Fortune Favours the Brave…

Fortune favours the brave, or so they say. “Nothing happens inside your comfort zone!”, you  hear them chant from the sidelines, hiding behind the curtains. It seems that, to make progress in our lives, we must step outside the realms of passivity and hasten towards the uncomfortable!I

I am, I believe, a brave person and have led an extraordinary life, depending on your definition of bravery and where bravery finishes and stupidity begins .  Sometimes I failed, sometimes I rose from the ashes, coughed, spluttered and carried on. But my French adventure, my most monumentally important adventure, has me intrigued.

What I will never know, to this day, is if it was my bravery that won the day, that achieved my loftiest goals. Or the bravery of another that forced my hand. Was it bravery or compliance? Either way, it was to my great advantage.  

So, I had a dream of living in France that’s been percolating away in the background for a few decades…indeed all my life, since a school trip to Boulogne with Julie Austin and Tracey Farrant in the late 70’s to be  exact . All safe and sound just a soft little notion.  Now, imagine, as a middle aged singleton, suddenly having the curtain drawn back on your whimsical, whisp of a daydream and having it thrust  up under your nose? 

An unexpected sequence of events fell into place and this little daydream was no longer on the long finger at the end of a very long arm, but was forced to the forefront and somehow - BAM!, it became a reality. Brute trauma was how I was thrown into the French housing market … BUT!, without a push it may not have happened at all . It was not so much a leap of faith as a shove off my cosy high ledge.

Always having been a Francophile at heart, it was the obvious supposition that I would end up here eventually. Having money from a house sale after a divorce, I would spend a lot of time idly dawdling through the internet looking at houses in range of my tiny budget and dreaming, "oh I could afford that !?" Looking at breezy beach houses, lofty city apartments, location of the airport, what amenities there are, which areas are cheapest? Alot like Sims for grown up’s and it all seemed possible ... in my head. In my excited, childlike enthusiasm, of course converting a 200 year old barn was a doddle; of course having no electricity wasn’t a bother and living in a muddy caravan was great because in my head it was all  just Monopoly. I didn't have to think about real time frames, booking workers, the overheads, having to find tradesmen and do the whole thing in a second language ... no, it will all be fine. The intention, enthusiasm,hope, ( and all of the ignorance) were there, but the reality all seemed so far away. where to start? And more importantly, did I have the courage to do it alone? It wasn’t until I was called out of my own procrastination Française that something happened … and all my daydreams were suddenly thrust into my face in the cold light of a February morning. I was forced to attention. The can was open... and the worms were out.

I have a very clever bilingual friend, with whom I shared accommodation in both Paris and the UK. English/ Luxembourgish, lived in France, Luxembourg and the UK, so no stranger to living in foreign climes .I had developed a habit of slothfully scrolling through French property details and sending them to her and bleating "ooh look!". I didn’t think anything of this for a while or knew if she had even opened the links at all. Until one Thursday afternoon she messaged and said pack a bag for a cold weekend. Being a little puzzled but not surprised, as she is indeed an impetuous creature, I enquired as to what she had planned . she responded, “you’re always looking at houses for sale, so I took the liberty of booking viewings for a few and I am driving you on Friday night for a long weekend." 

Well, my flabber was indeed gasted … I wasn’t sure how to respond. I was excited of course but my soft little day dream; my melancholy longing; my raison d’être had been dusted off and not only been brought into broad daylight , but she’d booked a crossing and I was now obliged to go ... so a little panicked and strangely annoyed off we went.

I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. I had no time to prepare myself mentally for buying a house in a foreign country, even though I had the intention for years. I had at the time, I remember, an uncomfortable misplaced peevishness that sat behind pursed lips.She’d ripped off my band aid!  

But driving down passing the great wind turbines; forests; quaint villages and being snagged up in twinkling cities ... I realised that if my bold friend had not made the decision for me, I may never have given myself permission to do it. I could not, as a mother, actively participate in my own endeavours enough to engage in their departure... Fact!

Being so used to delivering other peoples’ needs I have never given my own dreams the importance they deserve. Without this enormous shove, my life here in a stunning medieval village may have never happened . So on a very cold and wet February weekend my formidable friend drove me to central France ... and I bought the house I live in now. Yes just, like that. Doesn’t seem as courageous as it would appear, does it?

Now, (insert cartoon screeching of brakes), in my head I was going to live in a cottage with a garden and roses around the door, just like hundreds of thousands of other dreamers. Flagstone floors, a well in the garden and room for chickens; the ideal picturesque little house that was quintessentially French. We viewed a few properties; too much work; too spooky; too remote; and some that could barely be described as a building.

