One August, when the 39 C heat in southern France, where I live, melted candles and almost melted me, I rented a small house in Brittany’s northwest. Josselin, a lively little town on the banks of the Oust, had a massive Gothic castle, timbered houses, outdoor cafes and endless stalls and stands filled with temptation.

Best of all, daytime temperatures hovered around 19C and some days even required a sweater. It was bliss. Danielle, the ebullient and chatty French-American owner, would be living in the house for a week before she returned to the States. Nearing retirement age, she was counting the days until she could return to France to live full-time again.

Shortly before I arrived, she’d emailed to ask if I would mind Camille, a young French student, occupying the attic bedroom. The girl would be gone all day and was very quiet; as an incentive, Danielle took a hundred euros off my month’s rent. Camille had saved her life, Danielle said without elaborating, and she wanted to repay her.

As Danielle and I ate dinner at the kitchen table one evening, the front door opened, and Camille walked in. A tall, unsmiling girl with lanky dark hair and round glasses. With the briefest of nods, she disappeared. We listened to her footsteps on the stairs as she climbed up to her attic quarters.

Danielle rolled her eyes. “She can be a little moody. She is from Finistère,” she added as though that explained everything.

My summer dwelling, Josselin, France

It was several days before I saw Camille again. Before Danielle returned to the States, she’d given me a tour of Josselin. The congenial little bistro where locals gathered, restaurants she liked and tourist spots to avoid. It didn’t take much persuasion on her part for me to try the local cider and galettes (crêpes) for which the region is famous. Evenings, we’d sit in her kitchen, eat dinner and talk. Danielle elaborated slightly on how Camille had saved her life. The girl had walked in to find Danielle lying unconscious on the bedroom floor. “If she hadn’t found me, I’d be dead,” Danielle said, but seemed reluctant to say more.

After Danielle left, the house seemed changed. Less cheerful, a little eerie. My bedroom was up a flight of narrow wooden stairs just below Camille’s attic room. I’d hear her footsteps on the stairs late at night; sometimes I’d hear her leave in the morning. After a restless night, I went down earlier than usual to make coffee. Camille stood at the sink, then, realising I was there, she quickly disappeared.

Sometimes, she’d return in the early evening, and I’d hear the TV downstairs. Reluctant to go down and talk to her — no idea why — I stayed in my room. I’d set up a writing space in front of the bedroom window — my suitcase upended on a nightstand, my papers out all over the bed. During the day, I’d explore Josselin, eat meals out and be back in my room before Camille returned.

A few days passed that way; I began to feel depressed. I was alone, which I didn’t mind, but not alone because I felt Camille’s presence, whether she was there or not. A week passed with me mostly at my makeshift desk. An email from an agent in the States who wanted to look at a book proposal sent me into a frenzy of rewrites and more rewrites. If I heard Camille downstairs in the kitchen or moving about in the attic above me, I’d wait for her to leave before going down to make coffee, or an improvised meal — usually scrambled eggs with cheese.

Then the sleepless nights began in earnest, followed by a cloud of gloom that I couldn’t shake. I could go for a walk, have coffee, anything, but I didn’t even want to venture out to the post office. It seemed ridiculous, me hermit-like scribbling into the night, creeping downstairs at odd hours, Camille silent but for the floorboards creaking above me.

I thought of Jane Eyre — was I the madwoman in the attic? Who was Camille? And how had she saved Danielle’s life? I started locking the bedroom door.

One evening, I forced myself to leave the house and deliberately stayed out later than usual. There’d been an Irish band playing in the square. I was a fan of certain Irish music; during a trip to Ireland years ago, an upcoming concert by the ballad singer Christy Moore on the day I was supposed to fly back to the States was reason enough to reschedule my flight.

While the Josselin group didn’t wow me, I stayed and listened until they’d finished, then returned to the house. Camille was sitting on the living room floor watching TV. When she barely acknowledged me, I decided to break the silence. In garbled French, I mentioned the Irish music I’d heard. In reasonably good English, she replied that some Irish music was like the music of Finistère, where she was born and where she’d lived for much of her life.

Finistère, means the “end of the earth,” she said.

And then she asked if I’d like her to take me there.

Concarneau, Finistère, France

It’s been nine years since that summer in Finistère, looking through pictures brings back that eerie feeling in the house after Daniele left and the sound of Camille’s footsteps on the stairs.

It all seems strange and far-fetched now — although I’d accepted Camille’s invitation to go with her to Finistère, upstairs in my room I considered making an excuse not to go. If nothing else, I wondered what we’d talk about on the way there. I went anyway. From my journal:

The drive from Josselin to Carantec, in the Bai de Morlaix in Finistère took just over two hours. The landscape on an intermittently sunny August day was less moody and mysterious than I’d imagined, but so was Camille. In Finistère she became animated, no longer the silent wraith who’d appeared behind me in the kitchen.

She pointed out villages I would have driven through without noticing, showed me where her grandparents once lived, told me about festivals, music and local traditions. The further west we travelled, the more she seemed a part of the landscape. I thought of Danielle’s one-word explanation of the girl’s strange behaviour, “She’s from Finistère.”

Some pictures from that day: The Bai de Morlaix and Roscoff.

Her grandparents had lived in Roscoff, a fishing port where locals once gathered seaweed, part of the daily life for those on the Breton seashore. We ate lunch in a cafe, bought ice cream and strolled through the streets. I saw magnificent scenery, small villages and coves I would probably not have found on my own — even with a guidebook.

By the time we returned to Josselin, I felt we’d established enough of a connection that I gave her my e-mail and suggested she might like to visit Languedoc. I would show her around. She smiled.

Inever heard from Camille again. I’d left a note on the kitchen table with my email address, but she never responded. I was disappointed for a while, but in a way it seemed fitting. I can’t imagine her, even briefly, under the hot Languedoc sun.

In her book, The Price of Water in Finistère, Swedish writer Boldil Malmsten wrote, “In the same way as there’s a partner for every person, there’s a place. All you have to do is find the one that’s yours among the billions that belong to someone else; you have to be awake, you have to choose.”

Malmsten chose Finistère after living half her life in Sweden. France feels like my place, even if Languedoc wasn’t love at first sight. For Camille, Finistère was that one place; away from it — even a short distance — she was a different person, not fully alive until she returned.

I once wrote to Danielle; she never responded either. And I never learned how Camille had saved her life.

I recently had lunch with a group of women friends, one of those long, wine-fuelled, gossipy things where the conversation flows easily from one topic to another and carries on even as waiters remove plates and the restaurant empties.

It’s one of the joys of dining out in France, no hovering presence asking if you’re still “working on that. . .” (I loathe that phrasing; should eating be work?) or discreetly setting down the check, “Whenever you’re ready.” What if you won’t be ready for a week? Or ever? In France, there’s none of that. Ready to pay? Just wave down a waiter. You won’t be asked if the food was satisfactory; empty plates are answer enough. And tips appreciated, but not expected.

“So is this going to be a story?” the friend next to me whispered in the middle of a particularly salacious bit of village gossip. I laughed; she knows me well. In fact, while I hadn’t consciously thought about the lunch as story material, I realised that part of my brain, whatever part deals with that kind of stuff, was storing it away — a squirrelly scribbler hoarding acorns for future reference.

