Tag Archives: lifestyle

Absorbing Change

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!

COPYRIGHT
©Deborah Harmes 2007-2023 and ©Mark Harmes 2007-2023
©A Wanderful Life 2007-2023
Please respect the words and images on this page.
All rights reserved.

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 Radical Shift

Embracing Our Oddball Authenticity

As I write this, a mere few days after taking the intentionally soft-focused image above, I realise that it sums up the slow-and-steady state of patience and exploration we are currently immersed in.

There is no rush to decide what to do next.

There is no pressure to move forward or backward or in-between.

There is a sense of deep relaxation and a reacquaintance with the Deborah and Mark that we were almost 26 years ago.

The previous article — A-Wandering We Go!— was the introduction to these changes. Until recently, very few people knew the behind the scenes ideas that we’d been percolating in our artistic brains.

Our lives are good — and we are grateful.

I’ll go back to assignment writing and editing at some point, but for now the personal writing and return to photographic pursuits are putting a smile on both of our faces.

And as we decide where, when, and how we’d like to live in the years ahead, we’ll be documenting the journey and sharing it with you.

Stick with us — it’s going to be an interesting adventure! And if you’d like to follow along, enter your email for updates on the form that appears once you CLICK on the line just below this one.

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Deborah Harmes is a freelance writer, editor, and photographer and may be found at http://www.deborahharmes.com — Linkedin — Twitter — Instagram — Alamy photographic portfolio.

The Work-Life Balance?

Just saying…

When you feel like jumping the barricades just to make your day-week-month-life a bit more straightforward…

Roadblock sign in France. Deviation. Route Barree.

I won’t downplay how thrilling it is to have so much consistent writing and editing work — and Mark’s renovation work is taking off again now that the weather has improved. But creating a day or two of time off for just-plain-fun can be a challenge for both of us — especially when we’ve spent so many ‘days off’ doing bureaucratic paperwork like getting two vehicles, inspected, altered (headlights changed from UK direction to EU direction and new tyres, too!), and finally registered with French license plates.

We’ve had multiple trips to Vannes for a variety of reasons including our interview for our residency cards (accompanied by a THICK folder of paperwork!) and a return visit to pick up those photo-ID credit-card-sized proofs of French residency. Hooray!

Occasional bits of sightseeing or museum-going, bits and bobs of shopping, and looking at houses for sale (groan!).

Up and down, up and down.

Juggling — happily (most of the time!) juggling…

#work_life_balance
#deadlines
#writing
#editing

Based In Brittany Now!

It will be apparent from the lack of updates on this particular website that things have changed in our lives. Indeed they have — in a very GOOD way!

After our holiday in Brittany last year, we became convinced that it might be a good place to settle down. So after a LONG visit of 2 months in the UK in June and July, we returned to this part of northern France, rented a house directly across the street from some friends, and sent for our household goods to be delivered from the storage unit in the UK.

It’s a funny little house, but very sweet and just what we need for now. And best of all, we have a wonderful circle of friends here. So life is good!

Our small but cute little house in Brittany.

Looking forward to the return of the fragrant roses in the Spring!

There’s apparently been a mad RUSH to get official French residency since Brexit was declared in the UK! So we’re BOTH going to get our Carte du Sejour (residency) as a just-in-case. It’s all feeling quite comfortable here now — so we will BOTH declare ourselves as residents of France.

That should do for a catch-up. Perhaps I’ll start sharing some photos of the area???

All for now…

Copyright
©Deborah Harmes and ©A Wanderful Life 2007-2018
Please respect the words and images on this page.
All rights reserved.

Monday Market in Rural France

One of the joys in living in Europe is the quality of markets — no, not supermarkets (and those are frequently quite delightful, too!) — regional weekly markets where the products are straight from the fields or cheesemaker or butcher or fishmonger into your shopping basket. AND they are picturesque as well!

Here are a few scenes from our Monday market inside and outside the medieval market hall in Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives in Calvados, Normandy, France. Enjoy!

Fruit & veg including HUGE sacks of carrots at the Monday Market.

Market vendors outside the medieval hall.

Feathered friends and pretty plants.

Shopping baskets (yes — I’m going to buy a new one!) and flowering plants.

And finally — the clothing on offer may not be to our taste — but someone must want it!

A variety of clothing is sold at the Monday market.

A Taxing Situation in France

We still ache for France — we cannot lie about that. And when people here ask us why in the world we returned to Australia, we tell them quite honestly that we were unwilling to throw away any chance of EVER retiring in 20 years simply because the French government wanted 53% of our income in taxes. And so we are back.

The situation is apparently even worse now and we’ve only been gone a few months! This article in The Local from France shares the latest tax rate being imposed on the population — a whopping 56.61%!!! But we had barely finished gasping at that number as I read it aloud to Mark when I added the information about the planned increase in 2014.

How in the name of all that is sensible and reasonable can people survive on less than 44% of their income??? The current French policies are ruining the future of their country. And reading this article today has simply reaffirmed to us that we have made the correct decision for our future.

Yes, we miss our former French life and yes, we might eventually purchase a small house back there for our retirement years, but no, we will most certainly NOT be paying such a huge whopping chunk of our income to President Hollande and his cronies. It’s a personal opinion, but I think the future of France is being washed away as more and more young people leave France as soon as their education is complete and more and more older expats choose to opt for France as their country of residency if and only if they are retired. These trends are sad, chilling, and quite counterproductive for a place that we love so dearly.

Happily Going Down, Down, Down

No travel stories or photos today — just a short and very personal update.

The Paleo Program rocks!

I’ve just done a total-up of the inches that I’ve lost in 6 months (with NO exercise other than walking several kilometers a week) and it comes to OVER 20 inches (54 cms) off my waist, hips, chest, arms, and legs! We don’t even own a scale to stand on, but the last time I checked I was down by well over 30 pounds.

Mark rather happily keeps mentioning how much my silhouette has changed and how I look smaller every week. He looks leaner and fitter than he has in the last almost-20 years, too. Good! And none of this has felt stressful or deprived.

Thank heavens we gave this a chance after that ‘Michelin Man Moment’ back in January when I realised that eating fabbo French cheese, bread, and pastries had made me just plain fat. Our diet now revolves around quality protein in the form of meat, fish, and eggs along with brightly coloured vegetables and fruit — NO grains, NO dairy other than a drop of milk in our coffee and butter on our sweet potatoes, NO legumes, NO corn. But we are awash in wonderful food choices and we no longer have blood sugar ups-and-downs.

The first thing I noticed was that my joints and bones didn’t ache any more, then that I slept more deeply and insomnia has practically disappeared, and THEN the inches started to drop off.

Clothing for Ebay sales or donations

There is a happy, happy woman here typing this and I decided today to finally share just how much progress I have made. I’m purging in another way. As you can see from the pictures above of a SMALL sample of the stacks of things I am working my way through, 90% or more of my wardrobe is going away right now. And even clothes we bought 6 weeks ago in the USA are now getting too big. This is a lifestyle change that we have joyously embraced!

Back soon!