I have been living in France on and off for 5 years now. How I ended up here in St. Céré, Lot is something of a mystery, even to me!
I suppose you could call me a professional expat, for I have lived overseas for quite a large chunk of my life. It started early, as I was an “airforce brat”, my father being a pilot in the R.A.F. We moved every two and a half years, so settling into a new locality became pretty much second nature. R.A.F airfields tend to be out of the way in the country, so from an early age I came to love the freedom that open spaces afford and I saw most of what Britain could provide in open spaces up until the age of 10. Which is when the airforce, in their wisdom, decided to pack us off to a war zone and, after several gallons of assorted serums and antibodies where injected and scratched into my left arm I found myself in Singapore. Happy days. Not for the up-country communists, or the South China Sea pirates, of course, but for me… happy days indeed.
With the bad guys in Malaya duly defeated we eventually returned to the UK only to be packed off to Malta so that my father could do the same to the Russians that he and others did to the communists guerillas. Except the Russians never came. The Libyans did.
So… back in the UK again, it was time to fly the nest and I embarked upon a chequered career in advertising and marketing in London. To cut a very long story mercifully short, I upped sticks to Spain as soon as decency allowed after the divorce (like the next day) only being dragged back to London when my meagre share of the divorce settlement ran out and I had to earn some money. The world had moved on and suddenly, no-one had a secretary anymore, typewriters did not exist and, with a bit of applied brain-power and an Apple Mac, just about anyone could write and design a brochure or an ad or two on their todd! Which I did.
And then someone invented the internet. Which meant given a roof over my head, a telephone line and a PC, I could work from home…. anywhere in the world.
Like I said, how I ended up here in St. Céré, Lot is something of a mystery, even to me, for I had to build the roof over my head, instal miles and miles of cable, including a telephone one and, having done all that, I now live in constant fear of summer thunderstorms taking out another PC’s hard-drive!
I’ve learnt a bit since the summer of 2003, both about converting old buildings, PC’s, the internet, and, of course, the fabulous country I, my partner and our son now live in.
This expat has come home.
At last.
