Before we moved to France we used to live in the Lake District. Probably not officially the Lakes, but for a couple of years on the southern edge and then a year or so on the eastern side.
Anyway, my adventures back then involved waiting until Corrie’s mum was coming for a visit and then packing my rucksack and heading up into the Cumbrian hills for an overnight wild camp. (Not that I don’t like Corrie’s mum! It was that she would help look after the boys so I wasn’t needed).
It was lush. My dog Spooky would come with me, we’d walk for a few hours in the afternoon to our camp spot overlooking something beautiful, watch the sun set, marvel at the stars, sleep in the tent, wake up early (usually to mist), walk a few more hours and then drive home.
I miss those mini adventures to be honest. This adventure we’re on now is completely different and still quite exciting, but it’s not a camping/hiking/wilderness adventure, it’s more a lifestyle/family adventure. And I do still hanker after those camping/hiking/wilderness adventures.
If all of this sounds silly then watch this video which sums it up rather nicely (and triggered my nostalgia)…
The casual observer might be forgiven for thinking that, since we live in rural France and have chickens and grow our own vegetables and so on, we’re a bit eco.
We’re not.
I don’t know why we’re not as undoubtedly we should be, but the reality is that we consume quite a lot of oil to heat our old and not that well-insulated house, use a fair bit of diesel in our big van, and, according to our water meter reading this morning, use a massive amount of water.
There must be a leak somewhere as I can’t believe we use that much, but until my investigations are complete I’m going to see if we can use less.
So for starters, I may adopt this washing up technique I found on a green forum:
Empty sink.
Locate plug.
Don’t fill the sink.
Start by adding detergent add hot water until there’s about one inch of water.
Use hot water tap only!
It will be cold to start with, but will get to a temp that suits your resistance.
Add cutlery to soak for later in the wash.
If you’re like me start with glasses.
Lay a glass on its side use cloth to clean with whatever water is available from the sink at this point.
Rinse soap from glass gently with hot water into same sink. This keeps your water hot and clean as you go.
As you get through your pile of dishes the water level increases and remains hot.
I’ll warn you in advance: this is quite a long and boring post but I know that if I don’t write down what we did I’ll forget.
My brother and I climbed up the ladder into the loft on 1st November 2011 to begin work on the conversion project. Five months later it was all done. Here’s a summarised account of what we did….
The loft above the original part of the house was a traditional crop drying room with a door leading into it from the roof, thick soil on the floor beneath which was gorse then wooden planks. Overhead were the oak beams and roof framework. The loft above the extended bit of the house, which also had a door leading into it but this time from metal steps up the side of the house, already had wooden floorboards but rolls of loft insulation had been laid out over them for many years and it was all filthy, and also full of rubbish.
The first job was to remove all the junk that was up there: tiles, wood, cardboard boxes and loads of bits and pieces. It was dark and dirty up there but it was exciting to be starting on my biggest project yet. I’d spent a long time thinking about how things were going to be done up there so I had a plan, but it wasn’t written down anywhere so it was good to finally clear the space and start to visualise it.
The second job was to get the iPod and speakers up there. Over the next few weeks we listened to my entire music collection many times over. For one period all my brother wanted to listen to was Coldplay, and I, as usual, opted for Boy 8-Bit.
To help make things even easier to visualise, the next thing we did was put in the Velux windows, one in the ‘old’ loft (the boys’ bedroom) and one in the ‘new’ loft (our bedroom). Cutting a hole in the roof is very intimidating but once the tiles had been taken off and the wood sawn we were left with window-sized holes into which we slotted the Veluxes (Velii?). It wasn’t quite as simple as this, but it wasn’t as bad as I’d first feared. I also put a smaller window, just a skylight really, into the other side of the roof which would be the corridor. Once they were in it was lovely and bright up there – which was good!
Next up was some shopping. We hired a trailer from a local builder’s merchants, hooked it onto the back of the van and drove up to a big B&Q type place 60 miles away called Brico Depot (they were by far the cheapest and actually are part of the same group as B&Q) to stock up on plasterboard, insulation panels, wood, more windows and the wooden floor. The trailer and van were absolutely full to bursting and driving down the motorway with such a precarious load was scary, but we made it back alright and unloaded all the materials into the garage in the dark.
