About

I'm Petra and this is the story of our family's move from the south west of England to a village in foothills of the Pyrenees, France where we hope to embrace a simple and slow paced life.

There's me, my partner Florent and our two wonderfully wild little girls and a house we are trying to renovate.

My challenge is to write authentically about all that comes up along the way, the moments of beauty and the moments of the mundane, the trying times and the happy times.

I hope you enjoy reading our story and looking at my photos.

 Cheers!



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WHEN FRIENDS ARE FAR AWAY...

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We've lived here for three months (and half of that was in a tent in some woodland out of the village) so I know rationally that it is fine not to have made friends yet. I know that just because I have not made friends so far, that it doesn't mean I will never make friends here. However, who considers these things rationally when they are missing their friends from home and life as a family of four needs some serious fresh air ? I am prone to emotional responses to most things in life, it's what led me sob whilst listening Nadya Hussein on Desert Island Discs a few weeks ago, as if I had forever forfeited the opportunity to bake cakes or reminisce about the Backstreet Boys with friends simply by moving to France. It was perhaps also the repetitive task of chipping plaster off a beam combined with a lunch of tinned mackerel that led to the emotional outburst but the bottom line is, if there's an opportunity for teary melodrama, I generally take it. When we first
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SNOW AND SCHOOL

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Snow was forecast for the beginning of the month but it didn't fall here in the village. We tried to head to one of the nearest places to ski for some snow shoeing but roads weren't accessible without snow tyres or chains. I'd naively imagined that the roads toward a ski resort would be gritted but apparently that doesn't always happen. We were so painfully aware of how we are definitely still tourists, as we chugged along an icey road, gratefully following the municipal snow plough. The bus got us far enough to play in some snow which made the girls very happy until they were very unhappy! Despite my best efforts to layer them up so much that I thought it impossible to get cold I think the freezing gusts of wind penetrated the gloves and their hands got them before they had chance to sledge. The drive was incredibly beautiful. The Plateau de Sault, as it's name suggests, is a large flat expanse, quite bare and surrounded by hills and mountains. There was a strong
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TWO WHOLE YEARS OF FRANCE

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Spring this year has been a collection of storms and showers, swollen rivers and lush green. Everyone is waiting for summer’s heat to burst from the sky and the perpetual damp to steam heavenward. The house is filled with wet washing and waterproofs and wellies stuffed with newspaper after over enthusiastic river wading or splashing in the streams that race down our road when a thunder storm hits. This month Little I turned three. Our funny, happy, loving, energetic baby girl. I carry her less and less, more and more I find myself holding the hands of two little girls walking by my sides with no one in my arms, listening to the chatter reaching upwards. It’s a new phase of motherhood and all at once it is liberating and yet it feels as if time has slipped through my fingers and in the blink of an eye my babies are big. We bought ingredients for Little I’s birthday cake, lots of chocolate, and as we walked back along the road we looked up to see somebo
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