I’m writing this on the good ship Bretagne MV, crossing back
to Portsmouth from St. Malo for the third time this year. I’ve been out in
France for the last 10 days, Mrs Monmarduman for the last six. I spent the
first three riding my bike round Brittany, in the expectation that it would be
one of the last opportunities to do so.
I then drove down to Limoges, picked Mrs M up from the airport, and we
had 3 days house hunting. And then finally we had another couple of days back
in Brittany at the house.
The trip’s had a surprising outcome, in that, for the moment
at least, we’re suspending the house hunting further south. This wasn’t due to
the properties we saw or the area we were in – to the contrary, we know now
precisely where we’d like to be, and we saw a couple of beautiful houses. It
was more a feeling that we were embarking on too much change, too quickly. Well
that and the fact that Brittany’s weather and scenery have put on quite a show
for us in the last couple of days.
So let’s go back a bit. Going into this break we’d accepted
offers on both our British and French houses. The British move is further
advanced – we’ll probably be moving on the 25th of this month. We
knew that from the start of January Mrs M will be working from France,
initially on a trial basis, meaning that if we didn’t find anywhere we could
buy quickly, we’d have to find somewhere for her to work from. But that wasn’t
necessarily a problem – we know plenty of people with gites that are unoccupied
in the winter months. The plan seemed
settled and thought-through.
The plan itself hasn’t really changed all that much. As I lay
awake for much of Tuesday night, dissecting and worrying about every single part
of it, I thought it might. But I didn’t
say anything to Mrs M – I struggle with any change at first, even stuff as
trivial as painting a bedroom a different colour. The usual pattern, however,
is that after initial misgivings I settle into and enjoy the change. But not
voicing the nagging doubts just seemed to make them worse. We talked of course – about the houses we’d
seen, the areas we’d been in, but I just wasn’t ‘feeling it’. Gradually it became clear why – there’s
nothing wrong with the change itself, but we’re doing too much of it too
quickly. Moving one house is quite a big
deal; selling two simultaneously brings practical challenges as well a feeling
of dislocation. Selling two, and one
half of a partnership not only relocating country, but to an unfamiliar part of
that country, was too much for my little brain to deal with.
Fortunately, as we talked and drove back to Brittany on
Thursday, it turned out that it was for Mrs M too. So, the outcome is that whilst we’ll still
move in the UK, and she’ll still move to France in January to work her 22 hours
a week, we’ve withdrawn our Breton house from its sale, and that’s now where
Mrs M will be based, along with our cat, who doesn’t know it yet, but who will
emigrate alongside her owner. Which is just as well, because as we sat on our
sofa yesterday afternoon a couple of mice strode out from behind the cooker
with the confident air of beasts who knew they’d have the place to themselves
again before too long. I managed to
dispose of those critters by the end of the day through a couple of
handily-placed traps, but I’m sure they’ve plenty of friends and relatives
waiting in the wings. The cat will have a field day.
So those are the basic facts. We have, of course, spent large parts of the
last 48 hours gathering evidence to support the decision we’d already taken –
citing to ourselves everything from the slightly unethical treatment we’ve
received from our French estate agent to the fact that Mrs M won’t have to
start from scratch in Brittany in terms of network and friends. But one thing
that is unarguable is the loveliness of large parts of Brittany, and the fact
it’s terrific cycling terrain. Without
seemingly riding up anything that you could clearly call a hill, I did nearly
10,000 feet of ascent in the 160-odd miles I rode last weekend. It’s easy to
ride hard there. But not necessarily quickly at the moment, though my refusal
to contemplate changing down into the little ring on the hills doesn’t help
progress.
So there we are. More Brittany for a while yet. The Dordogne
is not off the agenda completely, but we need to see how Mrs M feels at the end
of her work trial – she might be desperate to get further south having endured
a Breton winter, or being in the north might have worked out very nicely. In
the meantime, I need to find my next running or cycling target. I don’t like not having a purpose; just doing
it for its own sake never sustains me for long.
Suggestions please…
