampoline, table tennis, boules and one little pizza restaurant.

Eric made friends with all the kids. He was playing card games with the Dutch kids and they were communicating in English and then he was playing table tennis with the French kids and chatting in French. He is really good at making friends with anyone.

We also made friends with a Dutch guy who lives in Turkey and is a pilot. I like that about camping, it's really sad that in everyday life loads of people must be doing their washing up at the same time, all lonely in their separate houses, when you could be doing it outside in the sun while meeting other people.

We went to some gorgeous places, they colour of the water was so beautiful. I need to paint a room that colour in our new house.

 

 

We got told off taking this photo, because we didn't know but footpaths are closed in some departments, because of being on a high alert fire risk. This sort of fake policeman dressed as a boy scout said he could of fined us 135 euros. He also said we could walk on footpaths on the other side of the river because that was a different department that wasn't on such a high fire risk. Which seems a bit mad.

We got into jumping off rocks, and we saw people doing some mad jumps way higher and more risky than we did.

 

a crazy man who just ran off the highest bit.

 

 

On the way back we staying one night in Aix which was really pretty and we also stopped off at Nimes where Percy had recently been for a 3 day school trip so he was our tour guide.

I've been busy preparing art for my exhibition. Here's my newest little painting:  

If you're free on the 29th of August please come! Here's the details:

It's only on for that one night, but you can buy prints or products such as bags or phone cases or beach towels from my website at any time: My website!

Thanks for reading. x 

5 weird summers

I've been meaning to blog for ages. I was going to blog about our weird life again but then everything went on fire, literally and emotionally and the fire jumped the queue of blogs in my head. But its now time for this blog to finally get written.

I realised recently that every summer since we moved to France over 4 years ago has been weird. 

2022

We moved in April 2022, and Dan took almost all his annual leave for moving house. By the long summer holidays we'd not been in France long enough to go back to England for a holiday, and I'd been in England for all of June due to a visa admin error. Both sets of parents came to visit, but mainly I remember it just being long and hot and we didn't have enough friends, and Dan was working, so it was a bit lonely.  It was exciting being in a new place but I had no one to share it with. 

We were meant to have a visit from our good friends Zac and Jude and their kids, but at the absolute worst time they got chicken pox and couldn't come, that was pretty gutting and really sad for them.

I got really into outdoor painting with the kids, we'd just sit out on side roads and paint trees and mountains.

We had some good times. We bought a massive paddling pool and invented many games to play in it, such as 'nose ball' (it's like football with a balloon and your nose.)

I really struggled with re-learning to drive with a new big car on roads I didn't know on the wrong side of the road, so we went on the train to lake Vinca a lot. It wasn't a bad summer just a weird one. But I thought, "the first one is bound to be weird, it will be less weird next year."

2023

This summer came just after Dan had lost his best ever job, I remember going back to England and trying to see as many people as possible. The job thing was playing on my mind. We hadn't been in the country long enough to get any kind of help, so we were just living off savings, but that summer was before I really realised how bad the French job market was in our area of France. I still felt okay about stuff. November that year was peek panic about your life time. The thought of moving back to England then seemed mad, we had committed to a house for 3 years and I had mentally committed for 3 years, the kids had only just become fluent in French. We were all in on trying to make things work. We had quite a few visitors and we had made a few friends and I was a lot more confident with French and driving.

Back in England wearing coats in August

2024

The end of 2023 and beginning of 2024 was a tough old time with Dan still not finding work. He had done a few projects and a brief period when he worked for local magazine P.O life who ended up screwing him over. But then in spring of 2024 he found a new good job working mainly remotely for a company in Toulouse, and we thought, "we're sorted now." I had some work too teaching English. We were happy to stay, but then after 3 months of work Dan was told his trial period was over and he just wasn't exactly the right fit for the job. They said, "it would be better if you lived in Toulouse." He said, "I'll move to Toulouse." They said, "nah, don't worry about it." So that was the beginning of weird summer number 3. 