I’ve done it for as long as I can remember — at 81, that’s a lot of acorns. My daughter, now in her late fifties, was a teenager with a new driver’s license when I got the call every parent dreads. She was in the emergency room. “She’ll be ok,” the nurse soothed as I dissolved into incoherent sobs. And she was — until I wrote an op-ed piece about it later.

While trying to understand my own feelings about the accident, I’d unintentionally embarrassed her and invaded her privacy. “If I tell you something,” she said long after this offence and, I confess, a few others, “I don’t want you to write about it.”

We cannot silence the punishing, constantly assessing voice in our heads, the one that turns everything that happens, every encounter, every thought, every feeling into a referendum on our lives as a whole. It’s wearing to be perpetually taking your own mental temperature, to be always re-evaluating.Deborah Levy, Hot Milk

Levy, one of my favourite writers, blends memoir, novel, personal reflection and commentary into a hybrid mix she’s described as Living Autobiography. I’ve read most of her books, often wondering where her actual lived experience stops and fiction begins. But it’s a difficult thing to define.

To make a laughable comparison, the nine books I wrote for Harlequin were fiction. They followed Harlequin’s structure, guidelines, and feel-good endings. But most of them carried snippets — or acorns — gathered from my life. My public relations background, an irritating spouse, my equally irritating but unintentionally comic mother.

If I thought my fictional mum was a dead ringer and worried that my real mum would be offended, I needn’t have. She saw nothing of herself in my portrayal. Not even the scene, adapted from my journals, in which she’d practised driving her mobility scooter in the living room and crashed into a team of china Budweiser horses pulling tiny barrels of beer. One suffered a broken leg. My mum said the horses had no business being there.

Memories fade; by the time she read my book, she may have forgotten about the Budweiser bang-up.

I realise the unreliability of memories when I go through the journals that hold my acorn stash. Thirteen years after my move to France, for example, journal entries remind me that my early years in this country were often a bit lonely and not quite as exciting and adventurous as I remember them today.

Change is constant. An idea that seemed so compelling even a week ago seems less so today. Maybe I was angry then, and I’m not now. Or worried, or excited. With time comes perspective. Sometimes. As the late Queen Elizabeth famously remarked about Harry and Meghan’s TV sobathon, some recollections may vary. And by next week, my impressions gathered from yesterday’s lunch might well have changed.

But that’s the thing about writers and the narrator’s voice in our heads — the one obsessively on the alert for material, sorting through details, coming up with interpretations. It’s like a light that won’t turn off, and it’s exhausting.

And yet there’s something even more exhausting. The times when, despite the mental yammering, I sit down to write and, despite years of acorn gathering, my vast mental hoard refuses to yield a single idea. Infuriating and depressing; I fear the creative well may have dried up completely.

But, wait. Perhaps that, too, is story material.

And so it goes.

IN THE STILL FOREIGN COUNTRY OF OLD AGE

This morning I went off to my French group, feeling much as I usually do, except for a horrendous allergy attack. Although the noise level in the village cafe wasn’t exactly conducive to learning, I managed to explain that the tears running down my face were due to herbe et pollen and not tristesse.

While I sometimes feel I’ve made no progress with the language of Molière, my vocabulary has increased — as it should after thirteen years, but let’s not go there. Deep, philosophical conversations will never be possible in French, but I don’t have them in English either. And I can engage in a simple back-and-forth, which I like to think is progress.

I’d felt comfortable joining in the conversation this morning, talking about summer vacations and local restaurants, but about thirty minutes into the session, I realised that I was missing certain words and finding it difficult to keep up.

Checking the English translations just made it worse. I knew this material, had used many of the words and phrases. We were all at roughly the same French level, so why was I falling behind? Embarrassed and frustrated, I was feeling increasingly distanced from the others. It took a while to understand what was happening. And then it hit me.

Hearing loss doesn’t differentiate between English and French — or any other language.

If I miss words, or even a complete sentence in English, I don’t question my command of the language; I have a hearing problem — hard as that was to finally acknowledge. But if I misunderstand something in French, I blame it on my lack of proficiency with the language. While that’s often the case, it’s also true, as it is in English, that I simply haven’t heard.

The question this morning was whether I wanted to own up to that. It’s the whole age thing; I know it, and I’m not proud of it. But somehow the thought of announcing to this group of people I don’t know very well that I have a hearing loss felt more uncomfortable than letting them think I was struggling with my French.

When I once again had to ask someone to repeat a question I hadn’t heard, I decided an explanation was necessary. Everyone was sympathetic and understanding, but I was profoundly uncomfortable. In an instant, I felt my identity had changed. I recognise the vanity in myself. Rather than feeling proud of 81, I’m flattered when told I look younger. The audiologist, who said I should have come sooner for hearing aids, also guessed that I’d had “A fair bit of plastic surgery.” I’ve had none. “You’ll lunch out on that for weeks,” a friend said. She’s probably right.

The working title for my on-again-off-again memoir is Old Age is a Foreign Country. And so is France. Today, debating whether to disclose my hearing loss to near-strangers in a village café, I realised that even at 81, I’m still learning how to live in both countries.

For those who’ve followed my hearing loss saga, I finally did what I probably should have done before reaching the grand old age of 81. I’ll have the first set of appareils auditifs in a couple of weeks; a sort of test run with a loaner pair, before I get the permanent ones. Who knows, maybe they’ll even help with the language of Molière

I could see her from the window in front of my desk. Just across the road, sitting behind her lace curtains. If I looked up for even a moment, her curtains would part, and she’d wave.

I tried to resist. Although I’d just moved to France, I wanted to make progress on the book I was writing, the book I’d told everyone I’d finish. But the novelty of life in a foreign country was distracting, and my elderly neighbour wasn’t helping.

If I walked up to the village shops — the boulangerie, where the man behind the counter first weighed the bread to determine the price, or the epicerie where eggs were sold in brown paper bags — I’d invariably run into her, and we’d stop to chat.

Thirteen years ago, my French was even less proficient (I use the word lightly) than it is now, and our chats were very limited. Mostly she talked, and I smiled, nodded and understood very little.

Stout with coiffed blonde hair and probably on the downside of eighty, Paulette spoke no English, but was, as the French say, très bavard. Or, as les Anglais would say, she could talk the hind legs off a donkey.

One morning when the writing wasn’t going well, I made the mistake of looking up. And there she was, gesturing for me to come over. I succumbed. I hadn’t just come to France to finish my book, I reasoned, I’d come for adventure. Drinking Planter’s Punch in Paulette’s kitchen before noon was a start.

On her sideboard were sepia-toned pictures of a young Paulette with a man who might have stepped straight out of a 1940s gangster flick. And while I understood nothing she told me, her closed eyes and the dreamy, lovestruck expression said it all.

This man was the love of her life. A famous singer. He sang everywhere. In Paris, of course, yes, yes. If she thought I hadn’t understood, she’d repeat herself. Yes, mostly in Paris, yes, Paris. She once lived in Paris, too. And so did the famous singer.

She picked up another picture. Young and glamorous Paulette with her darkly dangerous and very famous lover, who sang all over the world, but mostly in Paris. And famous, very famous. In Paris and everywhere.

