I was in year 7 when we moved over here but, because I didn’t know a lot of French, we decided that at my new french school I should go back a year. It is not unusual for students to do this (to “redouble”). If a student is struggling then a decision is made between the student, the parents, the college and a governor. There is no stigma attached to this decision, as it is considered the best way forward for the student and their education.

When we arrived in France, I went into school for one week before the Christmas holidays to get used to it. I have to say it was very hard, sitting at the back of the class with everyone talking French, not having a clue what they are on about, not to mention the difficulties of getting into the school routine or finding some friends. That went on for a few weeks, but with every month my french progressed and every new year I went into my new class understanding more than i did the year before. I was soon telling the French what lessons we had next and when the holidays were. I felt much better.

In 4eme (year 9) I joined a music club where, every Monday lunchtime from 1pm to 1:55pm, a group of musicians reproduce songs with different instruments, and because I’ve been playing the piano since I was seven years old, I thought I’d give it a go. At the end of the school year we got to play our songs in front of loads of people at the ‘Fête du collège’. Everybody loved our songs and I even had a teacher come over to me and tell me how very talented I was! I felt very happy

I also joined a ‘Comédie musicale’, which is a theatre group held during lunchtime at school, where we act, sing and dance, and at the end of the school year we perform our play to everyone in a theatre. First of all I had to do a singing audition, which was scary at first, but at the end everyone said that I sang very well. A few weeks later I heard that I got a part and I was delighted. It wasn’t a big part, but I opened the play and I closed it so I guess it was okay. It was really hard to remember the lines and to make sure that I prononced the words correctly (it doesn’t help when you have an english accent). I suspect the teachers didn’t think that I’d be able to do it, and neither did I to be  quite honest. It didn’t go so well in the dess rehersal and the first performance, but I think the last performance went really well and the teachers were very pleased with me. It goes to show that english people who don’t know a lot of french can play a part in a French play.

This year I’m in 3eme (year 10) which is my last year, finally! This year is a big year, i have 2 ‘Brevet Blanc’ exams, which are the equivalent of “mocks” in England, and at the end of the year I take my ‘Brevet‘ (similar to GCSEs) I  have already had a ‘Brevet Blanc’ in November and I will have another in May. In September I will be going to Lycée. I have to choose between two Lycées. I’ve been to an open day at one and I’ll be going to another one in March. It will be a hard decision.

College St. Joseph, Fontenay-le-Comte

I would really recommend Collège St Joseph to anyone for their children. It is a good school and the teachers are very nice and they are always there to help.

I still miss England and I would really like to still be there. Depending on where you live, life can be very different to England. We used to live in a village where most of my friends were and I’d see them everyday. We’d walk to each other’s houses and could catch a bus or a train to Grimsby town centre in around 15 minutes. Here I live in a lovely little village, but I don’t have any friends who live here, and to go into town it’s about 20 mins drive and there is no train or bus. I think that probably, from a parents point of view, this could be good because you can spend more time with family and explore more things together. Then, when you go to school in the week, you can see your friends again and have a good gossip with them about the weekend.

I’ll soon be 16 and that means I can start driving. I can drive with a parent in the car with me. I have to do so many hours with an adult till i’m 18 then take a driving test. When I heard I could do that I was so happy! It’s a really good idea because, when you’re 18 you will have a good experience of driving, and so you will pass your test much easier (hopefully!). I can also start working here as well, like in england. I was scared at first because I heard that you had to be 18 to work but I did some research and I found that you can work at 16. I will be doing that soon

Thanks for reading and I hope this might help you if you are a teenager who is moving to France soon. If you want to ask any questions, just leave a comment and I will try to answer for you.

2010 brought a new dimension to our life here and that is our friends Lynn & Alan and Curtis & Dee. We “met” both couples through this website. They had both bought plots of land in Foussais and, while searching the web for information about this area, they came across La Vie en Foussais and got in touch. Prior to them moving here permanently, we met up during their various trips to Foussais, but nothing could have prepared us for the fun that was about to come our way!

We have spent many a happy evening, or Sunday afternoon, sharing “aperos” and enjoying our time together. Both couples are marvellous with our children and we are very lucky to have them around the corner from us.

One particular sunny summer Sunday afternoon we were having a gathering. Let me set the scene….

The location was chez Curtis and Dee, the drink – pamplemouse rosé.

(I should give a quick explanation. We discovered pamplemouse rosé while attending a free jazz concert at the Salle Polyvalante at the beginning of summer. We bought what we thought was our usual interval drink, a little glass of rosé. On drinking, we discovered an unusual taste; not unpleasant but not expected either. “Mmmmm…” we thought, “not bad”. It was only when we got to the bottom of the glass that the true wonder of this drink became clear. This was rosé wine mixed with a pamplemouse (grapefruit) liqueur *.  Well, let’s just say, a trend was set, and the rest is history. Summer had a whole new dimension!)

So, back to the story. Fuelled by aperos and pamplemouse rosé, talk turned to “Let’s have a party!”. Curtis and Dee were spending Christmas in Foussais, but Lynn, Alan and us Barleys were all heading to England. However, it turned out we were all going to be back for New Year, so the plan was made. New Year’s Eve party – our house – more friends invited – good times ahead!

