Why Am I Still Here?

I've been thinking about this recently. Not terribly hard I must admit as I have little choice in the matter, but a couple of unused grey cells have been rubbing the question together to see what comes up.

When I say 'here' I mean 'where I'm living in France', which is down south just outside Montpellier. When I got divorced, I suppose I could have gone anywhere, including back to the UK. I thought about this of course but when it came down to it, I discovered that to move then would have been another terrible upheaval on top of an already horrible upheaval. I didn't have the stomach for it, not for me or the boys.

So I stayed. I stayed in my job, found a nice little rented house in a large village (prices are shocking down here to buy), enjoyed my network of friends, made new ones and settled down to being a single mother. A single mother in the land of cheap wine, a single mother in the region of sun, beautiful countryside and seductive climate.

But what is really keeping me here? The bottom line reason of all reasons? The boys. Their father would never let them leave France and would militate to have custody if I talked about moving away. If I left, I'd almost certainly have to leave the boys behind and that is absolutely quite out of the question.

In any case, what would I do if I went back? I'd have no TWDB, no job, no house, no money to buy a house and nowhere apart from back to my parents' to go. Tempting? I think not...

So I stay but I enjoy trips back and so do the boys. They love the UK. I sometimes wonder how they would find a British education. They seem to be surviving their French one which is as much as one can hope for given its strict inflexibility. I was amazed to learn that the history/geography teacher uses interactive flipcharts (like the ones I write) which require work to write, and expensive equipment.

My eldest has to interpret documents rather than learn solely by rote, and my youngest has a dynamic teacher who teams up with the dynamic head to engage the kids in a desire to learn. This will probably be sucked out of them in collège, but it may stick deep down for future use.

I'm stuck here in my tranquil rat race of providing a roof, food and clothes for myself and the boys. We like it here though, so while the obligation grates (as obligations usually do), at least we are relatively free to live how we want - independently and stress-free.

The 'how' is more important than the 'where', wouldn't you agree? If you can live how you want, the where becomes immaterial. Are you living how you want? Or are you living where you want and you're working on the how?

Chaud la Vie

Residential France goes all quiet during the months of July and August. Going to work is a doddle because the schools are out and as a result, much less traffic is on the roads. There are fewer people about and they make less noise seeing as it's so hot everyone is as inactive as possible.

Villages seem deserted as residents hide behind closed shutters to keep out the heat. We grope our way around in the penombre, only throwing open the windows when the sun goes down. Living by traditional means avoids a dependency on air-conditioning. But you do need a well-insulated house and effective shutters.

Early morning, throw open everything to encourage a through draft of cool air. When the temperature starts to climb, close everything. It'll be quite dark, but if you don't, you'll roast and sweat then be obliged to go shopping, lingering in the frozen foods section for a good dose of fraicheur.

Even shopping is pleasanter. Go during the hottest times of the day and you'll have the supermarket almost to yourself. Go at lunch time and you'll marvel at the ease with which you can negotiate the aisles and linger over goodies without provoking a log jam.

Eat light and fresh, have a siesta, go with the flow. When the sun starts to set you can fling open doors and windows and fish out a refreshing bottle of white or rosé to celebrate the return to living. The crickets will be deafening but it'll be the only sound until you add a little soft music to put you in the mood for an evening's merriment, conviviality and good eating.

It's a seductive way of life. Add in the sea and it's even better. Breakfast in a beach café, aperitif, supper, barbecue on the beach, or even just a bag of frites on the sea wall. Voici mon petit coin de paradis.

Eat, Drink and be Merry

You would think that the UK Government would be encouraging us to eat, drink and be merry, not warning us of the dangers of over-drinking, smoking, and doing no exercise. There'll be no money to pay either pensions or the NHS, so we might as well have a really great time, and go out with a bang early.

I find it rather distasteful that they try to party-pooper us into a long old age on the one hand whilst removing the means by which we may enjoy it on the other.

The latest effort to bring us into a strict, no nonsense line is by warning us about the dangers of fun things in relation to the onset of Alzheimer's.

How much is seven years of sanity worth to you? It could cost you drinking less than two units of alcohol and no more than 20 fags a day to prevent the early onset of Alzheimer's. Considering that not everyone is liable to catch this disease, we are, as usual, all being thrown into the same bucket and exhorted not to enjoy ourselves just in case.

Maybe the Government ought to be researching our likelihood of catching Alzheimer's, then we would know whether to refuse that third class of wine, 21st fag, and get out the pilates video and elastic band instead.

I think the Government should come clean. It seems to me that they are going down the path of 'I told you so' about being healthy, so if one refuses to follow the exhortations and blatant nannying, then we will be punished by reduced access to medical care. Although, as the less healthy die younger, they should be able to offset medical costs against reduced pensions payments.

Not only must you drink sensibly and not really smoke too much, but you must also, by the age of 40 have low cholesterol or you will be one and a half times more likely to get Alzheimer's by your older age. It's reckoned that 2.5million people could have dementia within 50 years if they don't radically reform their dissolute lifestyles. For the moment, Alzheimer's affects 'only' 400,000 and it's already a strain on NHS budgets looking after them.

If the Government wanted to save money all round, and reap in wads in taxes, it should be encouraging us to smoke, eat and drink to excess making us all die young but happy. It would save on pensions, and NHS care for the old and batty because we'd die before we reached that point.

As it is, the Government want us to lead sober, hard-working lives where we pay out in taxes so much that there is nothing left for fun, but when we get to a much-deserved retirement age, they'll turn round and tell us there is nothing in the kitty for our pension and the NHS is bankrupt so we'll have to pay for private health care. This will be so expensive for the retired that they won't be able to afford it so they'll die early, having lead a joyless life. A bleak prospect.

You might just as well go out and have fun while you may. The alternative is dire and the end result is the same.

Impending Panic

It seems that furniture delivery guys are like buses. You wait and wait and then they all turn up on the same day!

I got two calls today to tell me that all my new furniture is being delivered tomorrow. PANIC stations then ensued because I haven't yet got rid of the old stuff and my living room is very limited in size. Hurriedly I called the guy who will come and take away your old furniture for free, but he can't come until Sunday afternoon.

I'm just going to have to hope it doesn't rain and dump the old stuff outside if I can't squeeze everything inside just for a couple of days.

However, I'm now terribly excited, as are the boys. What with having the water system installed plus the new furniture, I feel like we are heading rapidly towards a decent standard of living, at last. Not luxurious, not pretentious, just normally decent and it'll be the first time since I moved to France that I'll be able to enjoy such a pleasure!

Roll on the pals who want to come and visit me now! I just have to get the boys to remove their crap from the garden and there'll be no stopping the aperos al fresco this summer! Cool!