WINTER In Region

Just in case you were looking to live here, despite myths to the contrary, France in NOT warm in winter unless to are as far south as you can go. In this area of France in particular - get used to the word CONTINENTAL... it basically means VERY HOT in summer and VERY COLD in winter, which is why some of the houses we viewed in the area have ski's and toboggans in the hallway. Its also why people come to the region to mountain bike in the summer and ski in the winter - just in case you wondered what folks did with the hills after the snow has gone. If i said its around 3 hours to lake Geneva in Switzerland, it will help contextualise what i mean by actual Hot and Cold.

We went over to do some work on the house in December a couple of years back - please please please, dont do this if youve not got the heating sorted. I have to say though, once the heating is sorted, i plan to go over with the family for Christmas becuase once we came off the motorway and hit the villages, it was a Christmas wonderland, we felt like little kids expecting open presents very soon. We could see there was a fog ahead, and as we drove through this, everything was lit up white, every fence and every tree branch. In the morning it looked like the pic above, absolutely awesome. Summer though was a scorcher, we lived in the above ground pool and didnt want to do much more than sit around with a chilled white wine. Our neighbour across the street was very kind, he brought us over some tomotoes and a courgette, explaining one was for salad, the other for rata touie. Isnt it good that the french collonised us for all those years, it means that most of our english words are french in origin, it means that dispite my poor but growing vocabulary, i managed to keep the courgette away from my salad, not mistaking it for a dwarf cucumber. Ha!

There is part of us which delights to visit, and is sad to leave because there is a desire to stay and actually get to know people - to even belong to them in some way, to throw our lot in with their community lives. Its good if a place makes you feel that!