Why 8-weeks isn’t enough – and blogging is back on
Last year, as I wrote in an earlier post, I really struggled with the long 8-week summer holiday. This year? Well there was the four week buffer at the beginning, with DD at the Centre de Loisirs part time and DS at crèche, meaning just four weeks to fill – and also only four weeks where it would be virtually impossible to get things done. My predictions re working being a total write off were pretty accurate but deciding not to beat myself up about it on the basis that everyone else living here is also probably off work in August, really helped me to relax into the swing of it. And it helped that the majority of my clients are also France-based, so either off enjoying a holiday themselves or busy working to provide those holidays to others.
With rentrée just around the corner, I’m actually feeling quite down about it. We’ve been having a lot of fun together. Camping was really lovely; a chance to really slow down and focus on quality time together, free from the distractions of the modern age. And over the last 8 weeks the two smalls, DS now 2.5 and DD now 4.5, having really grown and also become close, I think. Where one was a baby and the other was a slightly disinterested sibling, I now have to children who I think are friends: they play together, laugh together, and show that they care for each other (they fight a bit too, but they also seem to be able to work it out – with a small amount of encouragement – and move on pretty fast). It’s a special thing to see them grow together in this way. I think they will miss each other when life starts to speed up again, so hope we can recreate this ambience at the weekends and in the holidays to come.
For my part I’ve had a bit more time to reflect and it’s been nice to turn my attention back to this blog. We’ve been getting out and about, doing touristy things as a family, exploring the area, and I’ve enjoyed writing about some of the things we’ve done over the summer (most of which is still in draft, but hey, we’ve been too busy doing stuff!) I enjoy writing about tech stuff for my work blog over at Languedoc 121 Tech, but really I moved to France for the life, not the work. After many 40-hour corporate weeks I’m trying to resist the temptation to throw it all in and work-to-live, not the other way around.
While riding this wave of enthusiasm, I’ve signed up to a few blogging networks. Whether they’ll lead to an increase in traffic or not is anybodies guess – but what the heck. But, if you’re new here and came via Bloglovin or any other blogging network, I hope you like what you find and enchante!
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