stories and lentils

I've written a bit about our intentions to simplify our lives or perhaps more accurately to live a little slower and with less. These past few weeks we have been living this. Some days we all get up early and accompany Florent to the village and some days we stay in the woods in the tent. When I stay in the woods my days repeat themselves one after another; caring for children, washing (pots, plates, clothes, bodies...), cooking, short walks, play. When I go to the village with Florent I have to occupy myself and the children outside, the entire day, apart from when the library is open which we can never use for long because Ira likes to destroy things, especially books and local photo exhibitions, the kind we find in a library. So we try to catch fish in the river, scout out fruit trees, play in the park, explore footpaths, bike ride, sit under the covered market and draw, play out imagninary games with whatever there is to hand. Some of this sounds dreamy and some...

It's not heat per se, it's the kind of heat that only exists in a tent under the sun. That's the kind of heat I am wondering if I should have allowed into our lives. A lot of people questioned the wisdom of camping for a summer under the sun in southern France and I wish I had listened a little better! On a brighter note, the last few days have brought torrential downpours, the ground under the tent has become soft clay, moulding to the shapes of our feet. The sound of raindrops beating onto the roof of the tent has replaced the hiss of the cicadas and there's that feeling of unrivalled cosyness. Florent and I suspect we are more suited to wet camping holidys in Pembrokeshire. The kind where half the tent blows away in the night and you persevere through the next day with the planned coastal walk, freezing to the bone. Finally, with the family strapped into the car, there are the audible sighs of relief and the comforting glow of Port Talbot industry to the right as th...

After a week or wonderful rest with Florent's parents we set off from La Manche and headed south. Passing, first, through flat, grain growing arable land. Miles upon miles of fields devoted to grains. Florent assumed the position of the chauffeur to what must have seemed like a strange family lined up against one side of a bus. Thanks to the children's rear facing car seats (seemingly a good idea when they were bought) which need to be fixed to a seat positioned exactly infront of them, we needed to have a row of seats between them and the front seats. Inevitably this means I need to sit behind the drivers seat to be as close to the girls as possible to respond to their endless demands, cries and shouts of 'I've dropped my biscuit' or 'she touched dolly'. So, in this fashion we are seated in a line, Florent, then me and then the girls. Linny proclaimed 'I'm going to paint the bus with kingfishers, pigs, lions and zebras and it will be the most beaut...

We finally managed to find a van that fitted our requirement; affordable. And it does go, but not always at the first turn of the key, which we discovered to our peril. It cost us £800 so we really just want it to get us as far as the south of France and then anything from there on we will see as a providential bonus. Over the final days at the farm we packed up the van trying to squeeze everything we can in along with just enough health and safety to remain responsible parents and celebrated Ira's first Birthday. We didn't expect to still be in Somerset but it was a beautiful place to be and, too stressed to start baking amongst the chaos, we set a candle on top a pile of raspberries and strawberries from my Mum's polytunnel. Despite the pressure to start the renovation (so by the time the cold weather comes biting we are no longer in the tent) I tried to accept what is beyond our control and enjoy the unexpected prolonged stay in England and Ira's Birthday tea...

  The last few days of packing and moving came and the cleaning and sorting seemed like it would never end. The mess of boxes, packed and half packed and then the empty rooms, stripped of the last two years of our lives. It felt very sad but toward the end the sadness was overtaken by a frantic desire to finish, finally. As if leaving our home wouldn't be task enough the minibus packed up, guzzling almost two litres of oil in a twenty minute journey (that's another story) and thankfully friends came to our rescue.  On our last day, after sleeping in the empty house, we took a last wander to the local park in the most beautiful of early summer sunshine. It was blissful and heart wrenching all at the same time. There wasn't room for the girls and I in the car for the final trip out of Bristol to my Mum's. We walked down to the station, me feeling choked up and slightly hazy from our neighbour's farewell gin and tonic. The girls smelt warm...

Before children, uprooting my life wouldn't have phased me too much. Even when Florent and I were looking for somewhere to live when we were unexpectedly expecting Linny it felt quite exciting (albeit stressful at times...) but now there are not just our own feelings to consider. Not just my worries that I might be lonely, that renovating a crumbling house will be too much for us or that I'll never be able to decipher the local accent but the responsibility we have for our children and their feelings. The prospect of trapsing a few hundred miles in a van (that our gut feeling informs us will break down before we get there) with two small children to live insecurely is something that some days feels overwhelming. I've been surprised at how much I have thought about how the move may unsettle Linny: Leaving her nursery, her friends, her extended family, the familiarity of our neighbourhood.. Rationally I am quite certain that on balance she will gain so much more than she will...

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...