On the Road Again
Our hommage to Wayne Rostad
Finally we have our new car! A lovely used Hyundai that is a joy to drive and big enough for all of our stuff. We finally collected it after waiting two weeks for the idiots at HSBC in Angouleme to actually get money from Canada to France to the dealer. We have learned that sometimes things move slowly on France because it’s France, and sometimes because someone just isn’t good at their job.
And we still don’t have bank cards, credit cards, or cheques….
So our first big road trip will be totally credit card financed.
Today Beatrice the cat goes into boarding at The Petite Paws Cattery. Tomorrow we leave for Belleme, in Normandy, to begin looking at possible houses to buy. We’re starting in Perche,but also looking further west, possibly as far as Calvados.
We’re also looking down in Tarn et Garonne, but we’re balancing two concerns: prices in Normandy can be much cheaper than down south, and we really are concerned with what global warming will deliver to France.
On one hand we’re loving the weather on the Dordoigne/Charente border. It’s still warm enough for T-shirts during the days, and the woodstove warms the cottage just enough to be cozy in the evening. We’ve had a little rain, but nothing remotely wintery.
However, we’re asking what summer will bring, and more importantly what a couple of degrees of warming will add to that. I grew up in the Okanagan, and understand hot weather, but I also know that there’s a point when it goes from hot and lovely to just plain oppressive.
So we’re off on the road for a week or two, travelling North, then South, West, then East. We’re lining up house viewings and making appointments with real estate agents, and finding hotels and restaurants on the way.
We might even detour through Paris….
As is always the case reality is much less sparkly than random scrolling on the Internet. That town that looks cute on the Internet - much less Google photos - often turns out to be dusty, dirty, and lacking essentials. And we’re looking carefully for places that are more French than British. It’s very important to us both that we become residents of France, not tourists dropping in and spending much of our time complaining about the country.
Despite the challenges, big and small, there hasn’t been a day when I haven’t stopped at least once and said “This is the best decision I have ever made.” The landscapes, the history, the food, and most all the people have all captivated me. France feels like home.
Which means, if nothing else, I really do need to get French lessons happening again.
If HSBC ever lets us spend our own money.
"It’s very important to us both that we become residents of France, not tourists dropping in ..."
My heart felt your soul's reach in that one phrase, a desire to not just "be" but "become".
Our prayers are with you as you sojourn through countryside and community. Where the heart is meant to be, the heart will land. You will know with everything inside of you that home has called to you when you pull up and step inside the place that has been waiting its lifetime for you just as much as you are only now TRULY discovering you have been waiting for it.
I have always had this sense of cell memory. Each ancestor before us carries forward not only in our features, demeanour, tenore and innate skill, but also in our memories. Places we've never stepped foot into the doorway of or lands we have never felt the soil of beneath our feet before ... somehow they call to us not in desire and appreciation, admiration alone. Somehow we know within our very being that we were meant to be there, that it has been home before and it has been calling. "France feels like home."
Find your way, taste the delicacies, touch the walls and survey the sun set across the land or surrounding homes. Your heart will cry with the satiation of a homesickness you never knew you could possess for a piece of soil or brick you don't remember seeing before in this lifetime. You will know. And when you know, take an image of your smile as you lean against the door jam, for this ... this will be the future location of your writer's destiny.
With love and calm for all you are, all you've ever been and all you are about to come,
~ Crystal
Ps deep respect for your wisdom in looking forward to the scientific evidence of what's to change in each location, what adjustments in the Earth will determine comfort versus physical agony, burden and sorrow. On that note, may I ask that you fill us in, as well, during your travels and searches, on each community and areas approach to global preservation. Reduction in waste, repurposing of supplies, recycling and composting of residuals. Modes of transportation from man powered (bicycles, walking) to public transportation (buses, underground, ride sharing) and finally to their transition to electric vehicles and more Earth friendly methods of home heating. Another vision I'd love to hear note of is the support of local markets, both food and clothing, locally sourced home supplies and the reduction primarily in the visibility of single use plastic packaging. I'd be quite interested in your take from a set of eyes new as a resident coming recently from another country with a more vast and contrasting range of extremes and opinions, efforts and future prospects being put into action.