Now that we had the supplies we made a start on building the frames for the ceiling and walls. There isn’t anything particularly dramatic to to recount about this stage other than it took a lot of wood and screws, and screwing into 100 year old oak beams is virtually impossible. Oh, and it took ages (about a week) and became rather tedious. Some sections were incredibly complicated and we discovered that the best way to work things out is to sit down with a cup of coffee and look at the problem for ten minutes or so. Once the frame was done we got to the part we’d been looking forward to for a while; insulation.
Pretty much as soon as we started to squeeze the insulation between the roof and the wooden frames we realised that this was a horrible job, and wished it would be over as quickly as possible. It took several days and we both developed nasty coughs, but once it was in we were very relieved.
The plumber and electrician came to set things up at this stage, running cables and pipes all over the place. He also rerouted some heating pipes that were in the way of where we were going to make a doorway through the 60cm thick stone wall to join the two lofts together. Once he was done we started with the floor.
First we had to build a frame. The loft floor was soil and, whilst most people round here remove tons and tons of this to lay their floor directly onto the floor joists when converting their lofts, I couldn’t face doing that. Plus all that soil and stuff worked well as insulation, so I figured it might as well stay. The frame in place we started to lay the planks, screwing them into place. This took a lot longer than we’d anticipated, mainly because we realised about half way in that we’d been putting the boards down the wrong way round so had to lift them all up to start again. Luckily we’d ignored advice and screwed the planks down.
Once that was in place we started with the plasterboard. I used four sorts of plasterboard: normal plasterboard for the partition walls (13mm); thinner stuff for the ceilings (10mm); medium insulating polystyrene-backed plasterboard for the sloping walls (10+40mm); and thick insulating polystyrene-backed plasterboard for the gable end (10+100mm). We had mountains of this stuff and carrying it up the ladders was a nightmare, as was measuring and cutting it. Oh and fitting it using adhesive cement and screws was also a nightmare! However, of all the jobs so far, this was the one which gave us the most satisfaction as we could really see the rooms taking shape.
Unfortunately my brother’s time was up and he had to head home. However, we’d done loads in just one month and I’d definitely have got nowhere without his help, so thanks little bro!
From then on it was lots and lots of smaller jobs. We hired a local builder to make the hole in the 60cm stone wall as I was worried I’d bring the roof down by not doing it properly, and once that was done I fitted windows into what had been the doorways into the two lofts. This involved building a short brick wall to fill the gap a bit and then fitting the windows. I built a step from the corridor into our new bedroom, cut a hole in the wall at the top of the stairs so that we could access our new rooms without having to go outside and up a ladder, and that marked the point at which we were weather-tight. Exciting!
Then I started with taping and plastering. The plumber and electrician came back a few times to do his stuff, including installing three radiators (luxury as it was a very cold winter), the builder came back to lime render the stone walls, and I just plodded on with filling gaps, taping and plastering.
I’d run out of enthusiasm by now and would go weeks without doing anything. But eventually the plastering was finished and I could sand the walls down. Then we painted, stained the floorboards, oiled the floorboards, put the skirting on… and moved in! All in all it took five months. If I’d carried on at the same pace my brother and I set at the start it would have taken two, but it just got so boring!
Anyway, it’s done and it’s awesome. Well, not 100% done: I still need to put the shutters on one of the windows and build the steps that join the stairs to the new corridor out of proper wood rather than cheap pine. But it’s very, very nearly all done.
Soren grabs onto his brakes, jumps off his bike and lets it fall wherever he happens to be before sprinting off to the next thing.
Milo rolls up beside his big brother’s discarded bike, carefully climbs off his bike, then with great effort pushes it so it’s also lying sideways on the floor.
I’m currently wearing my favourite Howies jeans. Unfortunately for them they’ve become what I call my ‘kickabout jeans’; I wear them all the time for pretty much everything. As a result they have a huge hole in one pocket, muck all over – mud, grass, wood stain - and are worryingly thin at the knees. But they’re very comfortable, and anyway, my previous ‘kickabout jeans’ are in the bin.
