stories and lentils

The move is beginning to feel imminent now. In two months we'll be beginning the journey down through France to find ourselves in a new home . Our weekends are now filled with seeing friends and family and packing stuff up until we leave the house here. I keep skipping ahead of myself and planning the route we'll drive down through France, from Florent's family in Normandy to the Pyrennes, rereading Seamus Heaney's 'Night Drive' and momentarily forgetting that our drive is likely to be far less romantic, with the girls in the back battling their seatbelts, demanding snacks and continuous games of 'I spy with my little eye'... We're slowly working down through our list of things to do before t h e end of May. A van to m ove us and our things, shift and carry buiding materials and provide space for a matres s for weekend camping exp editions once we're there...         We may, or may not, have a van (we have one lined up to by after it p...

I'm trying to take more photos at the moment. During the last few trips to my Mum's farm I have tried to capture some of the work with the livestock. The farm is where I grew up and a special place for us. It's definitely somewhere I think of when I consider what I am going to miss when we move to France. The weather over the Easter weekend was incredibly changeable ; raging wind and rain to bright sunny spells, hail storms and perfect morning light streaming inside through cracks between curtains. It made for an opportunistic egg hunt during a drier spell and a hurried rounding up of the sheep to get the lambs inside out of the driving wind and rain.

This winter has been my first with two children. And it has been full of fun and we've had wonderful times but it has also been hard, like the feeling of walking through deep mud and not quite having your balance. For me, being at home full time with my children is a continuous challenge. I crave more adult company, time spent without little hands clawing at my hair or chest or toddler feet standing on me so as to better reach my face to pull it around to theirs. I've looked dispairingly at snotty noses wiping on my shoulder or the umpteenth pile of laundry in the corner and thought that this is all a bit shit. I've wanted to be able to drink a long awaited cup of tea without Ira trying to dip her hand into the cup or Linny interrupt it because she's not managed to get to the potty on time, again. When I talk about these moments with friends I often make light of them, because they are funny in retrospect, or just that tales of 'happy chaos' are easy listening ...

A few days of sunshine and I feel incredibly refreshed. At this time of year I feel I am waiting for Spring; the warm sun, the brilliant green on the trees and flowers bursting from the earth injects me with renewed life and energy. Trampled and muddy park corners littered with cigarette butts and beer bottles burst into floral patchworks and children's noses don't need to be wiped quite so often. It's a sign of long hot summer days to come.   In January I'd collected Christmas trees left to await bin men so we had a big blaze with them in the back garden to mark Spring. I think we were a little premature, officially Spring is over two weeks away still and before the fire warmed us we were frozen to the bone, trying resist the urge to run back inside for a hot cup of tea and a radiator. We have coaxed Linny out of the house a few times (the winter seems to have given her a great attachment to being inside) to try and inspir...

It feels very fitting to declutter in Springtime. Cleansing after the winter. The time of year when we shift from our 'inside' lives to the outdoors and it comes naturally to play more at floating celandine flowers in puddles, stirring them with sticks and filling buckets with mud than anything else. Since Linny was born I feel as if I've waged a battle against her toys ; the toys other people buy for her, the toys we have bought for her, the toys she has inherited that used to belong to Florent or I, the toys we have found, generously placed on garden walls to give away... There are a number of reasons for this battle ; I don't think children need a lot of toys. I think having mountains of things can be overwhelming for them and I think too many toys can begin to restrict their imagination. I hate unexpectedly standing on small pieces of plastic. I don't want to spend unneccessary amounts of time picking up toys and tidying them away an...

It's only with the prospect of leaving looming over me that I have come to realise how rooted I feel here. How the familiarity of where I live is my home. All my life I have sought adventure and now instead of it beckoning and pulling me towards it there is something that yearns for my feet to remain planted on the ground, on the floor of our house and the pavements of the streets I walk every day. My babies were born in the hospital on the hill which I can see from here and their lives lived out here so far and so too my life as a mother. An identity that seems to have consumed me over the past three years. As is perhaps often the case when we make 'big' decisions in life there is an initial excitment and giddiness at the prospect of what will be new and then start all the mundane considerations which allow time for doubts to creep in. My shyness of this adventure has surprised me. Moving to France is hardly the most adventurous move we could be making. Renova...

These pictures are of the little terraced house we are buying. As there was no electricity connected when we visited the other photos are of dusty black rooms, the only light from holes in walls or the roof illuminating precarious looking floor boards so I'll leave those ones out...   We are both very excited about bringing life back here, at once overwhelmed by the challenge and looking forward to the satisfaction of slowly making it a home again.