Now, I’m still not so sure how this came about, but we decided fancy dress would be a good idea. We discussed Super-Heroes, Musicals or Films and Nursery Rhymes…and then Lynn said “We once went to a party dressed as gnomes…”.  Great idea! We could all take a character. Rosie loves 1940′s style, so her character was “Keep The Gnome Fires Burning”. Molly, who loves football, would be “Gnome Goal”.  Joe, our James Bond fan, would be “Double Gnome Seven”. The possibilities were endless! A phone call, along with an invitation to the party, was made to Jim and Val (our super-hero seamstress!)

So this is how Foussais became invaded by gnomes on 31st December. The gathering included “The Gnome-Coming Queen” (me), “Gnome On The Range”(Richard), a “Metrognome”, “Gastronome”, “Gnome Improvements”, a “Gnome Help”, “Twickergnome”, a National “Elf” Service Nurse, some “Gnomads” and a smattering of Smurfs!

The night was to be a relaxed affair. As is tradition in the Barley family, quizzes were written, games were devised, food was prepared, candles were lit and costumes were on. Friends arrived, and what a huge effort they had made! After much eating, dancing and chatting it was time for quizzes. A note to friends who will be joining us in the future – learn your Christmas tunes! Who would have thought quotes from really well-known Christmas songs could have been the reason for so many blank faces?

Of course, with the hour’s difference  New Year gives us a chance to celebrate twice. Our friends Annie, Drew and the girls, along with the rest of their party, joined us on Skype for our midnight celebration and then we joined them for theirs. We will never forget us being put on Annie and Drew’s windowsill to watch the chinese lanterns being set of in the street!

I love New Year. A time to reflect on the good times shared, good times to come, family and friends. A big thank you to Val, Richards Mum, for our fab costumes and a great big thank you to our lovely  new Foussais friends who give us such great times and happy memories.

* You can mix rose with pamplemouse syrup which is a little less lethal, but not half as much fun  (Back)

If you recall, the plan for our December visit to London was:

• We (Lisa and I) travel to London on Thursday for the TweetDeck Christmas party
• Rosie & Molly stay with Claire & Tony in Puy-de-Serre
• Joe stays with Kevin & Amal, also in Puy-de-Serre
• We return to France on the Saturday, collect the kids and go home
• We all return to the UK for Christmas with the family the following Tuesday

And back in A Christmas Party, Some Old Friends and Some Angry Birds, we covered the first couple of days when things were going well. When we were happy. And warm.

So let us continue with our story.

So near, yet so far

We woke on the Saturday after a fantastic few days in London, and headed back to Stansted Airport. There were no problems on the trains, so we arrived in plenty of time. However, given the wintry conditions, we were not surprised to find that our flight was delayed by 30 minutes. Still, this was not a problem. We were heading home to find our kids – we could wait another half an hour. While waiting at the gate, the day’s first few flakes of snow started to fall. Still we remained upbeat, as planes were still taking off and it was really only a few flakes.

Before too long we were boarding the plane and took our seats, excited to be heading home and looking forward to getting back to the children. The snow had started to come down a little faster, but we were moving now, so all was well. We started taxiing down the runway and waited for the pilot to announce “Cabin Crew, seats for takeoff”…. But instead of that announcement followed by the plane shooting off into the sky, we came to a halt. Instantly we knew this was Something Very Bad. The cabin crew started faffing around, while we grew more and more agitated. Then came the announcement we had dreaded. “I’m sorry folks, we have been told by Dublin to return to stand.”

The entire plane groaned in frustration. We had been so close! Just another few seconds and we would have been in the air and on our way back to our kids. But now we were looking at a cancelled flight, and no idea what was going to happen next. This was our worst nightmare.

Having disembarked the plane, we all sadly traipsed back to the airport main concourse, where we joined the queue to speak to the Ryanair sales desk about getting a refund for  our cancelled flight, and rearranging another. When we joined the queue there was already about 300 people waiting in front of us. This was not going to be a quick process.

A long wait and a thoughtless Italian

In the queue directly in front of us was an Italian chap with his young daughter. The man was clearly looking out for his wife, and kept leaving his little girl, no more than 3 or 4 years old, in the queue while he disappeared with his phone clamped to his ear.

The girl was very sweet, and we kept ushering her along when the queue started moving, but the time between her father’s visits was getting longer and longer. Everyone in the vicinity was amazed that the man could leave such a young girl completely on her own for such long periods of time. In the end, the party in front of the girl stopped a passing policewoman and reported the situation. She took the girl to one side and things could well have escalated if the absent father had not returned at that point. After some very stern words from the policewoman, the girl and her father were reunited. Although he didn’t leave her again, the man was still very distracted, and could very easily have lost his daughter again as the queue moved along without her. We were really quite shocked how much disregard he showed for her safety.

Also in the queue near us were a young couple who were heading in our direction. Quite remarkably, they were heading to Fontenay-le-Comte (the nearest large town to where we live in France)! We had a good chat with them and discovered that they were heading back to see relatives who ran a bar on Rue des Loges – it certainly is a small world.