That summer we realised staying in France might not last much longer. We knew our rental contract was coming to an end in spring 2025 so we thought, "lets just try and make the most of being in France." We did a trip to Biarritz and San Sebastien for a long weekend in May, but in the summer we did a big road trip to Lake Geneva and back. 

 

 

It was out first time camping, and we went to some absolutely beautiful places, but our car was dying the whole time and because we were not in one place for long we had to go to a garage and get car parts sent to another garage that we would be in a few days. We couldn't drive fast, a 5 hour journey took over 8 hours and it was very stressful.

2025

After another year of not having enough work and surviving through the French benefit system (which we had finally been there long enough to benefit from) our 3 year contract came to an end in April, and my tolerance for France also came to an end. We said we'd do 3 years, it didn't work out, it's a shame but lets go back to the land of tea and banter and clouds, it's not all bad. But we might as well stay until July so that Percy can finish his last year at French primary school. So we found an airbnb to live in just from April to July. We put most of our stuff in storage and started to prepare to move. But then Dan got a job! 

He was on the toilet when he got the phone call that would change the course of our lives, after 3 interviews he was offered a job in marketing. I was happy that he finally had something, and in the short term it was great. We couldn't stay in our airbnb over the summer, because the landlord wanted to make money from holiday people, so me and the boys went to England all summer and Dan stayed in random peoples houses for work. He didn't have the best time, but I had a great summer, seeing 97 people in England. It was possibly my best summer since moving to France, which does really say something about our lives in France.

Why would you live near the Med when you can live near the mud?

2026

After a summer away in England, we moved back to our weird Airbnb more permanently, and I was feeling more positive about France. I started French lessons again, I made some new friends, and we were talking about buying a house. Now that Dan had a proper French contract and a secure job we could get a French mortgage, and although that scared me a bit, it was also exciting. We weren't loving our Airbnb, we hadn't had any visitors, even just local people round to hang out like we used to.

And then after a year of work for Dan, they got a new boss to come in and shake things up. She upset everyone who worked there, changed everyone's roles and got rid of Dan. We were just about to offer on a house and then suddenly the new house or any of the houses was not an option and going back to Liverpool was a real possibility again, but being half way through a remortgage of our UK house that cost a lot of money, made things really complicated. Especially as the terms of the mortgage state that as it's a buy to let we can't live in it if we were to continue with the process of the remortgage. 

The original plan for this summer was to go to Italy. My sister Sarah is going to the Italian lakes and I thought a road trip there would be fun. We planned it all out with a few nights in Nice and a night in Genoa, driving on the way and then getting a ferry from Genoa to Barcelona on the way back to reduce the driving. We had booked a few bits of it, including the ferry, when Dan lost his job and we decided it was all a bit stressful and expensive. 

I had also booked a short trip to England, just me and the kids. Originally Dan didn't have enough time off work to do Italy and England, so I got a flight based on the cheapest ones where he could take us to the airport. We were flying from Perpignan to Leeds and then back from Manchester to Girona late at night so he could get us after work. Then when we cancelled the Italy holiday it made sense for Dan to come to England with us, but those flights weren't cheap any more, and the times made no sense. If we drive to the airport in Perpignan and leave our car there, then how do we get back from Girona late at night when there's not public transport? After looking at many mad options such as Dan dropping us off in Perpignan for our flight and then driving down to Girona to get a different flight to Leeds so our car would be in the right place, we asked our friend Sam for a lift from the airport.

Then as summer was approaching I felt more and more uneasy about only spending a short time in England when the kids are off for 2 months and I'm in a boiling hot house with no outdoor space. We only have air con downstairs so we're all fighting over who gets to sleep on the sofa bed.

I thought I'll just have a little look at other flight options, and then I found some for 25 euros. So we 3 are now staying in England for over 3 weeks, but Dan will stay for the original stupid flight, because he can't be away too long if he wants to get the job seeker benefits, and if we're in the process of buying a house (which is not certain) and to do a bit of work for Guy. 

Shout out to entrepreneur Guy Wilmot for continuing to pay both of us at different times to work on various projects he has going on, without him we really wouldn't have financially survived.

