In the Begining…..
So, you are here because you have decided to make the leap!!! A leap into the unknown maybe??Maybe you have been planning this moment for years, waiting for the kids to group up and for you to retire? Maybe you have decided life would be better to move before the kids grow up, allow them to settle into school young, maybe you have just decided on a whim?? However you have decided you have come on my journey also and i would like to welcome you in! Follow my crazy, headstrong, laid back, meticulously planned journey from the UK to France! No editing allowed lol just a good old fashioned warts and all blog about how “the royal” we, thats me, my mother and my husband along with our animals, are going about it!
You know i remember one rainy night 2003 listening to the rain beat down on our tiny caravan whilst my son was asleep and my two girls were playing in the other caravan, watching a program on the television called ‘No Going Back’.It was about families who were making the move abroad to escape the ‘rat race’ here in the UK to find a better life! I was enthralled!! We were down to our last penny, literally, and trying to build a house for our little family with an array of animals. I was fed-up with it all i longed for warm weather and bright cheery sunflowers, an easy carefree life and bi-lingual kids! Fast forward a few years, as you can guess it didnt happen!! Life did!! Plans changed!! Work changed and our dream was put on hold!! Only on hold!! It was a little flame that wasnt going to be extinguished!! No way,Jose! Life went on, house got built, kids grew up and i started exploring France on holidays, sampling all it had to offer, feeding the flame, stoking that fire, keeping it going and then!! Covid hit!! Noone could forsee that strange dreadful time. We counted ourselves lucky! We lived in the Country, we could still get out and enjoy the beautiful green landscape without risk, many couldnt! The flame was growing in me again, stronger and bolder, this time shouting at me, ‘Its now or never,Lifes too short! Enjoy every moment you never know what is around the corner’!! It was like headlines off a newspaper screaming at me, lets do it|! Lets sell up and go now! All sounds easy, doesnt it? House goes on the market, rates are good, buyer comes along, offer is made and accepted, off the ‘royal we’ go to look for our forever home, the list of requirments were long!! Lots of grazing for the horses, big ceilings in the house, no near neighbours for the barking dogs, not near main roads for also said barking dogs, all bedrooms to have windows!! A must! After a week of looking nothing!! Area was increased, price was upped a little, still nothing! Then on the way back to the ferry the agent calls, our house sale is fallen through!! Its fate, no buyer and no house to buy, it must mean it isnt meant to be!! Im deflated and by the time we reach Northern France to come back to the UK the rains come down just to add to my already depressed mood! Time for a rethink as i repeat my mantra, ‘im not giving up, im not giving up’!!
The Great French Escape 