Creative Bed

Where did we live before the move. A little of our background. What prompted the move. The move itself and why did we get to choose to live in France?

Where to start and does anyone care. Well for those who might be interested here we go. Well we lived in the village of Hullbridge in Essex where we ran a general store and, wearing 2 hats, also ran a Ceramic Studio.

As if that was not enough, we also fostered children, mostly from difficult backgrounds and therefore challenging. We enjoyed what we did and until the economic meltdown started enjoyed a steady life. As the children had various holidays throughout the year we found it easier to close the shop and take them with us to our holiday home in Spain.

These were good times and the kids enjoyed it in the main. I suppose that to expect kids from quite diverse backgrounds to always get on was a problem but we slowly taught them boundaries and how to respect each other. With only a few instances everything was good. On one of our holiday trips we started to look out for a holiday home in France to save on the travelling distance, (“are we there yet” and “how much further” and “I need the toilet”. You get the picture.) Well we eventually found this place, we sold our holiday home in Spain and started to enjoy life in France and the kids loved the space to run around.

Then the downturn in the economy began to bite hard and the various councils who controlled the childrens placements began to move the children to in house care. This was not in the childrens best interest but still it went ahead. One by one the children left us and left a hole in our lives. Our day to day lives became hollow when they took the remaining child and then we decided to sell up and move into our French home.

The move was unbelievable and it took us over 4 months of hard slog to pack up our home and business and a few tears were shed in frustration. Two very large artics had to be loaded, then 2 French road trains (Huge lorries and trailers) and in between this we made 18 trips back and forth with our own van absolutely loaded. Finally on the 17th of May 2006 we made the last trip down and we became English/French people. We now have most of our work done and are now leading a relaxed life.