France was the original idea

Beautiful view Forest of Dean towards Wales

When I was looking forward to retirement, with a crazed glazed eyed expression some years ago. France was the place I thought we would go. It was one of my ideas to leave this dowdy persona behind and recreate the, me I wanted to be. You know grow my hair wear floaty skirts and carry a wicker basket.

Could it be France?  perhaps !

I was an avid pursuer of anything French, magazines, books, films, property prices, It was a dream shared we took holidays to get a feel for the various” Departments”.  It was an escape plan that made the drudge of the daily commute bearable. 

Now why didn’t we follow through? I am going to blame the other half for not trying enough with the language. We were going to have French evenings, speaking only French eating French food and drinking, you got it French wine. Some how something fell by the wayside and it wasn’t drinking the French wine!

We agreed if we couldn’t speak the language we could not implement my wonderful idea so it was shelved.

But Isn't the Forest gorge?

 With hindsight it probably wasn’t a bad thing, with property prices  dropping, the recession and the general logjam of ”Brits” trying to sell up their French dream and return to dear “old Blighty”. On a morning like this I look out of my window at the gloriously unique view and I am thankful I had a better idea and moved here.

We have quite a bit of work to do, as we would have in France, we can change things to suit ourselves, we can walk through the wonderful woodland, the pace is slower, it must be on a par with the French countryside? If I wanted to I could reinvent myself, or could have when I arrived, but I figured out I just needed to chill out and I wasn’t that bad after all.

We do speak the same language here which I thought would be the main bonus given we have achieved a pretty spectacular rural ideal. However there are times when “Brummy” just doesn’t cut it in the Forest. Most people are sufficiently attuned to understand us, but the other night in a local hostelry I really did need a translator. It might have had something to do with the copious amount of good old cider the jolly chap had had or perhaps, I was a bit more relaxed from the wonderfully warm welcome and slipped into a old thick dialect, not normally heard in these parts?

The garden still looks like a building site but !

The work continues but life goes on around it and it’s when I am doing these other things I get my best ideas. Next time I will fill you in on continuing saga of the Solar panels and the beast of a fuel burner we ended up getting.

Alison