Smiley with strong arms

Talloires under the snow

'The review is in Swedish and I've made a quick attempt to find a translation without success.'

'Send me the link,' my husband texted, from five-thousand kilometres away.

'I'd say the listener thinks that you have a nice smile and good arm muscles,' he quipped.

'Ha. I'll take that,' I wrote back, chuckling to myself.

It had been a couple of weeks since the audiobook version of But you are in France, Madame had appeared on listening platforms and I was keen to see if there had been any activity. To my delight, both library borrows and purchases had occurred around the world - including apparently in Sweden. 

Big high fives all around using my strong arms.

In other news, during the week I received the monthly e-bulletin from Talloires, my French village. To say that I was proud of my French home would be an understatement. 

Alongside the expected practical updates such as the arrival of the snow and subsequent snow plough activity, the articles covered 

• the opening of a new centre for the youth of the village, 
• an opportunity to reduce one's fuel costs by opting for a group order (limiting the travel and costs of the fuel trucks, which are then passed on to the consumer), 
• the announcement of a free bus service into Annecy every weekend up until Christmas (reducing congestion and limiting emissions), 
• a local workshop exploring ways to act for the climate, 
• free health checks for individuals aged over 60, 
• the village festival on 15 Dec and village Christmas market featuring local artisans on Dec 9,
• a winter program for parent-children activities at one of the local cafes, 
• dates for contributing to Lake Aid whose purpose is to assist refugees in need, 
• the village cinema program, 
• ski enrolment details for school children plus alternatives to families driving to the mountains to ski (tick, tick again for the environment), 
• an invitation to attend a public meeting to discuss the Annecy climate-pacte objectives,
• details of the annual stand-up-paddle race that attracts competitors from all around the world, 
• &
• tips and eco-labels for environmentally responsible businesses 

We are a small village of approximately 1500 inhabitants in a magical natural setting with diverse winter and summer attractions; a Michelin-starred restaurant; cinema; tennis and boules courts; bakery; newsagent; superette; and multiple hotels, restaurants and cafes, but we are also dynamic and community minded. 

One beaming Talloirienne here.

Catherine's books (including Books 1-3 in her 'French at Heart' series celebrating her French-Australian life) below.

The links should take you to where you need to go, wherever you are in the world, to make a purchase.

• But you are in France, Madame: One family, three children, five bags and the promise of adventure living in the French Alps
• Weaving a French Life: An Australian story
• Love, fear and a return to France: A family memoir
• With bare feet and sandy toes: Growing up in Australia in the 1960s & 70s

As a special request, if you are buying a print copy of Love, fear and a return to France, I would be so grateful if you could do so through my friend Kristi's page. Kristi has provided fun, family-centred posts of her life in France in her French Word-A-Day blog for many years now and relies on reader contributions to maintain her wonderful efforts. Should you use the link above on the left sidebar of her blog, Kristi will benefit and it will be at no extra cost to you. 

Plus, I will be standing by with a big smiley face. 😊 

Yes. Italy.

 

Yes. Italy.

There, I said it. You are my witnesses.

 

Many of you know our story: that of a young Australian family with three school-aged children who went to France for a year, stayed for much longer than that, and brought France forever more into their hearts. There, we learned to live with passion and joy - savouring moments differently; appreciating tastes and sounds more intensely; developing new seasonal routines that somehow embraced flexibility; and resisting, before acknowledging, an unfamiliarity that ultimately became who we were.

 

Then we returned to Australia.

Please don’t be angry or judge me as I know that there is plenty of beauty in Australia too with daily opportunities for fulfilment, and a sweet and generous quality of life, but for me, that largely indefinable thing that fires my senses is elsewhere.

 

To backtrack a little, I went to France as a French speaker, a teacher of French with decades of language study behind me. It was still challenging but at least I had some certainty that I could get by in the language, and that that skill would facilitate my family’s integration.

 

I don’t speak Italian.

I am learning, though, and motivated to make fast progress. It helps that there are similarities both with French grammar and vocabulary. Not so, pronunciation. Will I, am I contorting the French language currently as a result of the incursion of a new sound system into my subconscious? ‘Fraid so. In minor ways. They still make me cringe.

 

My husband’s roots are Italian. He can sound Italian, after all his mother’s voice has been with him his whole life. But he doesn’t speak Italian. He grew up in an era when children of newly arrived Australian immigrants were ‘sheltered’ from the ‘inconvenience’ of having non-English-speaking parents. Mind you, no such restraint was practiced when preparing his pickle and salami school-lunchbox sandwiches. They succeeded in marking his difference just as effectively.

So, why not just return to France? Why Italy?

 

Growth, challenge, desire, anticipation …

 

Growth. I cannot exclaim proudly that we grew linearly as a result of our French living. Frequently, I shrank, struggled and hid, but something beautiful eventually came from periods of incomprehension and darkness.

Challenge. Our family adventure in France was filled with challenges. I expect that this new direction will provide even more but, perhaps obtusely, challenge drives us.

Desire. Does that even need an explanation?

Anticipation. Can we do this again? What awaits? Who will be a part of our journey? Do we know these people yet?

On a practical level, our Italian experience cannot be a duplicate of our French one. I have no easy European access as I did then. Brexit took that privilege away from me. So, amongst other constraints, we have time limitations. Plus, our children are no longer living with us, so we will not have the regularity of a school year and the immediacy of a school family to lean on. Plus, we don’t know where in Italy. A random opening of the Lonely Planet guidebook led us to Annecy. What will decide our destination this time?

 

There, I have put it out there. You are all my witnesses.

 

After all, if not soon, when?

Catherine's books (including her books celebrating her French-Australian life) below.

The links should take you to where you need to go, wherever you are in the world, to make a purchase.

Merci mille fois

But you are in France, Madame: One family, three children, five bags and the promise of adventure living in the French Alps

Weaving a French Life: An Australian story

Love, fear and a return to France: A family memoir

With bare feet and sandy toes: Growing up in Australia in the 1960s & 70s