How could I not know his name? She stared at me, incredulous. He was very famous. Many women loved him. Many, many. Including his wife. Paulette’s smile faded. She shook her head, returned the photo to the shelf, and refilled my glass.

“C’est triste,” I said. It’s sad. But falling in love with a married man is usually sad.

“Triste?” She rejects the idea. “Non. Pas de tout.”

Of course, he had many women. He was very famous. And very handsome. But, she, Paulette, was his one true love.

We sat quietly for a few moments, drinking our punch planteur. I thought about the young Paulette and her famous long-ago lover. Two glamorous Parisians. He long dead, Paulette, old and stout in a small southern village. Still, she had her own fame — her moules farci (stuffed mussels ) and talking a lot.

And her memories.

That’s the thing about getting old, I’d thought then, it’s the memories that bring joy. Past lives, past loves. At 68, I was probably a couple of decades younger than Paulette, and the past was not where I wanted to dwell. It was why I’d moved to France.

Then she broke the silence with a question.

“Es-tu célibataire?

Was I single? I sighed. “Ç’est compliqué”

Complicated to explain my marital status in English, much less in French.She shrugged in the way the French do. Not important, it seemed to say. I felt my inability to explain in French had disappointed her.

Our glasses were both empty. She rinsed them out at the sink, then sat down opposite me again and stared into my eyes.

You must find a lover. If you really want to speak French, there is no other way.

I laughed. Trying to adjust to life in a foreign country was enough; finding a lover wasn’t exactly at the top of my to-do list.

Then she got up and opened the door. Time for me to go. I left her to her memories — or perhaps to prepare a repas of moules farci — but her words had planted a seed. Would it flourish, perhaps become another chapter in my French adventure? I had no idea. And right then, that was fine.

And did I ever follow her advice?

I’ll let my lamentable French speak for itself.

Thirteen years ago, I made what felt like an impulsive decision to move to France. Had I stayed in the United States, watching the increasingly alarming and bizarre turns of political life, I suspect an old instinct — to escape, to get the hell out of Dodge — would have resurfaced.

Escape has always been my reflex. I don’t honestly know whether I was running from something when I moved. At the time, I called it an adventure, a new chapter. Happily, it was, and still is. My life has expanded and grown richer in ways far beyond my expectations.

But if there was a subconscious motive — perhaps an attempt to outrun ageing, to prove I could still reinvent myself — my body quickly dispelled that notion. Three joint replacements and a growing list of medications made it clear: you can change countries, but you don’t outrun reality.

I’d brought When Things Fall Apart along as a kind of emotional insurance policy, something to reach for if everything did fall apart. Fortunately, despite a few rough patches early on, things held together. Over time, another of Pema Chödrön’s books, The Wisdom of No Escape, began to feel more relevant — and more confronting.

Gradually, I began to see how often I’d chosen escape throughout my life. When my second husband died suddenly of a brain aneurysm just after his 40th birthday, I did what came naturally: I packed the car, took my teenage daughter, and drove from California to Missouri. Barely across the state line, I realized something I didn’t want to admit. Grief had come with us. There was no outrunning it.

The lesson didn’t stick. Years later, in a struggling third marriage, I tried another version of escape — removing myself physically, distancing from the daily friction. It didn’t resolve anything; it simply delayed the inevitable.

As Chödrön writes, there’s a common misunderstanding that the best way to live is to avoid pain and try to get comfortable. We treat discomfort — grief, anger, fear, disappointment — as something to fix or get away from. We escape in all kinds of ways: distraction, consumption, numbing.

Mine has always been more literal. I want to get in the car and go, convinced that if I were somewhere else, in a different situation, I would feel better.

In The Wisdom of No Escape, Chödrön calls this the Elsewhere Mind — the belief that peace or happiness exists somewhere other than where we are. The lesson is simple, but not easy: what we have, right here, is already enough.

I saw this clearly during my first year in France. I was living in a dark apartment with stone floors, no outdoor space, and bits of plaster falling from the ceiling. I told myself I was happy — and I was, in many ways — but I also believed I would be happier somewhere else.

One hot midsummer day, a neighbour drove me to a brocante. She switched on the car’s air conditioning and smiled. “You can’t do without it, no matter what the French say.” She bought a bright yellow tablecloth for her patio and described, in glowing detail, the breeze through her open windows, the golden light of late afternoon, friends arriving for apéros.

I resented her. In her flowy white dress and breezy village house, she embodied everything I thought I was missing. I wanted it all — especially the car, any car, that would allow me to escape my dark apartment and flaking plaster.

But I couldn’t afford a car or a better place. I had no means of escape. I was stuck.

As frustrating as that felt, it was also the lesson. Slowly, I began to see that instead of resenting what I didn’t have, I could let go of the idea that something else was required for my life to feel complete. I could adapt, loosen my expectations, and even see it as part of the adventure I’d come for.

Life, of course, kept offering reminders. After one trip back to the States, my car — by then acquired — refused to start and sat for days at the village garage. My phone stopped charging. My wallet disappeared — cash, cards, everything. As I turned the house upside down looking for it, a mouse ran across the floor.

I tried not to scream.

The irony wasn’t lost on me. None of my usual escape routes were available — no car, no money, no easy solutions. I had no choice but to stay with what was happening.

Eventually, I found the missing wallet under a cushion. But by then, the point had already been made. The lesson wasn’t about solving problems; it was about how I met them. Resilience, patience, a bit more steadiness — even in the presence of a mouse.

We all want to avoid pain and get comfortable. But discomfort is part of life, just as much as pleasure. It isn’t easy to stay with what’s happening, without immediately trying to fix or escape it. Nor is it easy not to cling to the moments that feel good.

Life doesn’t hold still.

Even now, at 81, I still feel the urge to run from what seems like the source of a problem. But I try to remember what Chödrön points out: the problem isn’t always the situation itself, but the assumption that something better lies just beyond it.

The wisdom of no escape isn’t resignation. It’s the understanding that wherever we go — across countries, across relationships — we take ourselves with us. The grief, the longing, the restlessness — they don’t stay behind.

And neither does the possibility of joy.

I found that, even in that first dark apartment with the falling plaster. Looking back, that year — imperfect and often frustrating — was one of the richest of my life. Would it have been the same in my neighbour’s breezy house with the yellow tablecloth?

Who knows?

My great granddaughter Ellie with a toy knitted by her great-great-grandmother

Today, 15 March, is Mothering Sunday in the UK. In the States, Mother’s is 10 May, and in France, where I live, Fête des Mères is 31 May.

I celebrated Mothering Sunday for 17 years in England— I still remember the year my sister and I pooled our pocket money to buy our mum a wicker basket full of daffodils.

Mother’s Day cards were important to my mum — but they had to be mailed

Then we moved to the States, where for decades I celebrated Mother’s Day. Even after I had my own children, somehow it still seemed more of a day for my mum. And woe betide me if a Mother’s Day card didn’t come through the mail at least three days in advance so she could put it on her mantlepiece for other mothers and grandmothers to see. Very competitive, my mum.

Not that my children didn’t celebrate me — at least I assume they did; I’m joking. There were picnics, barbecues and elaborate feasts cooked up by my daughter, and I always felt very special and happy.

