Five years is up

Yesterday was the 5th anniversary of our arrival in France, so today I’ll treat you to some recollections ‘from the olden days’. The day we arrived was not a pleasant one – Mrs B had twisted her neck and couldn’t move; it was blisteringly cold; and there was a howling gale blowing. We were also shortly to find out that the funds for the house purchase hadn’t arrived in France, and had to spent ages in a windswept phone box trying to find out where it was.

But the best was yet to come – as I’ve probably said before, Mrs B and the girls had bought the house in the summer and I had still not seen it. Well, I’m sure it looked lovely on a hot August day, in between dips in the pool at their campsite, but frankly that November day it looked a bit bleak. (‘note re. ‘bit bleak’ – this is what passes for witty understatement in this blog).

Anyway we duly moved in a few days later and settled into our new home. One electrical socket for the whole house (unearthed) – how many appliances do you think we ran off that one socket – I dare not say; doors that birds could fly in under, never mind the mice); earth floors downstairs; a ‘wood-burning’ central heating system that didn’t heat; and a temperature down to -15 C at night. Ehh, lad, but we were happy.

With hindsight I’m not quite sure what we thought we were playing at – a couple of softy southerners had no place in a house like that. But we did, and we even survived the winter.

In truth just trying to stay warm and get a few bare necessities sorted – somewhere to cook for example, since there was no kitchen and nowhere to put one anyway – occupied us enough to take our mind off the miserable conditions. Getting into bed when the temperature in the bedroom was well below freezing was not particularly funny though.

Happily the scuttling of mice across the floor encouraged us to get in quickly anyway. To be honest we were a teeny-weeny bit nervous that first few days (note – remember what I said about witty understatement – it applies here as well). Cold, dark, strange noises all around – we had never even stayed in the countryside except for the occassional cottage in Yorkshire or bed and breakfast in Cornwall.

Anyway, another year or two or three of grind (and lots of cash) later, and we surprised ourselves by finding we actually lived somewhere very nice. Holidaymakers actually come once and then want to return. Weird stuff, but an amazing process to go through. It’s an even bigger surprise to our neighbours, who may not admit it out of politeness, but thought we were stark raving bonkers. Probably still do.

I even kept quite a detailed ‘non-electronic-blog’ (diary, as we call it) of those speciam moments, and when I’m as rich as Bill Gates I’ll write it up and call it my autobiography. I’ll skip the bit about what Mrs B said every night getting into bed in a freezing bedroom though – some things aren’t suitable for publication.