Part two

when we first bought this place we were working full time. I had left the NHS and joined a medical company as a nurse advisor. I taught NHS and nursing home staff a glamorous subject....the promotion of continence and the management of incontinence. It was an amazing lifestyle and so different from my role as ward sister. I progressed into sales and became a national account manager. I had a fat salary and a final salary pension! This helped us to move here.
For two years we came here for a weekend every month. We would work from home on Friday and be at Euro tunnel for six, getting here by midnight. We would work on the place all day Saturday and most of Sunday and leave here by four to be home again before midnight ready to go back to work on Monday. All our holidays were spent here and we gradually moved our things over. One of the first things we brought over was our chiming clock. I hated leaving here on Sunday, closing the shutters and thinking about the clock gradually running down.
Then the miracle happened. The bank P worked for started on a redundancy programme. He applied. At first it was denied him but by now I had been signed off with stress and wanted out. Bonuses and fat salaries are great but they have a price. P was also signed off with stress which led to him getting redundancy. Our youngest daughter had also been made redundant and as she could not afford to set up on her own decided to come with us. On 19th December 2009, K and I packed up my short wheel base Rav 4 with a large puppy cage divided into two levels. In here were our four cats. On top of the cage were her rabbit and Guinea pig! We had a small bag each for us. We did the Euro tunnel because of the animals. It was the first time I had done the journey without P and K at that time had no French. I had to cope with it all! When we were near home the snow started. We just about got here before it became impossible. The rabbit and Guinea pig had to stay in the cage as their eglu was on the lorry P and a friend were driving over the next day. With no central heating I had to get the wood burner going. We had basic provisions and the next day I walked through a couple of feet of snow two miles to the village shop for supplies. It was a difficult start.
P had trouble getting here due to the snow and when he arrived I did a quick meal for him and our friend, helped unload the van and they turned round and went straight back to England. P was then snowed in for a week leaving K and I to cope alone.
I had no kitchen or oven. We had brought over my American fridge freezer on an earlier trip and had installed a small table top oven /grill. We had English tv as P had sorted that out earlier but we had no computer as I needed P to set it up!
When we bought the place there were three bedrooms down stairs, a sale de vie which was kitchen, dining room and lounge and a bathroom tacked onto the back of this room. During the two years we had a builder put in a first floor and four dormer Windows. By the time we moved here we had two bedrooms and two bathrooms, constructed and plastered but nothing else. We had insulated up stairs but not down stairs. We also had double glazed Windows upstairs. Down stairs was still the same.
I was still very excited about it at this stage and had a positive outlook.
It is major thing to move to another country and become 'the foreigner'. The early days were very hard.