Happy memories of past mother’s days with my son and daughter

Moving to France, where mothers aren’t celebrated until the end of May, it all got a little confusing. My daughter — and my son, when he remembers — still send me mother’s day messages on the 10th of May and, except for seeing ads for Fête des Mères, the French celebration tends to pass for me without notice.

My greatgrandaughter Ellie wearing coat, hat and booteees knitted for her mother Emily

Which brings me to the bit of schmaltziness I mentioned earlier. Yesterday, I texted my granddaughter, Emily, in Port Angeles, WA, to say how much I enjoyed seeing the pictures of her daughter, Ellie, my great- granddaughter, that she posts on Facebook. I also had the bright idea that it might be fun to set up a Zoom call, which we plan on doing later today.

Emily then sent me another picture, the one posted at the top of the page of Ellie with her favourite toy — knitted by her great, great grandmother. Other than the great-grandmotherly thing of thinking what a beautiful child she is, it’s the link between generations that made me feel a little teary. My mother loved to knit. She’d haunt the second-hand shops and garage sales for dolls — naked or clothed, it didn’t matter. She’d strip them and knit new outfits, knickers too.

Most of them were lined up along her couch, either newly clothed or waiting for new knitted garments. I’m not sure why she kept the blonde Barbie in a long knitted ball gown in the bathroom. Perhaps because the top kept slipping and a topless Barbie might have shocked the vicar when he stopped by.

Dressed to impress, couture by Dorothy Macdonald, pictures by her daughter

So on this Mothering Sunday in the UK, the spirit of my mum lives on through her knitting — the pink outfit baby Ellie wore four years ago, was knitted for her mother Emily, my mother’s first greatgrandchild, who was also wrapped in a shawl (not pictured) knitted by my mum for my first child — my son, Chris, now 60.

Anyway, please forgive my lapse into sentimentality and my best wishes to mothers wherever you are.

Waiting for the Whibey Island ferry (all photos by author)

It was nearly the end of my last visit to the States. My daughter had planned our two-night stay in Whidbey Island — a 45-minute drive and 30-minute ferry ride from her home in Port Angeles, Washington — almost as soon as my flight from France was booked.

She’d rented a small cabin near the water; there were local mussels from Penn Cove to sample at a couple of nearby restaurants, we’d explore the island, visit some wineries and have a great time.

It was indeed an enjoyable trip. I’d visited the island years ago, but had forgotten how beautiful and unspoiled it was. Thanks to a 40-year-old law signed into effect by then President Jimmy Carter, the island has largely been spared the overbuidling and commercial proliferation that mars so many beauty spots.

I’d felt fine as we took the ferry from Port Townsend, enjoyed a spectacular sunset on the drive to the cabin in Coupeville and agreed that we should walk the short distance to the restaurant rather than drive. But we’d barely started out when I felt myself limping. No pain, just what I’d thought was sciatica, which occasionally flared up.

On the way back to the cabin, the limp had felt even more pronounced. I could see my shadow, lurching between those of my daughter and son-in-law. I felt huge and ungainly and very unsteady. The road was bumpy in spots and my-son-in-law took my arm. Back at the house, we sat around and talked. We’d all travelled a lot together over the years and laughed ourselves silly on numerous occasions.

But, still thinking about the limp, I told them I hated getting old. Aches and pains, hearing loss, the boring litany of ailments that increase as the years pile up. However active and alert my brain might feel, my body was beginning to seem like a recalcitrant thing, increasingly burdensome to lug around. I couldn’t recall ever saying anything like that before, or at least not feeling on the verge of tears as I said the words out loud.

My daughter and her husband were sympathetic and supportive — I couldn’t have asked for a more loving response. But I woke the next morning around six, profoundly depressed. As I still do, I turned to writing to help sort ouf my feelings.

An excerpt from a Facebook post:

I’m in the States, one week into a four-week visit. I live in France, nine hours from the west coast of the US,’ where I am now. Maybe it’s jet lag, time difference, I don’t know, but I’m lying in bed feeling absolutely desolate, and I have no idea why.

Well that’s not entirely true. I’m 78 and in the five years since I last visited, I see a noticeable difference in myself — my hearing for starters. I’m fine with face-to-face conversation, but I’m constantly asking people to repeat things. Voices are too soft. A limp that comes and goes is more pronounced. My stomach is often upset. I won’t go on — nothing major I suppose, just the inevitable stuff of advanced age.

But I fear sinking into a morass of doing less and less and blaming it all on age. This doesn’t feel like me. I’ve written about moving to France at 68 — I’ve always felt adventurous, excited by new opportunities. Suddenly, all that seems to have drained away and I’m not sure how to handle it.

I don’t want to turn this into an even more lengthy piece so I’ll stop here, but I’d be so grateful to hear from anyone who might have some words of advice — maybe even a verbal kick to the backside. Anything. My thanks in advance.

As always, just writing about what I was feeling helped. The many responses, full of insight and wisdom, helped even more. By the time we ate breakfast — my daughter’s coconut pancakes — I felt sufficiently recovered that when my son-in-law said he’d slept like a rock and I misheard and thought he’d said rat, no one laughed harder than me.

It was obviously the day of the rat because later, as we set out to explore, he said there were lots of mudflats and I thought he’d said muskrats. The joke played out through the day. At one point we were driving around the island listening to Captain and Tenille sing Muskrat Love. My apologies if you now have an earworm — or perhaps you’re not old enough to remember the song?

Hearing loss isn’t funny though, and I’ll probably have to do something about mine before long, but laughing sometimes helps. (Three years later, I still haven’t done anything about it, but that’s another story. I will. Really. Update: I’ve just made an appointment!

Whidbey Island, Washington

As we drove back to the ferry on our last day on Whidbey Island, it started raining. It rains a lot in Washington — I never minded that during the years I lived in the state. Often it’s a fine drizzle that gently soaks over time rather than a quick drench. All the watery light creates a monochrome beauty that seems made for reflection and photography.

So I did a bit of both on that last day. While vehicles waited in line for the ferry to arrive, I took a walk along the shoreline. As I picked my way through driftwood, I realised that what I’d thought was sciatica pain was gone, and so was the limp. I felt physically lighter. Earlier, I’d climbed up into the cab of the truck unassisted — that felt like a major accomplishment.

I remembered my mother having difficulty climbing in and out of cars; eventually, it became so traumatic that she no longer wanted to go out. Funny how all the things I remember about taking care of her now come back to me in the form of personal obstacles. Still, I didn’t want to think myself into advanced old age — she was in her late 90’s — any sooner than I had to.

So I stood in the rain and waited for the ferry to appear on the horizon and thought about how the Land of Old Age has its ups and downs just as it does anywhere. France included — one day I seem to be doing well with the Language of Moliere, understanding and being understood. The next, I might as well be speaking Greek

Lots of new experiences since that day on Whidbey Island

Three years ago, at 78, feeling for the first time what I thought were the realities of old age. Three years later, a new understanding, along with joy and discovery. A few months after my return to France, I learned that what I’d thought was sciatica was a failing right hip; a new bionic hip fixed the limp and the pain. The following year, a new bionic knee and then an 80th birthday celebration in Rome. Last year, I took the train to Madrid to meet my daughter and son-in-law for a two-week visit to northern Spain.

That day on Whidbey Island, filled with gloom at the prospect of old age, seems so long ago.