I’m sure I can’t be that unusual but I do tend to accumulate lots of stuff in my pockets, as you can see from the photo above. And before you ask, yes, I do need three different knives with me at all times.
As of yesterday afternoon we’re now the proud guardians of two lovely ponies. Polly, the one on the right, is a small brown pony and Yléou, the one on the left, is a small brown pony.
Soren goes horse riding every Wednesday and is getting pretty good; he can gallop (they call it galloping in France but it’s actually cantering) and stand up on the saddle and turn round to ride backwards and various other things which are cool. Most importantly though he really enjoys it. Corrie has always wanted to get a horse for the boys so we thought, given that Soren likes horse riding and we have plenty of space, maybe this was a good time to do it.
A friend from nearby very kindly agreed to lend us her two ponies, Polly to ride and Yléou to keep her company. She drove them over in the back of her Transit van and we introduced them to their new home, letting them munch up the grass and rub against against the fence posts and run in and out of the stable.
As you may have guessed I know absolutely nothing about horses. Luckily Corrie does having had a horse when she was younger and having trained as an animal chiropractor, so all I need to do is look at them and carry buckets of water over.
They’ve been here for just over 24 hours but seem to have settled in nicely. I think we’re going to take them for a stroll along the track over the road a bit later, just so they get a feel for where they are.
I’ve never had such a big beard. You may remember that on my birthday last year I shaved my beard off completely. Well this year I’m doing the opposite and growing it to be as big as possible… before trimming it back to normal on my birthday.
To me, my beard is a symbol of my freedom from the social structure I was a part of before we started our adventure. I’ve had a beard for many years; I started using one during my first office job as a way of not having to shave every day, so even then there was an element of furry rebellion to it. Nowadays it doesn’t matter what I look like; I have nobody I need to pretend I’m not me to. So scruffy clothes, unkempt hair and a ridiculous beard are all fine since they make no difference to anything any more. (Except a big beard is incredibly hot and the weather’s getting quite warm so it is making a difference to my every day comfort).
Last year I realised that without a beard I look like a cross between Thom Yorke from Radiohead and Gail from Coronation Street. I shall therefore always have a beard, not, as I like to think, as a symbol of freedom but more to hide my hideous face.
Our van is making some strange noises so, on the recommendation of a neighbour, I called the local garage. I just wanted them to have a quick listen and tell me what it could be; we’d arrange what to do about fixing it afterwards depending on what they reckoned.
So I drove over for 09:30, as agreed. The place is like those desolate garages you see in American movies, with shells of cars dotted around the forecourt and piles of discarded parts against every outer surface of the corrugated metal workshop. There was smoke coming from round the back, black smoke that smelled like tyres.
I found Claude and he asked if I wanted a coffee. I declined. He then asked if I minded if he went to get something to eat as he’d missed breakfast. OK, I said, figuring it might pay to be friendly and get him on my side seeing as he was about to assess my van. We walked over to what the sign above said was a cafe, but it wasn’t a cafe any more, it was the garage’s break room. He offered me a coffee again and this time I accepted, perching myself on the edge of a bench and admiring the tastefully decorated ‘walls of porn’. He opened the fridge door and got out some eggs, some ham and some salami, fried himself some eggs, then sat down to eat his fried eggs along with 4 or 5 slices of ham. The salami wasn’t for him; he fed slices of it to his dog. He poured himself a glass of red wine from the open bottle on the table, downed it, filled it again, then took a modest sip. Once he’d finished his eggs and ham he made himself a brie sandwich and alternated between a bite of that and a spoonful of strawberry jam. He knocked back the remaining wine then got up to fill the bottle from a wine box on top of the fridge, sat down and poured himself a third glass. We chatted about cars, computers, hornets.
After about half an hour he finally finished his drink, picked up his plate and dumped it in the sink, then said let’s go and see the van. I opened the bonnet and started the engine, he poked his head in to listen then took out his mobile, pressed some buttons and chatted to someone for a few minutes – I think it might have been his mum. Eventually he came out from under the bonnet to tell me he thought it was probably something like one of the filters or maybe an air pipe that was blocked, nothing too serious, call me next week to arrange dropping it round.
They’re rare these days but I do think I’ve found a good, reliable mechanic.
