Counting my blessings

Caroline Zilboorg shares her lockdown diary and feels very fortunate to be living in rural Brittany

- Caroline Zilboorg

I have never felt luckier about living in the French countryside! Nearly 20 years ago we bought a large maison de maître in northern Brittany, half an hour east of St-Malo and a 15-minute drive from Mont StMichel. With the last of our four children bound for university, the timing was right for the big move, and move we did – into a house still in the process of renovation. We employed local artisans for the work we could not do ourselves and settled in.

I am now ‘retired’ three times over: from teaching in the United States, from teaching in Cambridge and from teaching English in France, a job in Rennes that fell into my lap just as I realised how far over our budget the renovations were taking us. With three pensions (all quite small, I hasten to add) and a little one-bedroom plus mezzanine gîte (a former pigsty – literally!) and a husband who finally retired from his American job, I thought we were well prepared for our sunset days in France.

ALL CHANGE

The house is now completely renovated, Le Petit Lapin (the gîte) is a going concern and our offspring are settled with partners and families in four different countries – the UK, Sweden, Portugal and France.

Who could have known that our second son would end up marrying a wonderful Italian woman and making a life with her and their two daughters in Paris? Certainly my husband Tom and I couldn’t have imagined that 20 years ago!