I know now, even as I understood then, that part of life in the Land of Old Age is a gradual coming to terms with recognising that things I once took for granted are no longer so effortless. At the start of my 70’s, I thought of ageing as a superficial thing, mostly about appearance. All that mattered was not looking my age. Maybe maintaining the deception required more serum, more age defying cremes, but bring ’em on.

At 81, I know it’s far more than that. Learning through therapy, after a third joint replacement, to improve my balance and reduce the risk of falls. Learning that old age has numerous challenges — but what doesn’t?

Ultimately, perhaps, it just comes down to attitude. That day on Whidbey Island, limping home from the restaurant depressed me and created a snowball effect. If I hadn’t reached out to a supportive community, without the love and support of my family and friends, I can see how easily this could have been much worse. Talking about the challenges helps.

“What you are feeling is temporary,” Someone wrote to me. “ One day soon, some little thing will happen to rekindle your delight in your life at this age.”

She was right. Old age isn’t a shameful secret — if we’re lucky, we’ll all experience it one day.

Ageing

HAS COMPASSION GONE MISSING?

I was a 12 year-old school girl in southern England when Soviet troops and tanks rolled into Budapest to quell an uprising; Hungarians wanted democracy and freedom from the USSR. Some 200,000 fled to other countries, some to my town. One of the children sat next to me in class. Her name was Ilona, she was pretty and didn’t speak much English, but we all wanted to be her best friend.

Five years later, my mother, sister and I, left England for America. We sailed from Southampton on the Queen Elizabeth — the old one, long incinerated and sunk in Hong Kong Harbour. I never quite grasped my mother’s reasoning for making the move; it was supposed to be just for a year, she said. But other than a few short visits, we never returned to England. Fifty years in America and she still called England home.

In 2013, shortly after my mother died, I moved to France. I was 68 and wanted to see what else life had in store; perhaps that was all my mother had been looking for by moving to America.

People leave their countries of birth for many reasons: many flee from violence, war, hunger and extreme poverty. Climate change or other natural disasters forces some to flee. Sometimes a combination of difficult circumstances leaves little choice but escape.

Work or education opportunities are sometimes the reasons, perhaps it’s to join relatives or friends who are already living abroad. My mother had an aunt in Saint Louis, Missouri and a sister in southern California who agreed to sponsor us should my mother not find work. We were the lucky ones, I suppose, although at 17 it didn’t seem that way to me.

My aunt, who sold furs in one of the big department stores got me a job. During the training session, I was called into an office where a woman pointed to the eczema on my arms and neck and said they couldn’t possibly employ me.

I remember having to catch a bus to downtown Saint Louis to have my fingerprints retaken; eczema had eroded many of the fine lines. I felt like a criminal. When the bus driver couldn’t understand my English accent, I burst into tears.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Marching_in_support_of_immigrants_%28249

Predictably, when I described an article in the UK Guardian about a British couple on vacation in the States who were shackled and handcuffed and spent six weeks locked up in a detention centre, a few responders trotted out the old diagnosis of TDS that has apparently eaten part of my brain causing me to swallow propaganda churned out by the left wing press, rather than ingesting more authorative and accurate sources like, I suppose Fox News.

Whatever.

Held at Ellis Island-undesirable emigrants to be taken back by steamship company that brought them LCCN93512789.jpg Wikimedia Commons

Wewere immigrants. My mum, my sister and myself. I’m still and will always be an immigrant. I’ve never been accused of eating my pets, or committing the sort of heinous acts immigrants are accused of doing — but I do remember being 17, lonely and homesick in downtown Saint Louis with black ink on my fingers from the stamp pad.

That was 1961. Ellis Island, the US Immigration portal for more than twelve million foreign nationals closed in 1954, seven years before my mother, sister and I caught our first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty. I was crying, I hadn’t wanted to come to America anyway.

Before the 1965 quota law was replaced by numerical limits on immigrations, visas were only granted to residents of three countries Ireland, Germany and the United Kingdom — which was how our little family entity passed through. My mum quickly found work as a nurse’s aid in a Saint Louis hospital. But money was always short, Saint Louis heat and humidity was almost unbearable, I had asthma attacks and we were all homesick; I probably complained the most, writing poems about suicide for my mother to see. All I wanted was to go home.

Compared to today’s immigrants, I had it easy.

It has rained a lot this year — endless days of it. And when the rain takes a break, the winds arrive. Languedoc is notorious for its winds; C’est lapays du vent, say the locals. It’s the land of winds. Sometimes the rain and winds put on a duet. I am not entertained. I try to stay home when this happens.

Yesterday, there were important things I’d postponed doing (comme d’habitude) but needed to be done. My glasses had broken; the left lens had a crack and a small hole, which made writing and reading difficult and gave me headaches. The replacement lens were ready, but despite the generous French medical allowance, some costs are often involved.

Money, or lack of it, reared its ugly head. I had almost enough in one account, and more than enough in a French account. Unfortunately, I’d forgotten the secret code to access money from the French account; this is a very bad and stupid thing to do. But, as my partner will readily acknowledge, I frequently do very bad and stupid things.

Trying to explain something complicated to him in English produces much the same lack of comprehension as trying to explain something complicated in French. Except his response is slightly more brusque. “You’re making absolutely no sense,” he’ll say.

I try not to take it personally; in his view, women in general make absolutely no sense. Mostly for this reason, I decided not to try to explain my dilemma and headed out in the wind and rain. Fortunately, or so I thought, I’d found the secret code scribbled on a card in my wallet that I thought might unlock my funds. There’s an ATM in the Intermarche where I usually shop, and I thought this might save me driving to the bank in the next village to try retrieving my funds.

I stuck my card into the machine, entered the code and indicated the amount of money I needed. And waited. My money did not appear, nor did my card. Instead, a piece of paper said my card had been ‘captured.’ The code was obviously wrong; I’d behaved suspiciously.

The women at the Intermarche service desk sighed. I could not retrieve my captured card until tomorrow — which wouldn’t do me much good anyway since I’d forgotten the secret code. I would have to go to the bank in the next village after all.

French villages are ancient and charming, great for strolling. Not so good for finding somewhere to park. I drove around for — it doesn’t matter how long — looking for somewhere to leave my car where it wouldn’t be towed away because it was blocking something (that has happened). I found a spot, parked the car, and walked to the bank.

In fractured French, I explained my problem. It took some time, but I eventually got my money (if this sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because I had a similar banking experience while getting my knee re-educated in Lamalou.) It probably explains why my partner’s eyes roll so frequently; I fear that one day he will not be able to stop them rolling and will take on the appearance of a funfair exhibit.

Anyway, money in hand, I drove to Mégane L’Opticienne, who took my lunettes with their cracked lens and said the replacement pair would be ready in a few hours. Her shop is just across the road from the Intermarche with the machine that had captured my card. Since I had some grocery items to pick up, I left the car in Mégane’s lot and walked over to Intermarche where I bought a cabbage, a package of American-style hamburger buns and special carrots grown in sand; they’re delicious.

I wanted to make coleslaw to go with some pulled pork that would go on the hamburger buns — toasted. The carrots, washed, peeled and grated would go in the coleslaw. A sort of Franco-American repas.

