Happy Festive Season and Best Wishes for the New Year
Meilleurs Voeux pour 2006
http://www.lovelady.org.uk/xmas.htm
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow!
The first "reality" check for our move back to the UK hit today when our offer was accepted on our new house in New Brighton - and we haven't even completed on our French sale yet! As Leah says "complete 'n' utter"!
See more photos of how it currently is at
www.lovelady.org.uk/newhouse/
but it will be getting the white-wall / IKEA treatment once all goes through!
Here we go again!
See more photos of what we're leaving at
www.lovelady.org.uk/pezenashouse/
See more photos of how it currently is at
www.lovelady.org.uk/newhouse/
but it will be getting the white-wall / IKEA treatment once all goes through!
Here we go again!
See more photos of what we're leaving at
www.lovelady.org.uk/pezenashouse/
Friday, January 28, 2005
Monday, January 03, 2005
Welcome to 2005 from Ene!
Hope you had/going to have a good one!
We are still here in sunny (for most of the year) Pezenas. Our house is now on the market because although we have 2 terraces we feel we now need a garden. When we bought this house the terrace seemed sufficient because in the Bristol we rarely moved off the patio area. We thought it would be just the same with a terrace here but we miss that feeling of space. It's important because the life here means you're able to spend a great deal of time outdoors. The housing market is very quiet here at the moment so we'll just have to wait and see.
We stayed at home throughout Christmas and New Year and I have to say it was nice to chill and enjoy the merriment without rushing about. Christmas day started at 4am - Leah woke us but we were able to convince her to go back to sleep, explaining to her that Father Christmas would arrive with a second load if she went back to sleep. We had a Christmas bucks fizz breakfast (Leah had apple flavoured kids champagne) here at home, opened our presents (when Leah realised she had everything that was on her list she said "I didn't realise I'd been THAT good") Later went to friends for Christmas dinner. They have a little boy Harry aged 7 so it works out well. New Year we went to a party right next door...moose (yes, I mean the large antlered variety) on toast with champagne mmmmm interesting.
The life here is great - the inevitable plusses and minuses that go along with living anywhere still exist. Kev is working with a team here in the property and holiday sectors and I've built up a small design portfolio. It's interesting because I probably wouldn't have found this much design work in Bristol because of the mountains of competition. Here I'm able to deal with the many new English-speaking enterprises which are opening up in the area. Leah has flourished here and I think that she, of the three of us, has benefitted the most from the move to France. I knew she was truly bi-lingual when I put a DVD on for her. I forgot to change the language to English and after about 5 minutes I said "sorry Lea' do you want it in English" and she said "Oh yes Mum, I didn't notice". When she speaks English there is a strong Liverpool lilt and it always amuses the English people here (who are all a bit posh). Kev and I had concerns as to whether the language would slow Lea' down at school but her last school report put paid to those doubts. In the end of term exam she achieved 65/70 and out of the 8 elements that the report covers she achieved 6 A's and 2 B's. The day Kev and I read the report we just smiled because she constantly amazes us with her own perfection. As Kev said the other day "even her imperfections are perfect".
Sorry about the long-winded message, it was supposed to read something like...Yes, we stayed in France for Xmas. Yes, Leah is bi-lingual and yes, we're great thank you. Hope you and yours are well. Have a good one!
We are still here in sunny (for most of the year) Pezenas. Our house is now on the market because although we have 2 terraces we feel we now need a garden. When we bought this house the terrace seemed sufficient because in the Bristol we rarely moved off the patio area. We thought it would be just the same with a terrace here but we miss that feeling of space. It's important because the life here means you're able to spend a great deal of time outdoors. The housing market is very quiet here at the moment so we'll just have to wait and see.
We stayed at home throughout Christmas and New Year and I have to say it was nice to chill and enjoy the merriment without rushing about. Christmas day started at 4am - Leah woke us but we were able to convince her to go back to sleep, explaining to her that Father Christmas would arrive with a second load if she went back to sleep. We had a Christmas bucks fizz breakfast (Leah had apple flavoured kids champagne) here at home, opened our presents (when Leah realised she had everything that was on her list she said "I didn't realise I'd been THAT good") Later went to friends for Christmas dinner. They have a little boy Harry aged 7 so it works out well. New Year we went to a party right next door...moose (yes, I mean the large antlered variety) on toast with champagne mmmmm interesting.
The life here is great - the inevitable plusses and minuses that go along with living anywhere still exist. Kev is working with a team here in the property and holiday sectors and I've built up a small design portfolio. It's interesting because I probably wouldn't have found this much design work in Bristol because of the mountains of competition. Here I'm able to deal with the many new English-speaking enterprises which are opening up in the area. Leah has flourished here and I think that she, of the three of us, has benefitted the most from the move to France. I knew she was truly bi-lingual when I put a DVD on for her. I forgot to change the language to English and after about 5 minutes I said "sorry Lea' do you want it in English" and she said "Oh yes Mum, I didn't notice". When she speaks English there is a strong Liverpool lilt and it always amuses the English people here (who are all a bit posh). Kev and I had concerns as to whether the language would slow Lea' down at school but her last school report put paid to those doubts. In the end of term exam she achieved 65/70 and out of the 8 elements that the report covers she achieved 6 A's and 2 B's. The day Kev and I read the report we just smiled because she constantly amazes us with her own perfection. As Kev said the other day "even her imperfections are perfect".