So, we waited in line for what seemed like an eternity, and got basically nowhere. Through phone calls and internet searches, we established that all Ryanair and Easyjet flights were cancelled, with no prospect of  replacement flights for at least another two days. Word eventually filtered through the queue that we were pretty much wasting our time. The staff at the desk were only handing out a printout from the Ryanair website giving instructions to claim a refund and to rebook online. So, we needed a new plan. There was no way we could just sit and wait for goodness-only-knows-how-long for another flight. The kids were waiting for us at home and we were booked on flights to come back again on Tuesday. This was not in The Plan.

A new plan

We made some calls. When we left the Dixies the night before they had said to get in touch if there were any difficulties with the journey. So we called Kevin, who got straight on the case, finding us details of trains, buses and even booking us a hotel in London for the night. What a superstar! It seemed that trains were going to be no good. Although the Stansted Express was still running at this point, very few trains south of London were still operating, so our chances of getting out that way were minimal. Kevin had offered for us to take their car and drive it home, but the snow was so back near them that we would never have got there, never mind been able to drive it out again. So, with all flights cancelled, we followed the lead of our Fontenay-bound friends and turned to National Express coaches for a solution.

The queue at the National Express booking office at the airport was huge, with everyone having the same idea, so I grabbed the phone number off a leaflet and called them instead. Luckily we managed to book ourselves onto a coach leaving Victoria first thing in the morning and arriving in Paris around 4pm. From there we could catch a train to Poitiers to pick up the car and get home. Apparently they were unaffected by the snow so far, so we kept our fingers crossed that this would remain the case until tomorrow. With a hotel booked for us by our guardian angel in Ware, we headed off to the train to get back into London and find somewhere to eat and sleep for the night.

Back to where we started

Sadly, this too was not destined to go well. Our train was late. But not “It’s going to be REALLY late” late, where we could have gone and got comfortable somewhere while we waited. Oh no, it was just constantly 40 minutes late. Every minute we waited, the expected arrival time progressed by a minute. So we never had a clue quite when it was going to arrive, if at all.

After three hours of standing on a frozen platform, open to the elements, without food and with just one coffee inside us from the passing refreshment trolley, finally a train arrived. I have never been more glad to see a Stansted Express train in my life! Like eager shoppers at the Boxing Day sales, the crowd swelled toward the train and poured inside. I charged on board, dragging Lisa behind me, determined that we were going to get a seat after standing for the last six hours or so.

Our insistence paid off and we were one of the lucky few who got a seat. People were literally crammed into the train like refugees, their suitcases and bags piled high in the gangway. Although we were packed in like sardines, at least we were warmer and more comfortable than before. However, we were not our of the woods just yet. Although we were on the train, we were not actually going anywhere. It was 6.30pm by now, but we were told that our train had just become the 7pm service – so we had to wait another 30 minutes before we could leave. By this point we had just about given up caring.

Eventually, to much cheering, we pulled out of the station and headed back to London, from where we had started our journey that morning. It was certainly an eventful journey (of course, it was never going to be boring!). After a while, a Scottish guy, clearly with a few too many Special Brews inside him, started kicking off. He was yelling at some poor chap who he claimed was Russian – we have no idea if he was or wasn’t, but the drunk guy was pretty insistent. Given the fact that the train was completely overcrowded, this was really very intimidating. Luckily a couple of American guys pinned him into a tight corner of the train and forced him to calm down, but his ongoing outbursts certainly dampened the Dunkirk Spirit that had developed on the train until that point. Fortunately the Scottish man left the train at the next stop and a calm returned to the carriage once more.

Meanwhile, we were being entertained by a young brother and sister who were travelling with their french grandparents. We started speaking in french, but then realised the kids spoke english, which made life a lot easier. They were both very sweet and the girl didn’t stop talking all through the journey. I think talking to us helped all of us to take out minds off the situation and it was some welcome light relief after a very stressful few hours.

Tom to the rescue

It was while were on this journey that we finally had a stroke of good luck. I had a call from Tom, a colleague from work and a good friend, offering us a place to stay for the night. We didn’t need asking twice. Given the day we were having, the chance of a warm house, a glass of wine, a nice meal and some top company was very welcome. So we jumped off the train at the next stop and made our way to Tom’s house. I say that like it was an easy process – of course it wasn’t. It involved lugging our bags through the snowy London streets and navigating the brand-new East London line, a stretch of the rail network I had never used before. But made it we did, and good old Tom was there at the station to meet us. To say that we were thankful for the hospitality that he and Jessie showed us, would be like saying the Pope is a bit religious. We were so delighted to be safe and actually feeling relaxed for the first time that day. It was a brief few hours of chilled out, relaxing chat, with a big glass of wine and a great homemade curry. Just what we needed and a total lifesaver.

While enjoying our respite with Tom and Jessie, we decided to book our train from Paris to Poitiers, as there were likely to be thousands of stranded people pouring into Paris the next day and we didn’t want to get stuck there too. So, after some wrangling with an uncooperative printer, we managed to book our ticket and print off the required e-voucher. At least that was sorted, we just needed to get to Paris.