It's our anniversary today, we've been married 15 years. I don't think any of the years have been easy, before these last years that I just explained, we had Covid, and then before that a bit of cancer, then it was the baby stage. Summer 2017 was harder than any other summer, a new born baby and a toddler all day every day for weeks is hardcore. Then before that we were living in someone else's weird house which was mixed, there were some nice times and weird times, and before that our tiny house which was also mixed. We had a few good parties and fun memories there, but it was a pretty crimey. Starting with our first night there after we arrived back from our honeymoon in the 2011 riots and ending with a murder on the doorstep several years later. I grew up in a village where we once got a newsletter saying "everyone please be vigilant, someone's had their wellies stolen from there shed" and that was too little crime. It's really the dream to live somewhere with moderate levels of crime.  

People often say marriage is hard, and I'm not saying it's easy, but in my experience life has been hard and messy and I can't imagine doing those hard things without Dan. Last week I was feeling very unsure about everything, especially about buying a house, because we really would be committing to being here long term. And I had a day where I was more up for the huge hassle of returning to the homeland than ever before and I asked him, "what happens if I really can't do France any more?" And he didn't try and persuade me that it would all be okay, he just hugged me and said, "we'll go back." Even though he doesn't want to, even though it would be a logistical nightmare, I know he would do it, if I needed to.

Thanks for reading this far!

 

Next blog... our camping trip, and do we or don't we sign for a house, which is meant to happen tomorrow. 

France is on fire

This weekend we went camping. It wasn't a weekend though, it was Sunday to Tuesday. What do you call that? Dan has wanted to see the Tour de France ever since we moved to France because he loves looking at men in lycra, but he's not middle class enough for ballet. We nearly saw it 2 years ago, we managed to see all of the promotional vehicles that throw out free hats and stuff and a load of cars in the shape of funny things like cheese triangles, but for some reason, and I don't remember why, we didn't see the actual bike racing. So this year the tour came to Les Angles, which is the mountain area an hour and 15 minutes from us, where we have skied in winter. I've never seen it in summer before and people say it's a cool place to go in the summer time too. So we decided to go camping there to experience summer in the mountains and to see the Tour de France go past.

We spent all morning packing and left just after lunch. We were aware of some fires on the way and Dan said we might have to take the small road that goes through all the villages rather that the big 110kph dual carriage way. Fine no probs, wild fires happen every year here, so we've become a bit blase about them, like they were just annoying roadworks. So we set off on the big road and after 10 minutes of driving were forced to join the smaller parallel road. We could see a lot of smoke but at this point it was kind of interesting rather than terrifying.

On the big road

Obviously I wish the fires weren't happening and climate change is scary, but it is quite interesting to drive past fire, and see the helicopters flying and the planes that scoop up water from the reservoir to drop on the fire.

We continued on the little road and then it was blocked off too. We weren't sure if there was any way through, but then we followed some other drivers onto an even smaller road which is more of a bike route, that you would normally only use as an access road. So we managed to make it past Ille-sur-tet to Bouleternere.

Then we came to a roundabout where we could see actual fire on the hills as well as smoke, and we saw about 10 fire engines coming out of a field that had been down to the river to fill up with water. We continued our journey thinking we were past the worst, but about 10 minutes later we saw more fire just near Vinca. 

Vinca is our favourite lake hang out spot, it's the nearest place we can go to swim for free. At this point the fire was on the opposite side of the road and river from the town and lake of Vinca, but the small village of Rodes was at risk and being evacuated. We continued on and after another 10 minutes of driving past fire, things were fine and normal.

little stop to admire the views

Our friends Sam and Emma were joining us for the camping trip but leaving a little bit later. We were giving them advice on the best way to go, they left around a hour after us, but by this point the way we drove had all been blocked off and they had to drive round the super long way which is an hour longer. 