Sorry about the long-winded message, it was supposed to read something like...Yes, we stayed in France for Xmas. Yes, Leah is bi-lingual and yes, we're great thank you. Hope you and yours are well. Have a good one!
Saturday, January 01, 2005
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome
Welcome to the Blog for www.lovelady.org.uk, a site and now a blog dedicated to the Lovelady Family originating from Spooner Ave in Litherland, Merseyside in the UK. Initial posts will be catching up on information as we copy from various sources from past, present (and future!).
Saturday, September 28, 2002
France - Stage 1 & 2
This is just a first note to you all to give you an idea of where we are in this adventure. We say adventure because at times it does seem a little unreal and daunting. The way of life here is (as we expected) very much more laid back but I think this positive facet is being a little overshadowed by the amount of ‘sorting out’ we have to do before we even start thinking of enjoying the lifestyle. We know we’ve lived here before but the pressure was off a little then because we had just ourselves to think of – now there is ‘la petite’ to think of. We’ve now sorted her in a Nursery School and we're sure that this will help her make some longer term friendships. All in all she seems to be taking this in her stride and she continues to be her normal happy self.
We are currently renting a 2 bed apartment in a small town called Pezenas, it’s situated between Montpellier and Beziers with about 10,000 people and is lively although touristy. When we moved into the flat (our arms are still recovering from the 4 floors of moving our stuff in and we are just discovering that we have calf muscles again) we had a few days without electricity and phone but now we are more or less sorted with everything. We are going to find out about our resident papers and the registration of the car (more admin) so slowly but surely things will begin to fall into place.
Pezenas is probably about as small a town as we can put up with and the area seems to be good value for money as regards property so we will be looking initially around here. And if it's not round here it will be more towards Beziers than Montpellier we both got a nicer feel about Beziers.
The cost of living may not be that much cheaper in general (the Euro effect?) but food wise we would say it is better quality, and the wine is just as amazingly fantastic and cheap as ever – as a said life is very much slower (and louder because we live right in the centre) and there are a lot of festivals going on at the moment, although we are a bit more limited in how much of them we take in, being "with child" but we have had our nights of all 3 of us going to bed after midnight.
The region is looking good. The weather is hot & dry or hot & windy or hot & cloudy or hot & stormy - spot the common weather condition! It took us a few days to realise that we didn't have to go mad with the tanning cos we’re not going back to pose in the UK with it so - it's easy does it without the peeling!
Leah is starting her adventures with the language - usually asking for "l'addition" in a bar for us - and somehow she and other kids manage to find a way through the language barrier to play together. She does refer back to her friends in Bristol (she dreamed of Leah, Ella and Barnaby in Pokemonland not so long ago) and wants to know whether this is our house. However, she enjoys being in the water a lot more now (although not when it was blowing a force 10 gale on the beach at Sete and she was getting pebble-dashed with the sand!) and has had some lovely moments with the kids here.
We are currently renting a 2 bed apartment in a small town called Pezenas, it’s situated between Montpellier and Beziers with about 10,000 people and is lively although touristy. When we moved into the flat (our arms are still recovering from the 4 floors of moving our stuff in and we are just discovering that we have calf muscles again) we had a few days without electricity and phone but now we are more or less sorted with everything. We are going to find out about our resident papers and the registration of the car (more admin) so slowly but surely things will begin to fall into place.
Pezenas is probably about as small a town as we can put up with and the area seems to be good value for money as regards property so we will be looking initially around here. And if it's not round here it will be more towards Beziers than Montpellier we both got a nicer feel about Beziers.
The cost of living may not be that much cheaper in general (the Euro effect?) but food wise we would say it is better quality, and the wine is just as amazingly fantastic and cheap as ever – as a said life is very much slower (and louder because we live right in the centre) and there are a lot of festivals going on at the moment, although we are a bit more limited in how much of them we take in, being "with child" but we have had our nights of all 3 of us going to bed after midnight.
The region is looking good. The weather is hot & dry or hot & windy or hot & cloudy or hot & stormy - spot the common weather condition! It took us a few days to realise that we didn't have to go mad with the tanning cos we’re not going back to pose in the UK with it so - it's easy does it without the peeling!
Leah is starting her adventures with the language - usually asking for "l'addition" in a bar for us - and somehow she and other kids manage to find a way through the language barrier to play together. She does refer back to her friends in Bristol (she dreamed of Leah, Ella and Barnaby in Pokemonland not so long ago) and wants to know whether this is our house. However, she enjoys being in the water a lot more now (although not when it was blowing a force 10 gale on the beach at Sete and she was getting pebble-dashed with the sand!) and has had some lovely moments with the kids here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)