Paris, here we come

At 5.30am we were whisked by taxi off to Victoria station to locate our coach. Having clambered over the scattered bodies of people who had clearly slept the night in the coach station, we checked in successfully and waited for our coach. However the first worry of the day came soon after when there was an announcement that all National Express coaches were cancelled. Our hearts sank and we thought that we were going to face another day stuck in London, unable to get back to the kids (who were, incidentally, being very well looked after by our friends, thank goodness. This knowledge, however, didn’t stop us being desperate to get back to them…).  We soon realised that actually we were going to be travelling under the Eurolines banner, which was a slightly different thing and was therefore not affected by the cancellation. Panic over!

While waiting for the coach to arrive, who should we see but the couple from the airport who were trying to get back to Fontenay! They had booked on the same coach as us and had the same plan – get to Paris and then take a train. We offered them a lift with us if they wanted to get the same train from Paris to Poitiers, but they had already booked accommodation in Paris for the night. It was good to see them again though and made it feel a little less painful seeing some familiar faces.

The journey to Folkestone was largely uneventful, thank goodness. The roads were mainly clear, though there was a lot of snow on the verges, and we arrived at the tunnel in good time. We were delayed for an hour, but took this opportunity to stretch our legs and grab some reading material and food from the shops. Before long we were on our way and heading to the tunnel. Just as we thought we were finally going to get out of England, we were pulled in by French customs who boarded the coach and took all our passports. Half an hour later they returned and handed back the passports. Quite what they were doing with them all this time we do not know.

What we do know is that while we were sitting there waiting, about 10 eastern european coaches breezed past unhindered. Something not right there.
Anyway, we eventually made it onto the Eurotunnel train and finally felt like we were getting somewhere. Once we got into France, surely everything would be fine and we could get home to our kids. Of course, that would have been too easy.

Welcome to Calais

The weather in Calais wasn’t great, with a fair bit of snow around, but no worse than we had experienced in England. We left the tunnel behind and were looking forward to a nice easy drive down to Paris, when suddenly we pulled into a petrol station just before joining the autoroute to Calais. Utter, utter disaster. Because of the supposedly-dangerous weather, the police were not allowing us to continue on our journey. We would be taken to a local sports hall where we would spend the night and we could possibly try again in the morning.

This news nearly sparked a riot on the coach. The weather was nothing worse than we had seen on the road to Folkestone, but the police weren’t budging. They had even parked their car across the front of the coach to ensure we couldn’t leave. An air of total depression fell over everyone on board. I pulled out the iPhone and started looking at options. If only we could get to the station at Calais, we could catch a train from there to Paris. Or even to Lille, then on to Nantes from there. We just had to keep moving, to get closer to the children, there was no way we wanted to just stop and wait.

But sadly the police were not going to be swayed. We were to be escorted to the sports hall and that was that. The fact that dozens of other vehicles were zooming past while we were stuck at the side o the road was seemingly immaterial to them, unfortunately. So eventually we pulled out behind our police escort and headed to the sports hall feeling totally dejected. Our low spirits were not raised at all by us being able to see the train station as we drove away from our parking spot. If only we could divert there, we could all get on our way, but it was not to be.

The Red Cross? Really?

On arrival at the sports hall, we started to feel like we were unwitting victims of a terrible disaster. A man climbed aboard the coach and declared, “Welcome to Calais. You are now under the control of the French Red Cross. We have food, drink and blankets for you and beds for the night. We will look after you…”. Now you might think we would be relieved at this, and indeed we would have been if we had not been desperate to get back to our kids. Such great care would have been very welcome if we were just travelling for fun and not on a race against time. As it was, this was the last thing we wanted. But, not really knowing at this point what was going to happen, we disembarked the coach and shuffled into the sports hall rather dazed and confused.

Once inside, the stresses of the day started to take their toll. We both started to break down a little and making the phone call to the kids to tell then what had happened was a very difficult thing to do. When speaking to Rosie I told her that we were being treated like we had been in an earthquake. She hadn’t heard me properly and proceeded to tell everyone that we had been in an earthquake. After some very worried phone calls, we managed to persuade everyone that we were safe and well and hadn’t actually been victims of a natural disaster, just the over-efficiency o the French authorities!

Seeing Lisa in some distress, one of the Red Cross people came over and offered us somewhere quiet to go and lie down. They were very considerate and we couldn’t have asked for better treatment, but we explained that we really only wanted to get home to our kids. He said he understood and that he would see what he could do to help. a short while later he returned to explain that he had spoken to a man with a taxi firm and he would take us to the station at Calais, from where we could catch a train into Paris and from there to home. We were delighted to be offered a way out. There had been a couple of shuttle buses going to the station earlier on, but the weather was now very bad and our man told us that ours would be the last taxi to leave before the weather closed in.

So we were suddenly feeling a lot more positive, but we now had a different problem. We had, as instructed, left our suitcases on the coach. Having been out into the car park I could find neither our coach nor our driver anywhere. After some 15 minutes of searching, I finally tracked him down. Luckily he was already on his way to find the coach and retrieve a bag for another man, so I tagged along too. The coach was inexplicably parked about 25 minutes up the road, so the walk there through the snow was far from ideal. But we made it through and I dragged our bags back. Good job I did as well, as the driver then refused to go and fetch any more bags after that, so everyone else was definitely stranded.

