The Good Life France e-newsletter – Louvre, cake & fateful France | EUROtoday

Good morning!

I hope that you just and yours are effectively.

This week is the twentieth anniversary of the yr I bought the keys for my home in France. I used to be working in a financial institution in London, residing within the suburbs, I assumed I had a transparent path in life, work laborious, pay the mortgage, retire and get a pastime. But life took a distinct flip. My mum died simply 6 months after she retired at 60. I used to be distracted. My dad was utterly heartbroken and self-medicated with whiskey. He was a rebellious, cantankerous man, pleading with him to cease falling on deaf ears, so my husband Mark and I made a decision to take him wine procuring in France for a day as I felt that wine at the least could be a barely higher various to whiskey .

Wine bought, we headed an hour inland to discover a cozy café, and in some way (it's a protracted story), in a village that regarded like a ghost city, I ended up falling in love with a run-down outdated hovel. And I purchased it. It was very low-cost, like lower than an inexpensive designer purse. Gave up my health club membership to pay the mortgage low-cost. It was the great thing about the countryside that I might see from the home windows that made my coronary heart flip relatively than the leaky roof, the rattling home windows, the wall held up with steel poles. My dad was horrified “it's a money pit, you'll never be finished” he laughed. But for me, it was a coup de amour because the French say, a thunderbolt to the center – love at first sight.

The three of us spent weekends and holidays making an attempt to manage the jungle-like backyard, mop up the leaks and repair the various issues. We all fell in love with the countryside, the lifestyle, the kindness of the neighbors and the markets. Eventually it bought in order that Mark and I couldn't bear to go away the place that we thought could be a vacation residence, however felt like an actual residence. And after some persuasion (blackmail) from Mark, and when my dad sadly handed away, we determined to see if we might make a brand new life in France – I assumed it might be about six months. We totally anticipated to have to return to London for work, we had been a few years off retirement (we nonetheless are!) and too poor to dwell with out working (yep – nonetheless are!).

Again destiny intervened and supplied a distinct path. In between renovating the home and making an attempt to develop greens in our backyard, I started to jot down a weblog referred to as The Good Life France to keep up a correspondence with family and friends. I had no thought then that it might utterly change my life, but it surely has – I'm nonetheless right here, not six months later however 15 years later! And I thanks all from the underside of my coronary heart in your help, subscribing to this article, shopping for my books, following on my social media pages, studying the journal (it's free – subscribe right here), listening to the podcast and being part of my journey…

Read the entire e-newsletter and see this week's prime options and recipe picks

Wishing you weekend, kisses from France.

Janine
Editor

ps Top Photo is Bordeaux, my subsequent cease! Come with me through Instagram

Janine Marsh is Author of My Good Life in France: In Pursuit of the Rural Dream, My Four Seasons in France: A Year of the Good Life and Always France: Living the Dream in Rural France all accessible as e book, print & audio, on Amazon all over the place & all good bookshops on-line. Her new guide How to be French – a celebration of the French life-style and Art of residingis out now – a have a look at the French lifestyle.

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