Deep in thought about the meal, I walked across the Intermarche parking lot to the spot where I’d parked the car earlier that morning, before the machine captured my card — completely forgetting that I’d left the car in Mégane’s lot. Convinced it had been stolen, I’d started rehearsing how to explain this to my partner when my memory sprang into action.

To say I was relieved would be an understatement. I didn’t even care that my glasses were still not ready. Since I had another errand to do, in yet another village, I decided to tackle that.

Let me now explain another French quirk, this one about online delivery. Some items can be delivered directly to your home, others are delivered to various shops — the village epicerie, a tabac, the back of a café. You’re sent a code which you must show in order to retrieve the item.

I easily found the tabac where my item had been delivered; finding a parking place was not so easy. Again, I drove around for — it doesn’t matter how long before finding a place. At the tabac, I presented the woman with the notice that my item had been delivered. She shook her head and said something I didn’t understand.

I began to flick through my e-mail — but without my glasses, albeit with one cracked lens, I couldn’t find what I needed. I moved to the side while she attended to other customers and spotted a rack of reading glasses, picked up a pair just strong enough to make out what I needed, then put them back on the rack, showed her the code and received my package.

Mission accomplished. Although I do feel a bit guilty for not buying the glasses.

By then, it was noon, lunchtime, and I was starving. My village was a quick shot down a main road, fifteen minutes at most. Or it should have been. But the rain and the wind had played some cruel tricks.

The road back home was blocked by a yellow and black deviation sign. I followed the sign, which led me up into the hills and left me there; no more signs. I tried, unsuccessfully, to backtrack and ended up somewhere brown and muddy, devoid of anyone to ask. I consulted the two GPS apps on my phone. Waze, the French one, told me to faites demi-tour (make a U-turn). I did, but without much confidence — plus there were ditches everywhere and I’ve had a bad experience with driving and ditches, a story for another time—so I turned to Google maps and was directed back to the village and the deviation sign; now blown slightly askew, it appeared to point in the opposite direction.

I tried Waze again. Apparently unaware of the deviation, it advised me to go straight ahead. So I did, only to be confronted by a metal barrier, another deviation sign and a dire warning about flooded roads.

I could go on for another hour — roughly as long as it took me to eventually find my way home. Mégane L’Opticienne has still not contacted me about my glasses and my text to her has not been acknowledged. I’ve dug out an old pair of reading glasses, which will suffice for now. And tomorrow the bank is supposed to send me a code with instructions for creating another secret code, which I must never, ever forget again. Good thing France no longer uses the guillotine.

So if I’ve been guilty of romanticising French village life, I’d like to set the record straight; not all days are created equal. That said, I really wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

I seldom gave much thought to the three flights of winding stone stairs leading up to our garret in southern France until my first bionic hip replacement three years ago.

A couple of ambulance drivers had to carry me up in a wheelchair after I arrived home from the hospital, two days after surgery. This was before I learned the benefits of spending a couple of weeks in a rehab centre, having first my bionic knee and, most recently, a second bionic hip installed.

A scary descent

I remember the trepidation of standing with the therapist at the top of the stairs and being told I would have to learn the correct way to walk down — not with a long dress and bedroom slippers.

That seems a long while ago now. Three months after the latest hip replacement, I walk up and down the stairs with relative ease — except when I’m very tired, and the recently operated left side drags a bit, which forces me to rely on the stronger right side.

I keep in mind the mantra Philippe, my kiné, taught me. Going up (heavenwards) start off with the good side; going down (where the devil lurks) lead with the bad side.

While I’ve thought of our stairs mostly as a problem to be overcome, arecent today’s Washington Post article gave me a new appreciation of them as an excellent form of exercise.

Movement-tracking studies show even tiny, regular bursts of effort — as short as 30 seconds — can capture many of the health benefits of the gym. Climbing two to three flights of stairs a few times per day could change your life. Experts call it VILPA, or vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity.

“The message now is that all activity counts,” said Martin Gibala, a professor and former chair of the kinesiology department at McMaster University in Canada. “And perhaps nothing’s better than stairs.”

(Fred on the garden stairs and the stairs leading up to the mairie)

And whether it’s the stairs leading down to the garden, or up to the mairie(town hall), it’s practically impossible to avoid stairs. Not just in our village in southern France, but throughout much of what scientists refer to as the world’s “Blue Zones” —including Sardinia, Italy, Greece and Costa Rica, countries and places where a “disproportionate number of people live to be 100 and beyond.”

Although genetics, social connectivity and diet are considered major factors, daily physical activity — especially on hills and stairs — is part of the equation.

In my twice-weekly kinè classes, Phillipe is working to improve my balance by having me stand alternately, and for a count of ten, on one leg. Stairs force you to do just that, albeit for shorter moments. As the article explains:

With each step, you must momentarily balance your entire body weight on one leg. As you ascend — an exquisite feat of neurological coordination — you’re constantly lifting at least 100 pounds into the air, boosting your heart rate and cardiovascular fitness. On the way down, bracing against the pull of gravity, you build bone density and muscle strength, especially in your quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, calves, adductors and core muscles.

Home, office, subway — even a step machine in your living room — counts, the study’s authors say. All stairs work at every fitness level. But if you rarely climb stairs, they stress that you check with your doctor before you start.

(Languedoc, France)

And my own personal suggestion, don’t try stairs with inadequate or missing handrails. Regardless of the health-giving benefits, it’s not worth the risk.

Still, the next time I chastise myself for having done no exercise all day, I’ll keep in mind the times I’ve carried a couple of bags of groceries up three flights of stairs. And, inevitably, when I had to run down — and up again — to make sure I locked the car.

“Exercise doesn’t need to be this special thing you do in this special place after you change into special clothes,” one of the researchers said. “It can be part of everyday life.”

I asked my partner how many times a day he goes up and down our stairs. He estimates six, “And then when I forget things,” (which he frequently does) “it’s even more.”

A true staircase athlete.

Today, for the first time in what seems like weeks, the sky is blue—admittedly not the cornflower blue typical of the Mediterranean, but a more fragile shade punctuated with billowing clouds. The rainy days seem to have gone on forever, with flooding in some areas of the Languedoc and river levels at historic levels.

This vast region of southern France is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the east and the Pyrenees and Spain to the south. It’s wild and rugged garrigue — or scrubland — of dwarf oak, thyme, rosemary, lavender, gorse and broom.

There are also miles of beaches, including a nudist one, but mostly there are vineyards. Miles and miles of them, about three times the combined area of Bordeaux. Someone told me it is possible to walk all the way to Spain without leaving the vineyards. I haven’t been tempted to find out.

Hard to believe, but March will mark my thirteenth year in France—unfortunately, my facility with the language is still at the precocious toddler stage. It’s disappointing, but I try to think of it as a work in progress. Not only did I have no idea it would take so long to learn to learn a language, I knew nothing about the area I’d moved to. Languedoc (now incorporated into the even larger Occitanie region) is France’s largest wine producing region.

Although I’d lived in California for years, I knew very little about wine—other than I enjoyed a glass or two. Vendange, or example, the French word for harvest, meant only the name of a jug wine I’d bought in supermarkets back in the States.

Still, living in one of the seven winemaking villages of the Faugeres appellation ( a legally defined administrative area) has improved my knowledge of wine and all that goes into making it. My next-door neighbour is a winemaker and, within a short walk of my house, there are several other domains and, of course, vineyards all around.

