Even I am shocked by how long it is since I blogged, not since our open garden day in 2024. I know you’ll forgive me. So much has happened in the last couple of years, some of which I’ve already written about here and elsewhere.

Someone very important (more later) mentioned today in an email that they’d looked at my blog. So I realised it is time for a quick update. And then perhaps some more detailed posts …

The long and the short of it is that we have sold our French house and garden. Why, when it has meant so much to us?

As some of you will know my husband was diagnosed with Parkinson’s a couple of years ago. He’s currently doing reasonably well with medication but we have no illusions about what the future holds for us both. He’s the sufferer, I’m (I will be) the carer.

Our amazing French adventure has always depended upon the ability to easily and regularly travel back and forth between France and U.K. All our beloved family (two children and their spouses, four grandchildren) are in the U.K. They are everything to us and we need to be able to regularly see them and spend quality time with them.

We know that the progression of R’s disease will make travel more and more difficult. So we decided a few months ago that we must sell the French house and move back to full time living in the U.K.

We signed on with a very professional excellent estate agent, undoubtedly the best in our area, in September and they very quickly sold the house for us. We suspected it would sell quickly as it is pretty wonderful!

Our buyers seem to be interested in the garden and we are absolutely delighted by this. We will do our best to hand it over to them in as good shape as possible. Indeed, even though we have already signed the Compromis de vente (equivalent to exchanging contracts in the U.K.) we are still planting bulbs and maintaining the garden as if we were going to continue to be here for ever.

We await confirmation of the date for completion but it’s likely to be the end of January. We will continue to be resident in France for a while thereafter and when we finally move back to the U.K. we will look for a bungalow which will be suitable for someone with decreasing mobility. Our great hope is that we will be able to find a suitable bungalow … WITH A GARDEN!!!

Now there’s a surprise. I’ll keep you posted.