It’s no April fool, my husband George and I have packed up home in London to do a house swap in the South of France for 9 months, our very own (almost) year in Provence! I wanted to start this blog ahead of leaving the UK but what with all the packing, cleaning, farewells with friends and family etc. time ran away from me.
A week before we left we encountered a complication as our trusted car decided to break down near Stonehenge on our way to see family. It was held hostage for a week at a garage down there with the problems and costs mounting daily – far from ideal! It was however brought back from the brink of death and it very nearly made it the entire 1200km to France only to break down less than ONE km away from our destination. We had to be towed the final tiny distance by the lovely couple we have swapped with. It’s now under the loving care of a French mechanic 🙁
We bought a lovely little Ifor Williams trailer to transport everything down in, I must admit that the majority of the trailer was full of my bookbinding equipment, tools, materials etc. (George’s things hardly got a look in!) We stopped over in a pretty town called Troyes, where many of the houses in the old town are half-timbered, and continued on the rest of our journey the following day arriving at our new home on the 2nd April.
Five days in, we are now adapting to our new lifestyle and fending for ourselves – we are living in a much larger property to what we are used to and have lots to learn (including how to speak French!) I intend to document our stay as much as possible; the trials and tribulations, bookbinding, gardening, lifestyle, language…watch this space…