We arrived at the campsite and set up the tent and went for a swim while waiting for our friends, and then when they arrived we helped them set up their tent and had a BBQ. It was a lovely time hanging out but the concerns about the fire were playing on our minds. We were glad to be safe and far from the fires, but the fires were progressing fast and it had managed to cross the river to the much more populated other side. We could see updates on our phones about different villages being evacuated. We also found out they had told everyone not to travel to see the Tour de France and they had cancelled the promotional bit at the beginning where they have the mad vehicles that throw things out. But since we were literally right on the road it was going past there was no danger to us walking up with our little folding chairs and watching the cyclists go past. 

 

Me and Dan were discussing what were the most important things to take from our house. We decided the laptop and passports would be administratively the most annoying things too loose, but we also talked about a big box of photos I have and all my paintings. I don't think if I had 20 minutes to pack a car to leave I would save all my paintings, mainly because it feels a bit arrogant. I think I'd save this one: 

and Dan said he would save my newest one I just finished last week:

both are available to buy as prints even if the original burns.

While villages were burning I was ironically really cold. The warmest outfit I took was a very thin pair of cotton trousers a t-shirt and a very thin cardigan.  It was around 36 degrees as we were leaving and I just couldn't imagine ever being cold again. But up in the mountains it does get cold at night. Emma kindly lent me a base layer and me and Dan zipped our sleeping bags together so we could snuggle ourselves warm. But it was a night of very little sleep, worrying that our house might be burning. At one point Dan offered to drive back and collect the important stuff, he'd have to go the long way making it a 5 hour round trip, which seemed crazy, but if our house did burn I would be glad he had done it. You can't wait until you need to evacuate to do that kind of thing though, you have to do it while you still can. In our area the villages are all in a row. Lets say we're village 1, village 4 was being evacuated and village 2 and 3 were asking the question, "do we need to leave?" So there was some sense to making the trip while it was still safe to do so.

In the morning we tried to have a nice normal day, just chilling in the campsite playing some games and swimming and in the afternoon we went to watch the race. Everyone being told not to travel there did mean we had a better view and we had a good position on a hill 25k from the end, so we could see them going up. Dan or Sam could write a better bit about this, but I will just say we waited a while the 2 cyclists in front came past then the big blob of cyclists and then a few more cyclists. 

 

Then we went to the campsite sort of common room space to watch the rest. I thought we could be on TV and I could watch the bit where we were on iplayer or something, but it turns out in the UK its only highlights on channel 5, and me waving was probably not a highlight. I would have had to caused a crash to make it onto a highlights program. 

I slept much better the second night, I think it was not quite as cold. The road back was still closed and I think will stay closed for a while, so we went back the long way round. On the way we saw Les Angles where we ski in the winter, and we stopped at Axat for a picnic and then saw an outdoor pool and thought, "why not?" Eric absolutely loves swimming at the moment, he could spend all day in a pool.

We returned to find things fairly normal, we can't see the smoke from our house. It's all fine apart from the existential dread of a climate crisis and the personal doubt about being weeks away from buying a house in a region that's burning.

Happy Wednesday.

House and Job news

It's been a month since I last wrote. I was waiting for some proper news to share, which I kept thinking was just about to happen and then it didn't. So last time I wrote about how Dan had just been made redundant and that meant we couldn't get a mortgage on the house we were about to offer on. Since then it looked very likely that he would get a new job with a solar panel company. He had a phone call that he said, "could not have gone better" then he went to an interview which also went very well. The job would be very similar to what he was already doing for the swimming pool company (web marketing), except he would be the only one doing it. He came up with several ideas for them and they seemed very impressed by him and were calling him an expert. They also loved that he is bilingual because they actually are focusing on getting English speaking customers. 

They asked him to write a proposal of everything that he would do for them, like a marketing strategy for the year, including what he would like to be paid. No one else was interviewed for this job or asked to do this. He spent a lot of time on it and sent it in, he asked for a bit more money that what he was on before but still less than he has been paid in a previous job. And he was ready to negotiate on the money, they said they might initially take him on a self employed basis, which was fine. 

We didn't hear back for a week, and then they said "no thanks." They said they were doing well as a company without a web marketer. It was pretty confusing, because it seemed like it was pretty much certain apart from the pay which he though was all negotiable. He would have been happy to do it part time or for less money, but they just said "no" and we're wondering if they're just taking all his ideas and doing them without him.