Time for a new plan

Given the delays on trains heading into Paris, we changed our plan of attack. We would try to get from Calais to Lille, then from Lille we could catch a train to Nantes. We rang our good friend Curtis, who had offered his assistance, and he was an absolute hero. He said that of course he would pick us up from Nantes and take us home, no matter what time of the day or night, and then would take us back to Poitiers in the morning to retrieve the car. We were so, so grateful, and this wonderful news really lifted our spirits – we could finally see an end in sight.

After a while our taxi came and we escaped our well-meaning imprisonment. Upon arrival at the station, we were quite surprised not to see huge crowds of people. One of the reasons we were given for not being allowed to go to the station in the first place was that apparently there were huge crowds there, and all the trains were cancelled. No such crowds at Calais Ville station. It was about 5pm when we arrived and had to wait about 2 hours, but eventually a train came and took us to Lille. After facing the prospect of spending maybe the next two days in Calais only just a few hours ago, the sense of relief to be leaving was immense even more so as the weather was now really closing in around us.

A long time in Lille

Having arrived in Lille, we discovered that our connecting train departed from the other station in Lille. It wasn’t too far to walk, only 10 minutes, but the weather was terrible, with temperatures of about -10 and a strong icy wind stinging our faces. Although that 10-minute walk nearly gave us frostbite, we kept moving, confident that we were getting closer and closer to home. The departure board at Lille Europe station was a sea of delays and cancellations, though the Nantes train wasn’t yet being displayed, so we had no idea of it’s status. When eventually it appeared on the board, our positive attitude took another knock – delayed by three hours.

Ah well, we thought, at least we’re near civilisation. This is a station, there are cafés and bars. We can sit and have a meal while we’re waiting…

If only it were so simple! Everything was closing. We found a bar that was packed – so many people were stranded this night and the station, like most I would imagine, was full of travellers all just trying to keep warm while they waited for a way home. So did this result in longer opening or “special measures’? Not on your nelly. We had just managed to buy a glass of wine each and a small tub of Pringles, the only food they had in the entire bar, when the staff started closing up around us. That was that, we were thrown back out onto the frozen platform to wait for the next two hours.The only consolation was the vertical patio heaters they had on the platform, which provided a tiny amount of heat to help keep the cold from totally killing us off.

In the end, after much shivering and “never again”ing, our train arrived at around 11pm. Poor Curtis, it would be about 3am when we arrived in Nantes, but he was an absolute star. The journey to Nantes passed without any real problems. We slept a lot of the way, totally exhausted, frozen to the core and just aching to be back in our own bed.

Curtis, our saviour

True to his word, Curtis was there at Nantes waiting for us with hot tea, blankets and food. We really are so indebted to him for his assistance, which was way beyond the call of duty. In fact all our friends had been outstanding in their support. Kevin and Amal and Claire and Tony had been superb in looking after the kids for us and the extended stay was no bother to them at all. Everyone on Facebook and Twitter were pouring out their best wishes or us as we kept everyone updated on our progress. It was a very humbling experience for us all to see the reaction to our plight, and we felt very, very lucky to have such amazing friends.

And so, eventually, after having left our London hotel almost 48 hours earlier, we finally arrived home safe and sound at 5am and collapsed into bed.  The journey, like this post, had been truly epic. So many ups and downs, twists and turns, that we had lost track of where we were and what we were doing. But one instinct kept pulling us through, and that was the need to get home to be with our kids. And the reunion with them the next morning was very special indeed.

The end…almost

As a postscript to all this, you will recall that our car was still parked at Poitiers. So, as promised, Curtis came by later on to take me back to the airport to retrieve it. The only difficulty being that I couldn’t find the car park ticket. This was very unlike me, as I am normally very organised about such things and store all tickets and receipts safely in my wallet. but this one ticket was definitely not there. I eventually managed to recall that for some reason I had left it in the back pocket of my jeans. The very jeans that Claire had taken earlier that day, along with a load more dirty clothes from our trip, to help us get caught up on the washing. So yes, you guessed it. The ticket had been though the washing machine.

“It’s ok,” said Claire, “the magnetic strip is still on one piece.”

I assumed this meant that it was still attached to a piece o the ticket. I was wrong! On the way to the airport we called at Claire’s and she handed me an envelope containing what can only be described as a few flakes of card, plus the magnetic strip. this was going to be fun…

Anyway, we took the pieces along to the airport and the man there listened to my sob story about what had happened. Luckily he took pity on me and issued a new ticket, allowing me to take the car and head home again.

And so ends the tale of our nightmare journey home. Our French Odyssey.

Thanks once again to our guardian angels who helped us along the way –  Kevin, Tom, Jessie, Curtis, Kevin, Amal, Claire, Tony and everyone else who helped guide us home to safety. We couldn’t have done it without them all and we will always be grateful or what they did for us.