At this time of year we play host to the first load of cranes migrating north; they stop over for the night in the fields and ponds around us.
For now there aren’t too many – just a few hundred or so probably – but as they get going there will be thousands. And rather than stop over they’ll just keep on flying, in huge long trailing Vs.
Now that I’ve been doing this for a year I thought I’d share what intentionally not having a job has been like for me.
The most significant bit of all of this is, unsurprisingly, not having to go to work.
Before embarking on our adventure I’d resigned myself to having to go to work, convinced myself that the sense of waste that pervaded my weekdays and tainted my weekends was the price I had to pay for being a part of the modern West. The alternative we came up with has yet to provide any sort of income, so I wouldn’t say we’ve found a solution, but by selling up and running away I’ve learnt that plodding along with a life I didn’t actually want was preventing me from being me. And even though it turns out I’m annoying, rather anti-social, slightly obsessive, and around early evening very short-tempered, at least I don’t have to pretend that I’m anything else to virtual strangers at the office.
Spending every single day with my children is definitely a good thing.
It’s certainly not easy and they drive me absolutely mad sometimes, but being with them when they wake up, have breakfast, play in the morning, watch movies or stuff on the laptop, have lunch, do drawing or running around or building something or smashing something or riding bikes or digging up worms, chilling out mid-afternoon with hot milk and honey and biscuits, then going crazy again until dinnertime, then bath and bedtime bouncing and stories… being there for the whole lot is frankly a treat. When I used to work I only got to be with them during the dinner, bath and bedtime bit and that’s frankly rubbish. My two boys are the most important people in my life and I finally feel like I’m getting to know them, and that they’re getting to know me.
I used to get very grumpy.
Commuting is horrible and I found it impossible to not despise everyone else on the roads around me. Then in the office I was polite and obliging, doing the best job I could, but all the while hating the mundanity of it all, the pointless meetings and decisions and politics that were so far removed from any useful end product that they made our efforts seem ridiculous. But worst of all I was so cross at how little of my time I could use for the things I wanted to do, how most of my time was taken from me by a system that couldn’t care less.
Disappointingly it turns out that me being grumpy has nothing to do with the system, work, or busy motorways. I’m pretty much as grumpy now as I ever was back then, so I can only conclude that’s just how I am. But that’s still a useful thing to have learnt, right?
Doing hard physical work outside, making stuff and doing simple things is satisfying. What I did before – making websites, developing marketing strategies, researching the latest web trends – was very interesting and it was satisfying when a good idea was implemented well and achieved good results. But it was nothing to the satisfaction of felling nine 40ft conifers by climbing up into the branches to saw down the tops then chopping the rest of the trunks down with an axe and then finally burning the lot in a massive bonfire. I like my Baudelaire and subtitled arty movies as much as the next man, but using your muscles to do a hard day’s work just feels good. Sitting down for dinner feeling hungry because you’ve used up loads of calories doing stuff all day is how it should be. And falling asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow is surely evidence that your day was satisfying.
It’s nice to have the time to try things I’d always wanted to try but never had the time.
Regular readers will no doubt have become a little bored of my ‘look what I just made’ posts, but I’ve always wanted to make things. So I’ve made a wooden bench using only wood (no nails or screws or glue), I’ve re-roofed a house, I’ve converted our 50m2 attic into two bedrooms (more on this in a later post – I’ve nearly finished!), I’ve built a slide for the boys… and I’ve made loads of other things I’ve mentioned on this website already. Lots of it is DIY but on a level I only hoped I might be capable of; it turns out I can do scary stuff like cut a hole in the roof and put in a Velux window. And other projects like making small walking sticks for the boys so they can be like the locals as they potter through the woods aren’t essential or useful but they’re really fun, and it’s lush to be allowed to come up with an idea and then just do it. I don’t know if any of these new skills I’m developing will help me avoid having to return to the 9-5 office life I’m desperately try to steer clear of, but if they don’t I’ve at least got a few more things to add to my CV.
It won’t last though.
Sometimes I find myself worrying about how long we can keep going like this and what we’re going to do next. I try to ignore these thoughts: there’s plenty of time to figure this out later. For now I’m just enjoying the simplicity of waking up when we wake up, heading outside, and doing stuff.
