Walking on Sunshine

In the excitement of buying his first property in France, David Macdonald filled his summer – and home – with friends and family before noticing that all was not as it seemed.

- David Macdonald

Our first summer at La Charpenterie had been exactly as we planned. French summer holidays were long, I had booked almost a month off work and our family and close friends were booked to visit in quick succession. It would involve a strict regime of bed linen changeovers and moments of intense cleaning and cupboard restocking but we were excited by this.

I had even driven up from Paris a few times to locate all the things we could do in Normandy to amuse kids and adults alike: the sandy beaches of Granville, midnight illuminations at Mont-St-Michel and even snail farms, toboggan runs and treetop adventures. There would not be a moment to get bored.

The first group to arrive was my parents with my sister and her family. As he was the senior patriarch of a large brood, my father’s approval of my French property purchase felt important, so there was a lot hanging on this visit.

Unfortunately, their arrival coincided with a ridge of low pressure and four days of solid July rain. I was relieved to discover they had brought a DVD player and stacks of films and board games with them.

Family affair

The arrival of my staunchly Anglophone relatives highlighted a problem that, after 30 years of speaking three languages, I had failed to anticipate. Even basic tasks such as going to the village shop can be a bit daunting when you don’t speak the local lingo. We didn’t want our family to feel isolated in our little French idyll and I immediately knew that we had to find a way to bridge the cultural divide.

I have a habit of throwing myself in at the deep end and making things work somehow. So when I bumped into our friendly French neighbours in the village, I seized the opportunity to invite them to join us for supper that evening.