It certainly wasn’t where we expected to be in our lives, living with limitations that were thrust upon us and didn’t originate from any lack of vigilance on our part.
Mark has Long Covid and is now fully retired as a tradesman. He plans to shift his focus towards creating works of art. And for me? I’m still doing writing, research, and editing for my clients, thank heavens.
The ongoing work-in-progress 3-story house (and the list of 1,000+ to-do items!) that we purchased just as France went into lockdown in early 2020 is now having its top floor transformed. We already have one ground floor art studio devoted to messy and noisy things involving machines and tools and wood shavings.
But the new space will be something completely different. It’s going to be a light and airy art studio for quietly creating works of art on canvas, paper, and other materials. The picture below is the under-construction room at the end of this past week, and hopefully after more plaster is applied to the walls and sanded, it will be ready for paint, the new easy-to-clean linoleum floor, and the mini-kitchen and powder room. Finishing touches will be cabinet doors under the skylight and a few other items.
I’ll try to get back into the groove of posting more often. Bye for now!
Future art studio at the top of the house.The wibble-wobble floors from the early 1700s are now covered over after Mark leveled everything from side-to-side and installed new rigid underlay.
The view from our front door towards the town square.
There has been a very intentional pause in posting since the end of 2019. For all of us around the world, life became ultra-stressful during the pandemic of the last two years, and it didn’t seem like a wise idea to share anxiety with an already anguished world.
We left Sweden at the end of 2019 and raced back to France. After a lifetime of depending on intuitive input, I had a rather familiar feeling — a large hand was firmly planted in the middle of my back, propelling me forward, telling me not to relax until we were safely back there.
Over the week of Christmas, we wrote a contract to purchase a derelict house in a small village in Brittany, and we had the keys in our hands six weeks later on Valentine’s Day of 2020. The house, one of the old village shops with living quarters above, had been built in stages from the late 1600s or early 1700s, then the early 1800s, and then we had what I laughingly referred to as ‘the concrete bunker’ — a 1960s add-on. It was certainly not in any condition to be occupied.
Again, listening to a building sensation that something dreadful was coming down the road, we filled the house with as many building supplies as we could purchase. The following week, the pandemic was declared and France went into lockdown.
We were not allowed to leave the cold and damp rental house we occupied unless we were picking up groceries or going to the doctor. And when we did go past our front door, we were required to have a separate written statement each time including our name, address, and time of day we had left the house. France was quite strict about their lockdown!
We were originally denied the right to travel between villages to do renovation work, but I was persistent — and it paid off. I continued to do writing and editing while reloading the fire repeatedly each day to try and stay warm. And after a flurry of letters to government offices, I finally obtained permission from the regional police for Mark to go straight from the rental house to our future home each day. Never stopping or talking to anyone, he spent almost every day for the next 6-plus months gutting and rebuilding that mucky house.
Most of the walls were covered with mud plaster atop ancient lathe.The side walls were stone covered with lime plaster.
Feeling purposeful during that time really helped us, and we didn’t slide into the same depths of depression that some people we knew were going through. We just kept on going, knowing that our ‘project’ would pay off. And it has.
For the first time in ever so long, we are happy where we live. We’ve been in for 17 months now and the house is still in various stages of ongoing renovations, but it was a big project since it’s a 3 level house with a long and narrow partly walled, partly fenced garden out back.
Gargoyles gushing water from the upper wall of the medieval church in the heart of the village.
Our village — La Trinite-Porhoet– is lovely and quite old. We have a medieval church (complete with gargoyles overhead gushing water) down the block that was established in Gallo-Roman times.
The people are friendly, and we are fortunate to have a charming bar and restaurant a few hundred metres from our front door. The pharmacy is a short walk around the corner, and we have an excellent boulangerie (bakery) and small grocery on the other side of the town square.
Historic image of La Trinite-Porhoet.
It’s interesting to feel contentment after moving so often over the last two-plus decades. As we re-emerge into some semblance of life, still wearing masks in crowds or when we go shopping, you’ll soon see more new pictures and some flashback pics from our life in France.
At some point, I’ll give you a chance to gasp a bit at our before and after pictures from the renovation. The teaser shots above should give you a clue of the obstacles Mark faced on the ground floor and first floor above. He’s only just begun to renovate the top floor, so there will be more stages of transformation.
In the meantime, it’s good to go back to basics and remember that life is good, and we are blessed.
After one of the longest, coldest, wettest, and gloomiest winters I have ever endured, I was feeling frankly tired of northern France. But that turned around when we took a much-needed 3-day getaway in Vannes.
I was unprepared for just how pretty the medieval town would be and was quite pleased that we had chosen to visit just before the hoards of summer tourists arrive in France.