This was all happening at the same time as we put in a lowish offer on a house. We can no longer get a French mortgage but thanks to remortgaging our old house and borrowing a big chunk from family, we can get something on a smaller budget than we were looking at before. We both agreed that we'd rather go for a cheaper house so we don't have to do another winter in this weird house that was meant for just 3 months but has already been over a year.

So our dream village of Thuir seems out of the question, but Millas where Percy is at school is much more affordable and would mean the kids wouldn't have to change schools. And me and my new English friend Robyn have a plan to gentrify it. She might start a nice brunch cafe, and I did shake on going there every weekend if she did it in Millas. So there's a house I've loved for a long time that is very beautiful from the outside and has a lot of potential, but has a lot of issues on the inside. Like most of us in our early 20's. We saw a few more houses including one that we saw this week that had a little less potential but didn't need much work, it made a lot of logical sense. But I just really love the other one and they're very near to each other so if we got the less pretty one, I'd have to still walk past the beautiful one a lot. I really wish I hadn't made the analogy that the beautiful house that needs work was like someone in their early 20's, because now I feel like a superficial pervert. You should see it from behind though, it has such a gorgeous behind (back garden).

 

Anyway we went in low. It's been on the market ages, and hasn't had any offers or even any other viewings. It was on for 220k euros, we said 195K, then they said they'd take 210K we said ok 200K and at the time I didn't think I'd go up from that. But then I just kept thinking about it, and cycling past its beautiful behind. So we did the maths on if we could go up to 210K and we just about can but it doesn't leave much for any work and it needs a rewire, and ideally a new kitchen, a new bathroom and double glazing, and all the 70's wall paper removing. So we've offered 208K and just this evening we heard that they have accepted! But they want to wait another month until officially accepting and starting the process of selling it, because he has some health problems and is going to a lot of medical appointments. Dan thought I'd be very happy when I found out they accepted, but I just don't feel 100% sure it will happen. I think they could still say, "sorry I'm too ill to go through the hassle of selling a house right now." We'll see. (Once they sign they have to actually do it or pay us compensation. It's not like the UK where you can just drop out any time you like with no consequence.)

Job wise Dan has a side job he can do more on and there's something else part time that I'm not sure if I'm able to share yet, because it's not official. I annoyingly don't have work over the summer. but I am enjoying doing more art.

I did this series "attic to chateau" where I showed my art from my weird old attic bedroom surrounded by boxes. And someone who owns a chateau reached out and said, "would I like to have an exhibition in their chateau?" Of course I said yes! I've been working on some new works for that exhibition, which will hopefully be near the end of August. Here's some photos of when we went to visit the chateau on an art market day.

 

 

 

 

I've also just done a lino printing workshop, which I loved doing so much! I really miss doing art workshops, but doing it with 6 adults was so chilled compared to doing it with 30 kids! So I hope to do more of that. If anyone is looking for an arty gift please check out my website, my newest thing is embroidery hoops and I can do custom ones if you send me a photo you like. 

this one was made with the photo above.

We unfortunately cancelled our plans to do a big Italy road trip over the summer, but we have instead bought a tent and did our first recce two weeks ago. It was French mothers day and I requested a camping trip that I didn't have to pack for. My sisters said, "that's risky you might have nothing you need" and yeah if I hadn't intervened we wouldn't have had a mallet for the pegs or plates or a washing up bowl, or pillows. I think that's just about survivable though. Anyway we had a great time, the weather was perfect, there was a lovely pool, and we just hung out without screens and played card games, it was nice to be away from our no natural light or garden house. Apart from being woken up by noisy wild boar at night, that was mad.

We've got two more trips planned: a weekend to the place we go for skiing which I've never been to in the summer, and one to the Gorge du Verdon where we've been to before. I'm not someone who normally likes to go back to the same place but this place was so good, it's my top recommendation if you go to France. Don't tell anyone else though, it's currently a beautifully unspoilt by tourists spot.

 Night. x