It was on the 4th February last year that we finally arrived at our modest French house and embarked on this little adventure.
That first night we camped in what is now the dining room, sleeping on inflatable mattresses that slowly deflated during the night. The next few days were spent exploring the house and the barns, excitedly discovering new things, figuring out where things would go and how we’d make our mark on the place.
A year’s a long time and we’d have done loads of stuff even if we hadn’t moved to France, but here’s some of what we’ve been up to.
We’ve renovated most of the house
7 of the 8 downstairs rooms have been redecorated, the attic has (very nearly) been converted into 2 bedrooms, a septic tank and sand filter has been installed, the electrics redone, the little house in the courtyard has been re-roofed, and a couple of extraneous barns have been knocked down.
We’re self-sufficient-ish
Actually we’re nowhere near self-sufficient, but we’re doing bits of it; the real deal must be seriously hard work!
So we dug loads of vegetable beds and grew onions, garlic, peppers, aubergines, squashes, green beans, borlotti beans, carrots, parsnips, strawberries, rasperries, tomatoes, and a variety of herbs. They were already here but we also had cherries, pears, peaches and plums.
We got 6 chickens and set them up with a luxury chicken house and massive run, and they in return have given us 6 eggs every day.
Corrie makes bread. Of course we buy baguettes but Corrie’s bread-making skills have been honed to the point that I prefer her loaves to those from the boulangerie.
We don’t generate our own electricity, the well-water’s just for watering the garden, the heating is run on oil, we fill the van up with diesel about every 2 weeks… still a long way to go I think.
We’re spending pretty much all of our time together
Apart from when Soren’s at school we’re all together. We’re not perfect – there’s the occasional *ahem* disagreement – but most of the time we have fun doing stuff with the boys or working on something as a family.
We have fun
It’s nothing much and there are times when we’re bored, but overall we have fun. There’s weekly horse-riding for Soren, loads of stuff out in the garden such as a big sandpit, swings in various trees, a ‘secret den’, a slide, bikes and scooters, spades and soil and worms…. And for Corrie and me we have fun just doing everyday things, and seeing the boys enjoy themselves.
We’ve made friends We’ve got to know quite a few people, and even more to wave at as we’re driving along, and the boys have loads of friends to play with (all of whom are English I’m a little ashamed to admit).
We’ve explored a little bit
Admittedly we’ve not gone very far, but we’ve been for walks around the tracks and woods around where we live and to be honest they’ve felt like enough of an adventure to satisfy us. We’ve spotted exciting wildlife and poked strange mushrooms and collected natural treasures and watched migrating birds and had picnics in the countryside and gone for bike rides….
Soren goes to school and is starting to speak French
We’d originally thought home-schooling would suit us all best but that sort of thing simply doesn’t happen here. Plus we needed to kick-start his French as he was not keen on learning it from me! It’s working, and whilst he only goes to school for the mornings – 09:15 to 16:45 is a very long day for a 4 year old – he’s starting to enjoy it and develop new skills of which he is rightly proud.
I’m learning lots of new skills
They’re mainly DIY-related, but I’m really enjoying making things and am getting pretty good. I don’t think I need to go into any detail as I’ve posted most of my projects on here already!
We’ve made another baby
He’ll be here in May. Now that is going to be a real adventure!
In a year we’ve done all sorts of fun stuff. Hopefully we can have at least one more adventure-filled year.
Soren’s school was closing early on Monday; the buses were coming at 14:45 to pick up the children, instead of at 16:45.
“Pourquoi?” I asked.
“A cause de la neige!”
We found this amusing because they’d been talking about snow coming for days and there was no sign of it – and yesterday was no different – yet they were all in an excited panic and shutting down well in advance. However, flakes started to fall at about 16:00 and by nightfall there was a good covering of snow, so we had to admit that actually they were right and we were wrong.
This morning Soren got up and straight away headed downstairs. Corrie just had time to put his hat and jacket on – over his pyjamas – before he was out there!
We've sold up, left England, and moved to our ramshackle house in the west of France to live a simple family life. Find out more about our free range adventure.
