Salut!

Anywhere that is not in ‘La region Parisienne’ is called ‘Province’.   The Parisians are quite scornful of anybody who comes from here.  When I left Orleans people kept warning me, ‘Oh…it’s going to be different in Paris.’

 How they were right!  No more long leasurly meals, so more peace and quite, no more nipping out in the car…

But here in Tours, I’m back in Province - And I’d forgotten how nice it is!  I drove to church this morning in calm.  No cars honking, no undertaking, no craziness.  I was able to park in a carpark with loads of room - the sheer luxuary!

After the service I was invited to a BBQ.  I expected it to be Paris style, ie over in 2hrs becuase everyone has to rush off somewhere.  Oh, no…remember, I’m in Province.  We were on the patio of an old farm house out in the country, a long drawn out meal in the sun and then a walk in the woods while stopping to gobble up the wild raspberries.  I finally arrived home at 6.30pm.  Lovely!  I had forgotten how relaxed life outside Paris is…or I didn’t realise how stressful living in the city was.

I think I’m going to like it here!  

Wow - the last 48hrs have been HECTIC!

Friday night people came out of the woodwork to help me move!  It was really wonderful and actually quite good fun!  We were finished by 10.30pm and had a picnic of pizza and wine on the floor and then slept in the empty appartment.

Saturday morning we were up early.  The boys and the van left at 8.30am which left me and Hilary 1.5hours to empty the apprment of all the little things lying around and clean it from top to toe.  It was a chaos!  I completely undertimed and we were running around like headless chickens: smearing paint on marks on the wall with our hands, filling holes with paper, and trying to cram everything into my tiny car!  

We finished with 5 minutes to spare - Phew!

A lady from the agency came and we handed over the keys.  I should get all of my caution back becuase she said the flat is in a better state now than when I moved in!

Then the trauma really started.  We set off for a 2hr journey to Tours to meet the group there at 1pm who were going to help me cram all my worldly belongings into a 4m2 space.  Except, things didn’t go to plan.  We were nose to tail most of the way in the baking sun, cramped up in an over loaded car.  In the end it took us 5.5 sweaty hours to arrive at the storage facility.  The men had long finished and were waiting impatiently for us as the van had to be back in Orleans for 6pm!

In the midst of all this I realised that the bag with my knitting, phone charger and camera cable have been packed away in the container.  So no text messages, scarves or photos from me for a while! 

Phew - hot, sweaty and tired.  But God is good.  Nothing major went wrong and everything fitted in the container.