For anyone who is not in a tip-top state of fitness, be warned that the hills and cobblestone streets can wear you out rather quickly. Now, having said that, enjoy this little slice of Vannes and do make an effort to see this charming small city for yourself.
A pretty street full of historic houses alongside the port in Vannes, Brittany, France.
People walking and sitting along the rampart walls in Vannes, Brittany, France,
The Derriere bar, cafe, and restaurant at the back of Les Halles, the food halls in Vannes, Brittany, France.
Walking uphill through the square in the mostly medieval heart of Vannes in Brittany, France.
Needing a break from the grim and seemingly interminable winter last year, we decided to meander around Brittany, comparing the lifestyles on offer in each small village and larger town. Morlaix may not have been where we chose to settle, but it had a lot going for it as you’ll soon see.
The undeniable ‘feature’ of the small city is the viaduct, built in the late 1800s, that looms over a portion of the town below. The viaduct carries the train tracks and is even snuggled up close to a historic church. I can imagine that the houses, businesses, and the church all feel the vibrations of that rail traffic throughout the day!
The 1800s viaduct in Morlaix, Brittany, France looms over the town below.
The 1800s viaduct in Morlaix, Brittany, France looms over the town below.
As you walk further away from the viaduct and into the ‘old town’ area, it’s soon clear that the entire city is built on several levels with both residential and commercial areas sprinkled high and low.
The old town of Morlaix is built on several levels.
Along an almost silent street on the upper levels of Morlaix, the violin maker’s shop is now closed and the blinds are drawn down.
Some of the medieval era streets are quite narrow and twisty. Since the doors and shutters for both homes and businesses are sometimes closed tightly against the weather, you’ll need to keep a close lookout for the quirky spots — the tiny shops of interest that are off the main streets filled with glossier offerings.
Blue-painted front facade of a small brocante in a narrow street in Morlaix, Brittany, France.
There is no distraction — no tug at the corner of your eye to look over at the bright red — pay attention to that glossy blue — or wonder why in the world someone thought that ochre yellow was an appropriate choice for a particular item of furniture.
So old school am I — remembering the acrid smell of darkroom chemicals — missing the magic of holding my breath ever so slightly as the image emerged on the glossy sheet of photo paper. Dip, swish, rock the tray, wait for the magic — ahhh — remove, submerge, rock the tray — image set now — remove, submerge, rinse-rinse-rinse then hang to dry.
It’s all done with sliders in a software program nowadays — has been for quite awhile. But even as I slide those wee buttons about, fine-tuning the addition and subtraction of light, the inky tones of black and white still sing to me. Today is one of those days.
Enjoy!
Two people walking up one of the steeper historic streets in Quimper, Brittany, France. B&W
Half-timbered and stone buildings in the old medieval city of Quimper, Brittany, France. Black & white. B&W
An elderly woman with a wheeled walker in a quiet street in Quimper, Brittany, France. B&W
A busy intersection in Morlaix, Brittany, France. Black and white. B&W
Layers of stone construction in houses, churches, and a viaduct in Morlaix, Brittany, France.
Walking through Quimper in Brittany, France one afternoon, camera in hand taking streetscape shots, when we passed a now-defunct shop. Instead of simply covering the huge pieces of glass with paper or whiting it out with paint, the owners created a clever and quite funny window display.
I loved the reflection of the streetscape behind — but you can still clearly see the Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear — all in a permanent state of hibernation — with their heads on pillows. Such a sweet and unexpected surprise.
Streetscape reflection and stuffed and sleeping bears of all sizes in the window of an old out-of-business store in Quimper, Brittany, France.
It has been several months since we were in Camaret-sur-Mer, but we had relatively good weather for our trip to the far end of the Finistere in Western Brittany, France. Once a major fishing hub, the seaside town is best known now for the ‘Graveyard of Ships’ that lies directly across from the pretty harbour with its string of cafes and shops.
Nothing like rusting hulls and crackling paint to make eccentric but interesting photos. Enjoy!
Camaret-sur-Mer Harbour in Brittany, France
The boat graveyard in Camaret-sur-Mer, Brittany, France.
Crumbling ships in the boat graveyard at Camaret-sur-Mer in the Finister region of Brittany, France.
Mark taking up-close photos of crumbling boats in the ship graveyard at Camaret-sur-Mer in the Finistere region of Brittany, France.
And just to finish it off nicely — a black and white of one particularly interesting clump of old ships, crumbling into oblivion at the seaside.
Crumbling ships in the boat graveyard at Camaret-sur-Mer in the Finister region of Brittany, France. Black and white. B&W