My palate is slightly more refined too — although my budget mostly runs to the cheaper en vrac, wine that you can pump, gas station style, into your plastic bidon. Some of it is surprisingly good.

Life in these winemaking villages tends to follow the seasons. Quiet and, like the vines, seemingly dormant in the winter months with leafless trees and shuttered windows, perking up in spring, lively in summer then winding down in autumn, readying once more for the long winter nap.

“I’d be bored, bored, bored,” a California friend said when I described my life here. “What do you find to do?”

I didn’t say ‘watching the seasons change,’ because I wasn’t sure she’d understand, but I can truthfully say I’ve never felt bored. Observing the changes, I’m keenly aware of the important role the different months play in the life cycle of a vine and the havoc an unseasonal event — such as a mid-May frost can create on newly formed buds.

As I write this, it’s late January and, along with the rain, some cooler temperatures. But even in the darkest, coldest months, when the winds are chill and the gnarled and leafless vines look more like twisted iron than plant matter, I understand that this period of dormancy is a vital part of the growing season.

While all seems quiet above ground, beneath the surface, things are happening. Instead of directing their energy towards producing fruit and leaves, winter is when the vines focus on strengthening their root systems, soaking up soil nutrients and preparing for the emergence of new shoots in spring.

It’s also a busy time for the winemaker; all the vines must be pruned before the first buds begin to show around the third week of March. Wait too long and the sap rises — or as my winemaking friend puts it, ‘the vines cry.”

On my walks, I see solitary figures hunched over the vines, bundled up against the cold winds. But when I sympathised to a winemaking friend about having to work outside she shrugged. Cold weather is necessary to remind the vines not to wake up too soon.” Bourgeonnement, the term for precocious buds that emerge from their protective cocoons while there is still a chance of frost, or even snow, can be disastrous.

Flash forward to spring when Mother Natures spreads her vast and colourful carpet. Clouds of almond and cherry blossom, wild purple Iris and pink rock rose bloom along the roadsides, and fields glow with scarlet poppies. The migrating birds return from Africa and the vines unfurl bright green leaves. Although mornings and evenings can still be cool, the sun hints at the warmth of the summer months to come.

Tiny grapes, hardly bigger than a pin head, begin to form and from May to mid September will expand and slowly ripen under the hot sun. Veraison, another French term I’ve learned since living here, occurs as the fruit ripens and develops sugars. I find it hard to resist a few intensely sweet, sun warmed samples.

Summers are beautiful with cobalt blue skies and fields of golden sunflowers reminiscent of a Van Gogh painting. Tourists and ex-pats from colder regions also love the hot sunshine—a bit too hot for me, fragile flower that I am. Still it’s a lively time. Outdoor cafes serve chilled pale pink wine, boys on motor scooters, careen through the villages like drones of angry bees and village bulletin boards are festooned with neon coloured notices announcing music festivals and fetes.

Dependably long, hot summer days with little if any rain are one of the reasons many ex-pats, especially British, have second homes in this region. In my small village, the population swells noticeably, the weekly markets are full of English speakers browsing the colourful vegetable stalls or shopping for cool and inexpensive cotton clothes, mostly white.

As July drifts into August, the days are a little shorter and the blistering heat lets up a few degrees.

In some vineyards, the grapes are almost ready to pick and, within a few weeks, the harvest, or vendange is in full swing. It’s the most important event on the winemaker’s calendar. The culmination of a year’s work.

Gigantic blue mechanical pickers, the size of double-decker buses, lumber through the vineyards, ancient tractors brimming with navy blue grapes clog the narrow village roads. Even the air seems to smell like wine, drifts of just crushed grapes wafting out from cellar doors.

Unfortunately for winemakers, who must get the crops picked, September is also the start of the rainy season. While some years, the rains are mild, torrential autumn rains, known as Mediterranean episodes, have been disastrous, flooding vineyards and creating destruction.

For the most part though, autumn is a glorious time; Leaves on the vines change to shades of red and gold glowing like stained glass in the soft sunshine. Figs and olives ripen and the flocks of tiny black swifts and house martins that filled the summer skies leave on their long migration to Africa.

By November the vivid colours of summer and autumn fade to monochrome. with and miles of gnarled black vines and pearly grey skies almost the same colour as the doves that perch on my balcony. A treat around this time of year is a distant glimpse of the snow capped Pyrenees.

Christmas lights in the villages and towns and glittering marches des Noel are welcome infusion of colour and holiday cheer — as is the scent and taste of vin chaud (hot spiced wine) sold everywhere.

Before I came to live in this part of France, I imagined Mediterranean areas as all beaches and sunshine. Living here, in my village surrounded by vineyards, I understand that there’s definitely more to the story. Cheers!

During my recent stay in Lamalou, France, for physical therapy following hip replacement surgery, I noticed that my room mate was reading romance novels — in French, of course. Too difficult to explain, en francaise, that I’d written a few bodice rippers myself, so I found an Amazon page with most of my titles, nine in all, and showed it to her. Since she spoke no English, my name was all she recognized. Still, she seemed impressed.

Back home again, I found the French translation of one of the books and dropped it off in her room; I’d been hoping to give it to her in person, but she wasn’t around. Still, I hoped she enjoyed the book even though it wasn’t once of my racier ones.

I’d never read a romance novel and certainly had no thoughts of writing one. I’d been a journalist, then a freelance writer and wrote for corporate publications. Still, l had this idea for a story about a young widow who emigrated from England to St. Louis, Missouri with her two teenage daughters, one a whiny asthmatic.

Although the young widow had no nursing experience, she managed to find work as a nurse’s aide. The pay was low, she struggled to make the rent and the whiny asthmatic was always begging to go back to England. Despite that, the plucky young widow was determined to make life in America succeed.

Although I thought of it as a novel, it was based on my own life. My mum was the plucky young widow, I, of course, was the whiny asthmatic and my sister was the good daughter who went to school and did as she was told.

I figured it had plenty of dramatic potential, but I couldn’t seem to move beyond the part where the three of them are standing on the deck of the Queen Elizabeth watching the Statue of Liberty hove into view.

Since that was my opening scene, I knew I was kind of stuck.

I’d never attempted fiction writing and knew nothing about plot development or much of anything else that goes into a book, then I saw a Saturday class on how to write a romance novel. I didn’t see my book as a romance — I hadn’t really thought of it as anything other than something I wanted to write — but I decided to check out the class anyway.

The instructor was a guy who wrote under a female pseudonym.

Romance writing was easy he assured us. Nothing to it.

You just put a guy and a gal — he used those words — in some sort of situation where they start out hating each other and end up in bed together.

Well, not a bed, he cautioned, too boring. Love scenes should be steamy and anywhere but a bed.

He said he managed to churn out three or four books a year and got to write off exotic vacations and expensive meals.

You’ve always wanted to go to Greece? Set your romance on a Greek island . . . which of course you can only research by actually visiting.

Make your hero the devilishly handsome, but temperamental chef in the island’s most expensive restaurant. Maybe the heroine is a young and naive girl from Wisconsin who wants to break out of the rut she’s been in. Then let the ouzo flow and the sparks fly.

Just remember to detail all your expenses.

It sounded good to me. I could barely wait to get home and start writing.

