Friendships and France

A sisterhood, home and abroad!

Bonjour my petite boutonnieres, me again!

Saturday 28th March 2026

All is very well here in the wonderful Lincolnshire Wolds!

Wonderful, because above 10 degree's, the inside isn't quite as challenging, but it is still rather chilly here in our little valley.

Those biting winds have whipped around the house for days and have been pretty much cancelling out spring, my goodness! However, a morsel of sun here and there, has been just enough to get me dusting away the farm dust! I absolutely took the opportunity to sort everything whilst he is away, because it's easier than complaining about his little piles of stuff everywhere!

The wind has also been quite the gift in the end! Let's face it petals, there is no greater housewifely pride, than getting that first spring full line of washing out and blowing in the wind! The pleasure is epic!

Mrs Holland in-house laundry maid be gone!

In other news, I appear to have hidden the eggs from myself I need to make the quiche and banana loaf today!

I'm also wearing sunglasses inside, as my eye's are constantly streaming due to the tree pollen! Not great, but sunnies also hide the invisable to the naked eye, blonde lashes that need dying again!

So guys, It looks I'm back to that phase of swollen, itchy, crusty eyes, a little earlier than usual and probably right through until September! Yum! Just love the punched in the face look!

Can you believe there's less than a week until Easter Good Friday! I'm so ready for family time and duly have fish and lamb in the freezer, but really fancy roasted ham! Never happy this foodie!

I will talk about food noise in the next blog!

We have very much bypassed the choccie egg aisle this year, because of that sudden and shocking realisation, that we've all packed on a little too much winter lard! Ouch! Sort of creeps up doesn't it? Then suddenly it's elastic waistbands to avoid the next size up!

P has landed at Gatwick this morning and will be training it home as I write.

Oh he just texted! It would seem the great British train journey, south to north is in the now normal weekend disarray! Sods law! I guess I will be high tailing it to some train station later, to save him half a days bus ride!

I don't know where he finds the energy!

It takes me a week to get over the grocery shop these days!

I shall dust the tequila bottle off for him, sleepy juice always helps at times like these.

James Martin is on the Tele box with the first dish being lamb, of course it is! I like lamb well enough but I will probably revert to the usual garlic, rosemary and thyme crust! Never mess with the celebratory classics eh?

Do fancy some lamb kofta's though!

Anyway, I digress!

P sent me a photo of him and I after a trip to Mont St Mitchel in 2016 and I suddenly realised, that it is now one whole decade since we first saw the French Wreck, now known as Maison Maurice! We were very much fuelled with Calvados, Creme Brûlée and escape from Saudi mentality! Oops!

I was 47!!!

I'm now 57!!!

Let that sink in!

I guess it’s an anniversary of sorts eh?

A decade of the fractured French Adventure! Whoa!

A really good place in time to rewrite the ending I feel!

We were mad as a box of frogs then! Now? Meh, not much different I fear!

Anyway, I might just pop a bottle on ice for tonight and toast the fact that we did in fact save that bloody cheap as chips house in the end! Rose tinted specs an all!

Also, I was chatting with the A admin team the other day and we were reminissing the good times, specifically French Lockdown, now over half a decade ago! I often forget how long I've known these gorgeous women! I often write about the few bad un's, probably a handful I would never even look at again, others I've forgiven! That said, I've also been very lucky to have some brilliant, funny and loyal ladies in my life since 2017 when the original A VERY UNFRENCH WIFE was born! I don't mention them enough really, I should!

Polly as we called her, recently rejoined us at the admin helm (we are very happy that she is home) and of course we had to chat about the online lockdown hen do we held for her! What a riot! Everyone dialling in with drinks at the ready! Such fun! In some ways Covid gifted us a lot of firsts, including online entertaining!

We then waited eagerly to see the bride and her dress! Polly is a seamstress of stage show fame and I believe she updated the dress, a family heirloom! My goodness she was utterly stunning! She reminded me of a prima ballerina. A soupçon of joy in a topsy turvy world!

She'd waited a long time to marry her great french love, Didier in November 2020. Tragically, Didier died in February 2022 after a long illness.

Polly remarried recently and is very happy with her love and life in France. Of course Didier will never be forgotten, but time has a way of propelling us forward. We in turn will never forget a good French/English union!

Here is her story in her own words.

