Saturday 22nd February

Today (Friday) is our last day here.  We are driving back tomorrow, and I will not have a chance to put this blog up on Facebook and Twitter tomorrow morning.  We have a much later crossing but will still start out early, before daylight anyway I expect.  I used to hate the drive, but am now settling in to the routine.  It is a question of pacing yourself, knocking down the miles, especially on the long drive from Brives to Paris which is almost half the journey.  We stop for my partner to sleep occasionally and for the dogs to pee and for us too.  And for me for coffee, which tends to sustain me.

We have had a good little break.  And rather then consider the holiday to be over – it is just six weeks until we will return.  Life here, the daily routine is so different from London or indeed from Walton.  We feel that we come alive here, that this is the life we should be living.

Of course things would be different if we were here all the time.  We will hope to spend more time here if and when we ever retire, but not too long.  There is a tendency to lotus-eat out here, to just wile away the days, the settle into an existence with no aims or ambition, just to sit in the sun and drink wine.  Nice enough in its own way, but not really a lifestyle choice I want to pursue.  I would like to think I can paint and write more, especially when the work (which does at times seem never-ending) is more or less complete.  Who knows – for the time being we love it here.  And even the days which sometimes start wet more often than not end up sunny.