Although we always know we had the best family and friends, it is often only when you are really at your lowest that you realise it.

And for us now, there is no doubt.

I’ve managed to find a spare half hour to update you on what’s been happening here over the last few weeks. As it’s been so long this will probably be a bit rambling, so bear with me!

The wedding photo

When our old neighbour Louis came round recently I showed him the old wedding photo that I found. He didn’t immediately recognise the couple, but said he would take it away and ask Anne-Marie, his wife, who had lived in our hamlet all her life.

A few days later he returned with good news – they had figured out that the man in the photo was a cousin of Louis’s family (cousin being a pretty loose term for any distant relative over here…) and the girl was actually born in our house! He proceeded to regale me with all the details, most of which I failed to understand sadly (Louis speaks very fast and has a thick Vendeen accent). Sadly, it appears that the couple divorced, hence why the photo had been discarded, but it was lovely to finally learn a little about my mysterious find.

A dip at Fontenay pool

While Lisa was away in England for a week, I stayed in France and looked after the kids. On the Saturday we went for our first ever swim in the pool at Fontenay-le-Comte [website here] and we were very impressed. There is a large 25m pool, for the serious swimmers, a children’s pool, with a jacuzzi area and a “lazy river” area that pulls you around in the current, a baby pool and a big water slide. It was a great session – the children thoroughly enjoyed it, and I like the fact that I could relax in the jacuzzi while they went down the slide as much as they liked. There were several life-guards around and we felt very safe.

One thing we noticed was the more relaxed atmosphere compared to pools in England. This was half-term so there were a lot of school children there but there was no trouble, no teenagers charging about and causing grief. The life-guards were not blowing on their whistles every minute, telling people off for swimming in the wrong direction or looking at someone in the wrong way. Very refreshing.

Working away

The main reason for my lack of updates of late has been down to my job. There has been a change of management and they have decided that the role I am in should be based full-time in the Maidenhead office. As you can imagine, this has not gone down too well with me and the family and is putting a straing on all of us. Curently I am having to fly back to England on a Monday evening and I return on Friday evening, something I really hate. Sadly, in the current climate, there is very little I can do about this. I need to work and new jobs are scarce, so for now I am going with it and seeing how things go, but it is certainly a big strain.

So apologies if updates here are few and far between for a while. Rest assured I will keep coming back and posting news, but it may not be quite as regular as I would like. Hopefully the situation will be resolved soon and I can get back to normal again.

Head-wind all the way to Maillezais

When Lisa’s mum and sister came to visit they gave Lisa and I a rare opportunity to go out on our own for the afternoon. Although we both were a little reticent, as family time together is rather scare at the moment, we took the chance and decided to go on a bike ride. We have a book showing the cycle routes in the Vendee and Lisa picked out an “easy” one wch ran from Maillezais to Maille, a round-trip of about 13km.

It was a lovely route, starting from the ancient Abbey de Maillezais and winding through the trees, along the canals and into the pretty village of Maille. What wasn’t so lovely was the weather, unfortunately. On the way there we had a head-wind and it was really hard-going. It wouldn’t have been quite so bad had the landowners not recently chopped down most of the trees that would have offered us some protection from the gale. As it was, each time we rode out into the open we were nearly blown off the path and into the canal! Still, we were out in the fresh air (and it certainly was fresh!) and enjoying ourselves, despite the difficulties staying upright.

Once we reached Maillé we stopped outside the church in the village square and ate our lunch of bread rolls and custard creams – we are hard-core survivalists and know how to keep ourselves going!

Fully anticipating the wind to have changed direction for our journey back, we set off with some trepidation. But we were pleasantly surprised to find that we did indeed have the wind at our backs all the way back to the car, which made the return leg of the journey go twice as fast as the outward one. Much more civilised!

Once we arrived at the car we explored the Abbey a little. It is a stunning place and is currently being restored. There are restaurants and a small gift shop there, and also a small jetty where, in the summer, you can hire boats to go exploring the canals of the Marais Poitevin. Definitely somewhere we will have to come back to in the summer with all our visitors!

So there you go, that’s what we’ve been up to over the last few weeks. Do keep coming back as I will try my hardest to update. And thanks for sticking with me, I appreciate all your comments.

So the water-less day came and went without any problems. We filled every available jug, bottle, pan and bowl with water first thing in the morning to keep us going through the day. but as it turned out, the water came back on just after lunch, so we didn’t really need it in the end. Quite remarkable that something like that actually finished ahead of schedule!

Family but no fish

This week has been a bit hectic as both my parents and my sister and her two boys are visiting. We’re having a lovely time catching up – something that there wasn’t much time for at Christmas – and we’re keeping our fingers crossed for some decent weather at the weekend so we can get out and about. We were going to head to La Rochelle aquarium but unfortunately it is closed this month.  Still, a visit to La Rochelle may well be on the cards, and a coffee with the Dixies perhaps…

It’s a snip!

Charlie and Lola (our kittens) have now been “done”   They were very well behaved for the vet and coped admirably with the operation. Poor Lola was very wobbly when she came round and was clearly in some pain as the anaesthetic wore off, but after a big sleep that night she was much brighter in the morning. They are both now back to normal and up to their usual tricks!