I met Didier in early April 2015, I never believed in love at first sight before then. I arrived to take my mid morning coffee at the local bar just around the corner from the atelier where I was working. I went in to order my coffee and was asked to take a seat on the terrace. There was no place to sit and then heard a very nice welcoming voice say "excusez-moi madame, vous pouvez partager ma table, j'ai presque fini mon café". I thanked him and he resumed his coffee and newspaper. Then we just started talking and the rest is history. We were inseparable from then on until he sadly passed in February 2022.

Our years together were not always easy and we battled financial hardship, family problems, and later the dreaded covid but we battled together. It was probably in many ways the hardest period of my life. He will forever be a part of me.

I did battle on after he passed but I did go on to meet another amazing love of my life, my Phillip. We are approaching our 2nd year of marriage this year. I'm grateful that I was able to carry on with much love and care from my spécial band of friends. Now here I am today thriving and not giving up on love. I'm so Lucky to have been given 2 wonderful love stories to talk about with my wonderful sisterhood, my dear friends ❤️

P x

Love conkers all in the end eh?

My dear friends, if I have one piece of advice, It is this! It is really, really important to remember the good times. Sort the wood from the chaff!

France wasn't all bad, not at all.

Sound's like I'm trying to persude myself?

Nope!

We do have to be realistic about the good, the bad and the ugly. Time heals and also time gifts us perspective. We can, with distance, understand the 'why?' better. I was hellbent on being all inclusive with my platforms and the lesson I got, was that its not always possible and certainly not possible to please everyone all of the time!

So, in essence I am rather looking forward to finishing what we started! Recent events have led us back to France and we do need to give it a jolly good go! Things happen for a reason and whilst I have no idea what those reasons are? I'm certainly a willing victim, no one is forcing me. In fact it was my idea and I never thought it would be!

I'm a strong capable woman and I also won't be beaten, not easily anyway!

We all have choices and we make those choices based on where we are now, not what’s gone before! As I've said previously, my adventure wasn't a channel 4 documentary, nor was it edited! Real life in France or anywhere abroad can be just like real life at home, full of ups and downs, roundabouts. Renovating costs money, takes time and almost drives one insane! It isn't glamorous or a quick way to make money! It is however, addictive!

If Maison Maurice is to be my home for life, so be it! I won't fight it, I will make it work for me! Although I have no idea how to make the garden work, for my flower growing and the dogs? We will figure it out as we go.

In someways, I am determined not to make the same mistakes. In other ways I'm certainly not over thinking it. I prefer to let the next chapter reveal itself. I guess the good thing is that we aren't going in blind or with rose tinted glasses this time. I won't be using the 'forever home' tag because the truth is we just don't know! We could live the rest of our lives at MM very happily and still be carried out mentally gaga, to an old folks home or in a box! A sustainable one of course!

Will I miss anything from the UK?

My kids.

A couple of friends and family, of course.

Some foodie bits I can still get on the internet.

Oh and internal window sills, but as P reminded me, when we redid the windows we did add a bit of Britishness to the French wreck, in the form of window sills! Do love a sill for all my tatt and I do have a lot of tatt!

When we came back, I genuinely missed parts of the French house but I have plans to make it even better! I do think renovating is a process and once you start do you actually ever stop?

For instance, even though I have already tried two different wallpapers on the stairway, I still don't like it and like any good interior designer, I will keep going until I get it right! We also both feel that we want another lounge/diner space and I have a plan but it will need an architect to rejig the current plans!

I plan to be very busy with my florals, hosting and wot not but I will make time to enjoy the process of fine tuning the house! We barely lived in it finished! The garden needs a lot of thought and I want a pergola and a green house, obviously! The renovation of the coach house into a workshop and a heated laundry/bootroom will need to be done asap. There's still repointing to finish and well, the list goes on and on! I guess one day we will simply run out of jobs to do, or steam, who knows?

After a year away, we are rehearing the siren call to go home.

It could very well be a disaster or we could thrive! I do think we have a choice in how it goes in the end.

I am also manifesting ahead and hoping to be invited to 'things' once we are back in France! We were practically hermits whilst knee deep in reovation! Not good. One must get out and about and make connections. That, I guess is the not so secret recipe to making a life anywhere, I'm sure. Also, I will be ignoring the chancers and the plebs at all costs! So excuse me if I take my time getting to know you when I see you. I will just be taking my sweet time working out if you and I are gonna be firm friends forever.

Love, Flowers and Gumption!

D x