Expat Life in the South of France

As you can see I am not a very regular blogger. I just never seem to have the time. I get asked the above question by overseas friends all the time and I am at a loss to explain where the time goes. Sometimes I wonder how I ever found the time to work before the retired (sort of) life.

I shall attempt to answer.I do a lot of reading, some writing, yoga, have a lot of friends. I go to French conversation classes once a week, I run, with others,  a weekly English conversation group,  belong to a groumet group which meets to eat, and go walking with my husband, weather permitting, mainly along the coast, either the Promenade in Nice, the Croisette in Cannes or the Cagens-sur-Mer waterfront. Of course my overseas friends haven’t done their own housework for years - living mostly in Asia - so they forget about the effort required to keep a household running - even if it’s somewhat desultory most of the time (the effort I mean).  Having a garden doesn’t make things easier. However my husband has now succumbed to my constant nagging, and we now have a gardener. It was  frightening seeing him up a ladder pruning a bloody great olive tree - we have 6 of them .  And now, with the arrival of spring, the visitors start soon. So, do I miss work? Not at all. Am I bored? Absolutely not. Am I enjoying life? YES!

We also do a fair amount of travelling. We have just returned from a trip to the UK to visit family, and while there I took the opportunity to visit the (relatively) new gallery of Islamic Art at the V & A in London.  Loved it, but was a bit disappointed at the lack of objects from Central Asia. 

Just before that we spent a week in and around Barcelona. A friend had her birthday party at a  lovely parador on the Costa Brava, after which we spent a few days in Barcelona.  I was struck by how much cheaper the prices were, even in the touristy areas of  a big city like Barcelona, compared to France. Yesterday the IHT ran an article “36 Hours in Barceona.” I think the author must have slept no more than 4 hours on that trip. Just reading it left me breathless.