Plotting our veg

Michel our soon-to-be-permanent neighbour called us over earlier today with some good news. he has a JCB at the moment which he is using to level a lot of his land off as part of his renovation project next=door. He is very kindly going to also level off our little patch of land at the back of the house which we have earmarked as a future vegetable plot. Wahoo! In a couple of weeks we should be able to get planting our own veg, so look out for some posts all about that coming soon. Anyone with any tips in this area, feel free to leave a comment.

And finally…

Next week I have to endure a trip back to England for a big company meeting over 2 days at the Center parcs in Longleat. Sounds nice, but I’d really rather be here with my family, drinking Pineau round the fire. Ah well, one day…

After enduring the arctic temperatures of last week, we now have oil for our heating and the house is finally warm again.

After coming close to running out of gas for the cooker we finally have a new bottle to keep us going so hot meals are back on the menu.

We have even finally had a delivery of wood for the fire, so we can enjoy cosy nights in with out visitors.

Everything, you might think, is in place for a comfortable week with my visiting family.

Well, you might think that, but you’d be wrong.

Here’s the note that was handed to us by a chap in a van this evening…

The joyous news is that on Wednesday we will have  no water. No water! For pretty much the whole day.

Aaaargh!!! What the blinking flip is going on round here?

I tell you, if this is all some crazy French version of “Beadle’s About” there is going to be big trouble.

Pendant les vacances, we…

spent a wonderful 2 weeks exploring Carcassonne and the surrounding area, saw the Tour de France and witnessed an incredible Bastille Day celebration at la cité…

discovered we all loved cats…

and soon after, welcomed Charlie and Lola, our kittens who have now taken over our lives…

entertained Nathalie & Thierry + boys…and Helen and her family…

managed to get out and about again with my parents…

enjoyed a fabulous evening’s entertainment at Nieul-sur-l’Autize…

entertained Diane and John…

filled the pool again…

were delighted to welcome Kathryn, Sam & the boys after so much uncertainty…

visited the beautiful Ile de Re…

and had simply the most fun possible with Annie, Drew and the girls…

In fact, we’ve been so busy, I think now we could do with a holiday!

Well, first off, after my posting about how lucky I was to be able to work from home so much, I have had several trips back to the UK just recently. These have generally been fairly painless affairs, although each time I leave home I do attach a psychological bungee cord to the gate-post so I can come back as quickly as possible.  As we are in the high season, I have a lot more flights to choose from and I have found the EasyJet routes to be quite useful. They do mid-day flights from La Rochelle to Gatwick with a return flight mid-morning from London. This really fits in much better with my needs as I can catch a flight to London and still get some time in the office the same day. Gatwick is closer to Maidenhead than Stansted, and the Gatwick Express train service is head-and-shoulders above the Stansted Express, which is the pits.

In fact, the whole EasyJet experience is so much nicer than that offered by RyanAir. The planes are more like normal planes, and not just big yellow tubes advertising the airline. The seats are a soothing grey, and not in-your-face yellow, and they have pockets in the back. In the pockets there is even a magazine! Yes, folks, its almost like being on a proper flight. The boarding process is better organised as well. With Ryanair you are either a priority boarder or not. Hence, there is always a huge scrum at the departure gate while people jostle to get in the best position to get the best seats. At least with EasyJet you are broken down into groups: Those that have requested “Special  Assistance”, those that have purchased “Speedy Boarding”, “Boarding group A” and “Boarding Group B”. Each group is boarded separately and in my experience it works much better.

So, work has kept me away from my blog for a while. There are changes going on which may affect me and I’ve had to give it a lot of attention recently. However, it’s not been all work and no play. We have had visitors too.

For the first time since February, my sister Kathryn and her family managed to come and see us. My brother-in-law Sam had broken his leg at doing something foolish (playing football actually, which just confirms my belief that exercise is bad for you…). So their planned trip was very much in the balance for a while. Thankfully they got the all-clear from the consultant and so they made the journey down to see us. We had a lovely time and our kids were delighted to see them, especially their nephews, who they haven’t seen since February.

While they were here we had a couple of days out.

On recommendation by Kevin D, we went to the Ile de Ré near La Rochelle. What a lovely island it is, although the €17 toll to cross the bridge is rather steep! We found a nice beach at La Flotte and had a great day doing the usual building of big sandcastles and playing in the sea. This day also saw the christening of our picnic-hamper-rucksack-thing, which Kathryn and Sam had bought us. It was very pleasant eating our lunch on the beach with proper plates, knives and a cheese-board. All very civilised! Sadly we had all managed to forget to bring a bottle of wine, so we failed to finish off the event in true style. Maybe next time

As the sea started to come closer we decided to go for a walk along the sea-front up to the harbour. Sam, who is still on crutches as he has all sorts of pins sticking out of his leg, stayed behind to soak up some sun. The harbour was a very nice part of town, made all the better in Molly’s eyes by the inclusion of a Chi-Chi stall.

