WE didn’t choose our first home in France. We found it, almost by chance, after a roundabout route through many countries. I had always enjoyed taking in new cultures, the beauty of different landscapes, their scents and, because I was a freelancer, I’d work for six months or so, save up, then travel. During one of those trips, I met the man who would become my husband. After I got pregnant, we had to decide where to make our family happen and stood in front of a map, our fingers hovering over many countries. After spells in Georgia, US—in an apartment surrounded by horses and mice—Guatemala, where my husband is from, and the Netherlands, we moved to France, via England. We left our eldest child with my parents—by then, I was expecting our second baby—and went house-hunting, only to find that, as foreigners with no bank account and freelance careers, it was almost impossible to rent a house.
After 10 days traipsing up and down France, I was exhausted. We tried one more time at an estate agent’s in yet another village, when a lady scribbled a note and passed it to the agent who was talking to us. It turned out she had a house to rent and had a good feeling about us. When she said we could rent her house, we said: ‘Yay!’ and immediately added: ‘By the way, where are we?’
Denne historien er fra March 30, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra March 30, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds