Our (ok, my) enduring love affair with France: how we ended up going on holiday and coming back with a second house!

I can't quite pinpoint the exact time I became a Francophile. In my mind this dates back to when I was around 6 years old and we had a French missionary from Nice serving in our ward. I think it's safe to say it was love at first sight (for me anyway, he, quite rightly married a lovely girl after coming off his mission). I became obsessed with learning another language.

It could also have started when I started having occasional  ballet lessons at age 5 maybe? We were still living in Essex and I remember hearing these strange words that were attributed to the warm up exercises that we did. My dad at the time taught in a secondary school and I remember asking him what the words meant and he asked one of his French teacher colleagues to make a vocab tape for me which I religiously listened to every day.

Any way, my first ever visit abroad occurred with my Granny and Grandad Howlett aged 11. We went to Port Grimaud, a tourist village near Saint Raphael.  I remember landing on the spectacular Nice airport (still my favourite run way), picking up our bags, seeing the palm trees, feeling the dry southern heat and listening to every one speaking FRENCH. It was simply amazing and I loved every single minute! eating the food! visiting the Gorges du Verdon, Monaco, Nice............

My next visit abroad when I 17, was again to France.  This time it was to Angers, a large town to the North West of Paris. This was part of my work experience for A level French and I worked for Credit Mutuel for two weeks. Again, I just loved soaking up the "Frenchness" even though it was pretty exhausting going to work in a different country using a language we could barely speak.

During the third year of my degree I was lucky enough to be interviewed for and chosen to work for Sanofi in Labege, Toulouse.  That year just about did it for me, I LOVED everything about it and as soon as it was time to go home,  I extended my contract so that I could work right up until I was due back at University.  I vowed that. I would return there to live. The grey of Birmingham just paled in comparison to the incredible experiences I had had eating outside every day, swimming most nights after work and TALKING French. I was pretty much fluent by now thanks to making great French friends who immersed me in their lives.

After I finished my final year exams, I packed my bags and flew straight back to Toulouse, working my first job as an accounts manager for RugbyShop and then was head hunted by an audit firm in Paris. 

So I was all set with my French life and my French job ready to marry my French man until...........

My childhood friend popped back into my life, we fell in love and he asked me to marry him..........

After a good few months of mulling it over, I said yes, on the proviso that he take me back to France as often as he could........

He made good on that promise, time and again.....

He knew it was always my dream to own my own little place in the south......

So when the time was right, and the location was perfect........

We took the plunge..........

Here it is: our soon to be little part of heaven.........