For the uninitiated, Chi-Chis are like long thin doughnuts and are totally gorgeous, freshly fried and caked in sugar. No good for the diet, but heavenly   Most seaside resorts sell them somewhere round here and we always like to indulge. Well, once has to support local businesses don’t you think?!

When we returned to the beach to join Sam, the sea had come right in, leaving a throng of people clinging on to the 10 square meters of sand that was left. It was all rather amusing, seeing the masses of people spilling off the beach and up the steps, onto the grass verge above. No-one was willing to give up on the sunshine, so they just escaped as far as necessary from the sea and plonked themselves down there to sunbathe. It looked rather like a refugee camp to be honest!

We were totally won over by Ile de Ré. It looks like a beautiful place and is certainly somewhere to come back to and explore further (preferably without the tourists ).

We eventually toddled back to Foussais and enjoyed moules et frites once more. Lisa makes a very nice m&f, though she was inspired by those we had in Carcassonne to add lots more wine & garlic. Still she felt she hadn’t reached the same level of flavour, so next time there will be even more! When we visited Niort a while ago we tried Moules au Pineau, which was rather delightful too. Though it seems a bit of a waste to cook with Pineau… we’ll have to see.

Anyway, back to the visitors.

There was a fête in Maillezais on Sunday, so we went to explore. It seemed to be fairly busy, and there was the Yeovil Brass Band there, which we though would be fun. However we were a bit disappointed with what was there and the band only played a little during the day. The whole fête seemed to be focussed mainly on the evening’s concert by the brass band, and we weren’t really looking to stay out that long, so we moved on.

After our great night at Nieul the week before, we thought we would go back and see the village on a “normal” day. Well, it being Sunday, it wasn’t really normal as everything was shut, but at least we could explore a little. First things first though, we needed something to eat, so we stopped at the auberge near the abbey for a lovely meal. They certainly do know how to make good goats cheese salads round here

After starting the day quite cool, the weather really improved while we ate, and so we decided to head back home and let the kids jump in the pool. Yes, our pool is still standing, so far. I can’t remember if I have told you the tale, so I’ll fill you in another time.

We were very sad to say good bye to Kathryn, Sam and the boys. We always have a great time together and this one has seemed all-too-short. We’re already looking forward to the next time.

So there you go, it has been a busy few days and I’m sorry for neglecting you, my faithful readership. I’ll try to keep on the ball from now on

5 months ago we left Grimsby on a wet and windy December day, but our hearts were happy as we were starting our journey to our new life in France. So much has happened since then and it feels very strange to be back in Grimsby again, knowing that it isn’t home.

We came back for several reasons. Firstly to sell our English car, the Picasso. It’s done us proud, never really going wrong, never failing to start, and only once allegedly getting us into trouble. But sadly, although she is a French girl at heart, she has an English slant, being a right-hand drive which makes her a bit of a cripple when it comes to driving on the french roads. So we brought two cars up to England (leaving Chippie to have a well-earned break), me driving the Picasso and Lisa in the Zafira. The Picasso is 6 years old, but she did a cracking job on the drive up. Not a murmur from her for about 1100 kilometres. Then as we sped along the Lincoln bypass, with journey’s end in sight, my poor Picasso developed a very throaty noise. Yes, we had negotiated the hills and valleys of northern France, done battle with the M25, conquered the A1, but the A46 was just too much for it and the exhaust fell apart. Our triumphant return was not quite as spectacular as we had hoped, limping in sounding like something from world war 1. And now I have to try to sell the bloody thing! I had hoped that I would easily shift it, as it is in generally very good condition and everything else works, but a dodgy exhaust really gets you off on a bad footing with a dealer when he can hear you approaching from a mile away. Ah well, we’ll see how we get on and I’ll let you know.

Another reason for us coming back to the UK was for us all to see our family, and, perhaps more importantly, for the kids to see their friends. This was a difficult decision for us as we were unsure how much it would unsettle them. Although they are very happy in France and they all have really good friends from school, it is still a lot harder for them a they are still elarning the language and so cannot just chat with their mates, like they could in England. We all know that will come, but it must get very frustrating for them. So a return to England was very welcome for them so that they could have a few days of being able to hang out and natter with friends like they used to do. The danger is, will this then make them realise how hard it is back home in France and send them off the rails in terms of their settling down? I don’t know – It’s really tough to know what to do for the best. We will just have to cross that bridge when we come to it I think.

One thing is for certain. Upon reading the papers, watching the television, driving around and seeing the people here, we are all glad we made the move. It has been great to see our family and freinds while we are here and we wouldn’t have missed the opportunity to see them, but we know we could never move back here. France is our home and that’s where we will stay.

This is us, the Barley family.

For years we have harboured a dream to move from our home on the east coast of England to a new life in France. In December 2007 we made that dream a reality.

This blog will be a collection of our thoughts, experiences and other random items that we hope you will find mildly interesting.

But first, some introductions…

I’m Richard, 36 and I’m a consultant for an IT company. I’m married to Lisa (age undisclosed!), who, up until the move, was a teaching assistant at the local school. We have 3 children: Rosie (12), Molly (10) and Joe (8). And together we are finding our way through the maze of new experiences that make up the process of settling in a new country