After France - 1st year anniversary

tick!

Wow, that was a year to behold for all the wrong and right reasons. Certainly not one I'd like to repeat for a million of those reasons but one I feel was ultimately, the toughest experience we've ever had, him and I.

We made it.

We survived but are we intact?

Hardly!

I suppose it's all part of life's rich tapestry, some we win and some we loose. This French adventure we lost big time but it's important to stress, no one died.

The decision to leave France wasn't really a choice in the end and it was definitely a start again from scratch thing. It wasn't easy and it was often brutal in the extreme. We left without a home to go to! Just packed what we could and got on that ferry!

P honestly thought he was at the end of his very successful career at first; and that was hard to watch. Of course he wasn't but it was a short sharp shock for us both. Since joining the army as a boy soldier he'd never been out of work.

These things are sent to try us!

Oddly he never liked that job, company or client and was far more comfortable in rail. Sometimes life chucks you back on the path you need to be on, like it or not.

I never told you that by the time P started earning again we were down to vapours. I mean it. We had no way of knowing how catasrophic the whole leaving France thing would be but we did know staying would be worse. One, his new employer wouldn't pay him through France and so that was the beginning of the end and two, we doubted the French social system would support us if he couldn't find work and three, this was on top of the ongoing issue of tax in France already several years old.

All this added up to one huge disaster in the making and we had to make a very quick decision to stay or go? P already had the offer of the job in the UK but no start date and this made things even more complex but he needed the work and so the vote was a resounding unanimous green to GO!

In other words we had no choice!

I remember in the March saying to him, we need to go home, he nodded and that was that. We set the wheels in motion to end an already fractured adventure without any real fanfare at all. Had he not lost his client?........I don't know? I think it was never easy and certainly not made easy locally. I can't say I was entirely bought in or happy but I was starting to think that once the house was finished we should move on to a new adventure in France. The house was a company asset and we toyed with the thought of it being an airbnb for a while. Nothing quite added up no matter how we tired to rewrite it.

In the end, just as we moved into this rental house a year ago today, he started work part time, some two months after leaving France and 6 months after his last pay. Of course we had spent all our savings/pension and more on renovating the French Wreck! It was down to the bloody wire but we coped!

My advice to you is don't do that! Don't pop all those eggs in one basket!

By the October of last year he went full time and hope slowly returned but it was pretty dire in the rental. We'd really only managed to rent this house because no one else wanted it! Then began a period of building chaos and even today we have concerns about staying another winter here but then there's those views.....and exhale.

The thing is, when Phil's client pulled the contract in France we had zero warning and we had nothing to fall back on. My mum had just passed and I had no time to process it as we were like rabbits in the head lights into financial ruin. It was rather a messy situation and one with added sadness. My family only cared about themselves as usual and so the situation was extra fraught when it didn't need to be.

It was a bloody shame to leave the house that we had put everything into and also had cost us everything at the same time. The stress we were under was unbelievable and something had to give. I still wonder how we are still in one piece!

We had tears and tantrums and we've not always been our best selves in the process. It's certainly been an uphill climb to come out of it all smiling.

A year on?

Where are we now?

The house in France remains on the market sadly. We also feel like we will be stuck in a tax wrangle with France for the rest of our lives. It's too complex to explain but we don't believe it will ever be resolved in our favour, not without expensive lawyers in tow. So the house which has no lending on it is a sitting duck. We hoped it would sell but it hasn't. If it had sold, we could have closed that chapter permanently which would certainly be preferable.

I'm just about to change agents because 2 out of 3 have offered nothing and the 3rd seemed to get viewings but I'm sure the people viewing were just time wasters.

Right now? We are still in the UK farm rental and that’s not really a choice. To move on, we discovered we need longer as self employed. This came as a shock as we are already renting but we have had to double down, wait it out and so we've finally unpacked, just!

We recently thought very seriously about returning to France but in the end we knew it made no sense whatsoever and we put it to bed permanently. There's no point in flogging a dead horse is there?

P has continued to settle and grow in his new role which he loves but it’s back in old familiar territory, in rail and in Canada. He's also now offcially a uni student to ensure he has options as he ages.

I'm busy training as a floral designer which has always been on the to do list. I have sadly been beset with health issues which I am sure have not been helped by the last few years of living in a high stress environment. I'm getting there now, finding my way back to me slowly.

We do both feel older and wiser but a little weary and burnt out.

We are comfortable enough and have a roof over our heads. We have plans and the future looks pretty good from where we are standing, but we will always have the fear that it will all come crashing down again! I think that will stay with us for life now.

We are forever changed. France certainly left it's mark but it wasn't a fairy tale by any means. It was more like a car crash in slow motion at times.

Would we go back?

I will never say never but it feels a bit of a stretch to imagine it right now.

P is about to submit his first years digital accounts, a much simpler process than running a SASU in France especially with an incompetent accountant! I'm not far behind and we are both proud to say, we did fill in a tiny bit of the big black financial hole left by France. We are far from out of the woods but it's a really good start and we are looking ahead, planning an early retirement by at least......erm......102! Lol

Have to laugh!

We've hung in there together which is the main thing.

The worst thing in many ways has not being able to put a stamp on our own place here yet. Hard to live with magnolia walls and maintenance issues when you've just lived in a house where it was very done our way!

I still miss my big freestanding bath!

In the end it's only bricks and mortar isn't it?

We have moved mountains, him and I over the years, always made things happen, never waited. We are a force and we will continue to look forward but...

....now we wait. Time is a wonderful gift and time heals. Sometimes the better outcome comes from staying put awhile.

I'm away at the moment but when I'm back home at the weekend, we will pop the cork on that last bottle of French champagne and toast to the future!

We will continue to celebrate life and who knows whats around the corner eh!

D x