I quickly realised for the first time in my life that I could make decisions about what I wanted for myself, what I needed as an individual person, instead of what was best for others in the queue ahead of me as a wife and mother. It was both liberating and bewildering in tandem…and of course there’s always room for guilt (insert which ever thing is taking precedence this week). 

The estate agent drove us past a square grey looking building; no front garden; no roses; donning none of the chocolate box charm that had embedded itself in my romantic whimsey. She said “That’s one of mine.” Being a little disappointed at this stage I answered “let’s just look at all of them, I only have a few days!” So we entered the shabby, three story building.

My pragmatic, head  on; centre of town; large garden at the back;, private parking; close to transport… hhmmm. Inside, the building had been converted into three apartments. The ground floor was occupied so I was unable to view, but the tell-tale scent of ‘eau de chat’ told me not to upset myself too much. If there was someone living there it must be in some way liveable, right? 

Up the oak stairwell, a very brown worn key opened a badly painted door and we gingerly entered through curtains of cobwebs into a dark space that smelled of musty carpet and wood shavings. Shutters closed, I had no concept of what I was walking into; were there holes in the floor, giant spiders, skeletons? My Scooby Doo imagination was working overtime with the stench of cat litter still clinging to my nostrils. Little by little, as the shutters were squeakily concertinaed open, the emerging daylight revealed a spacious second floor apartment.

To my amazement, as the sunlight tickled the frittered, flowery wallpaper, I had been transported to the bygone era of my beloved grandmother. The doors, the handles, the layout, the fireplaces, ceiling roses, the light, the air. It felt like home, like putting on a comfy slipper. I did not realise until that very moment, that all the comfort of maternal homeliness had been gone from my life for a very, very long time. I was sold, just like that! 

I returned to England with an interest in a building that ticked nothing on my list. No ancient stone fireplaces, low wooden ceilings. Tens of thousands of euros out of budget. The place had grown on me and got under my skin.I came to love the ancient peeling wallpaper and the newspaper beneath. I wondered about the people that lived here before. It felt like a cathartic celebration of the wonderful life I had living at my grandmother’s house as a young girl, the ‘Darling buds of May’ of my twilight years.

With this, came an unexpected shift to the next stage of my life. It was a complete mental shift. Thinking about my old age and being alone, instead of thinking I could continue to keep all of the plates spinning for everyone else…forever. It made me realise my own mortality properly for the first time, but it seemed okay?…Strangely, my dusty home felt like a giant security blanket. 

I didn’t need a whole house just for me, the three apartments meant I could rent two for income, which was entirely more financially sound than my position as a pensioner in the UK.The roof was good, it was stable, a bit of damp but nothing too scary or insurmountable. My friend was a little concerned the bath looked like someone had been dissolved in acid in there, but it was a sensible investment ...albait a lot of work.  

In a fit of bold enthusiasm I offered such a low sum that I think the poor estate agent was embarrassed to propose it ! But the house was owned by many siblings and had not sold for years. Their struggle to maintain it in their increasing years was becoming evident .To my great astonishment they agreed my very brazen offer! I was on my way to securing my forever home.

My next trick was to wait as much as I could for a decent spike in the exchange rate in my favour and not without trepidation, transferred my every single penny I owned over to France for payment of my new adventure! Please note. I wasn't alone, the estate agent held my hand right to the end!

After a few weeks of waiting for all the endless paperwork to be sorted (and let’s face it, the French love a freshly printed ream and a rubber stamp), on a bright and sunny afternoon I signed for my house. 

I was very, unexpectedly congratulated by the owner of the hotel I was boarding at. Waving a bottle of champagne, we took his little boat onto the lake to meet the rest of the villagers enjoying pizza at a little bar on the water’s edge. I’d done it, I’d arrived! All those years of longing just evaporated in their smiling faces, dappled in the evening sun… and… under the gently swaying trees, with my toes in the sand, I realised I was finally home. 

How can it have been so easy? So simple? The dream was over and it had so readily slipped into  reality, I could scarcely believe my luck. I never felt hugely overwhelmed or too much out of my comfort zone? The question remains, was it my bravery that was forced to the surface of my own complacency or was it the audacious bravery of others that won me my dream? 

Now I live here permanently does it even matter anymore? I like to believe that when something is right, perhaps fate takes up your cause and delivers you gently from the tempest of the unforeseen. Maybe, if you believe in such things, someone up there knew I’d need every ounce of my bravery for what lay ahead, as I endeavoured to tackle the renovation...and dear reader, they would not have been wrong.