Still keeping to real life, I removed the young widow and her daughters from the deck of the Queen Elizabeth and put the widow in a hospital working as a nurse. Everyone loved her and told her what a lovely English accent she had. Not that far removed from my mum’s stories about her work experience.

I wasn’t sure what to do about a hero though. My mother didn’t date — between struggling to pay the rent and a whiny asthmatic teenager, there was no time. Since she worked in a hospital, a doctor was an obvious choice. But why would he hate her?

At that point, the story began the drift into fiction.

My hero, Martin, a dark and tortured type from Northern Ireland, just sprang fully formed from my brain. No idea why, he wasn’t remotely like anyone I’d ever known.

Except . . .maybe Robert Fuller who played Jess Harper, a ranch hand on the old TV show Laramie. At fifteen, I’d had such a mad crush on him that I drew his profile and mine engaged in a passionate lip lock.

Robert Fuller, aka Jess Harper from the TV show Laramie, my Harlequin hero

In my head, I suppose Martin did look quite a lot like Jess. I could imagine nurses at the hospital getting crushes on him and calling him the Irish Dr. Dreamy.

But, of course, he would only have eyes for the young widow— I’d decided to name Catherine, not my mother’s name, but it would have felt weird to have Martin making out with a character who in real life was my mum.

Then I drifted further into fiction and made Catherine tall, though not as tall as Martin, with long brown hair worn in a braid that reached halfway down her back. As he discussed patient care with Catherine, Martin would be mentally unbraiding her hair.

Sparks soon began to fly. As soon as Martin hears Catherine’s English accent, he makes some snide comment about the English; she shoots back with something snotty about the Irish and they’re off.

But beneath the frosty exchanges, temperatures are rising. They can hardly keep their hands off each other.

Stoking the emotional heat, I bide my time before putting them together in an empty room where they’re about to succumb to temptation on a hospital bed. Just in time — before clothing is removed — I remember the romance guy’s warning about beds so I change location to an empty office and the top of a desk.

Pretty soon they’re making love all over the place — never the bed though — and then he asks her to marry him so they can all start a new life together,free of Anglo-Irish conflict. The end.

Or so I thought. The story came in at around 10,000 words. I’d need at least 50,000 more for a book. How to, no pun intended, flesh it out? I needed more conflict — the Anglo Irish sniping wasn’t enough, especially after they’d made passionate love all over the place; except for the bed.

I did a major overhaul, moving my original idea still further into fiction.

The young widow became a California divorcee with a jerk of an ex-husband, I eliminated the good sister and traded the whiny teenage daughter for a ten-year-old son. Asthmatic, but not whiny. And, since I’d never been thrilled with the doctor-nurse thing, I gave Catherine a job in the hospital public relations department.

Once again, real-life offered some inspiration. The ten years I’d spent in corporate PR for a large healthcare organisation had provided me with a treasure trove of horror stories I could put to good use.

I’d also just finished writing an article on neonatal intensive care units for the Los Angeles Times and the subject fascinated me — all the medical advances that allowed NICU specialists to save these tiny and fragile premature infants. Loads of drama and pathos there. I made Martin a neonatologist and put him to work saving tiny babies.

The story was moving ever further from my original idea. My mum was disappointed to learn that she wasn’t going to be immortalized between the covers of a book, but I promised her a starring role in the next one.

I felt satisfied with the book’s progress, thanks in part to advice and guidance from a critique group, mostly women who also wrote romance. But eventually that group folded and I joined a group that included three men who wrote macho guy stuff.

It wasn’t a great mix.

Every Thursday, for nearly two years, I’d bring in my ten pages to read aloud. While the guys didn’t exactly snicker when Catherine took long bubble baths and wondered if Martin really loved her, I ended up anticipating their reaction and toning down the mush — or introspection as I preferred to think of it.

Inevitably, their influence rubbed off. Before long, Martin, my sensitive and introspective hero, was displaying flashes of anger, throwing chairs through windows and talking in monosyllabic grunts. Just like the macho heroes in the men’s books.

By the middle of the book, I loathed Martin and Catherine’s moping was getting on my nerves. So I dumped them and started a new book.

This one, set in the west of Ireland starred Niall, known for his artistically moody black and white photography and a red-haired American writer called Kate who may or may not have seen Niall pushing someone off a cliff.

At first, I had better luck with Niall and Kate. An agent I met at a conference liked the book and wanted to represent me.

And then dropped me a month later.

Discouraged, but undaunted, I returned to Martin and Catherine. Martin became more sensitive and introspective and had some reservations about the ethics of saving ever-smaller babies.

Now not even a germ of the original idea remained.

One afternoon, I got a call from a New York agent to say that he liked the three chapters he’d read and wanted to see the manuscript. When I signed with him a few weeks later, he asked how I saw the book. The previous agent had asked the same question. And my answer had been just as vague.

“It’s kind of a romance, I guess, but not exactly . . .”

I have the stack of rejection letters he passed on to me. They praised my writing, complimented me on the characters and plot but essentially echoed the reasons my first agent had given for her failure to sell the book

Not enough romance, not exactly a mystery, doesn’t quite fit anywhere.” “It falls between two stools,” one editor said. I’m guessing she didn’t mean that literally.

My agent didn’t formally release me from my contract, but when I sent the Irish book he wrote back to say he couldn’t represent it.

He also gave me a piece of advice. ‘You are writing somewhere between contemporary romance and good contemporary literary fiction,’ he said. ‘If you want to get published (and not just write) you have to make some more focused choices . . .’

Lesson learned. I amped up the romance between Martin and Catherine then sent the much-revised manuscript off to Harlequin. They bought that book, then the Irish book and over a few years, seven more. My original—and high-minded, title—for the first book was, “A Degree of Compromise,” which I felt reflected Martin’s dilemma—but also indicated my complete lack of knowledge about what sells a romance.

It was strange to hold that first book in my hands. Stranger still to consider the long journey it had taken from the young widow and her daughters on the deck of the Queen Elizabeth to romance in a California hospital.

As promised, I gave my mum — much older by then — a role (fictional) but based on an actual incident, in a subsequent book. She insisted that the elderly mother I’d created was nothing at all like her.

I think she really wanted the young widow role.

I’d never heard of Helen Garner (perhaps not being Australian) or the Bailie Gifford Prize for non-fiction, which she recently won. I’m not even sure how I happened on the news — except that while I was lazing around in Lamalou-les-Baines waiting for, then recovering from, my bionic hip op, I was unable to do much but hobble into the village, churn out a few pieces and read.

A few weeks earlier, I’d written about Virginia Woolf’s diaries and her bouts of self-doubt — even important writers get them! And then, in the Guardian, Garner’s comments on winning the prize. “I never thought anyone would even finish reading it, let alone give it a prize.”

“I’ve never believed I was a real writer,” she said. “I’m just a woman scribbling things down, trying to make sense of them.”

While I knew nothing about Garner, she’s the prolific author of several novels, the first, Monkey Grip, described as “famously autobiographical,” several plays, and numerous essays. She hasn’t written an official autobiography, but it’s been argued that much of her work is in fact autobiographical.

In an interview with the Guardian, Garner explains that she’s always kept diaries, simply to keep track of life “while it rushed on by.” Diaries, she said, are a way of noticing life and relieving the pressure of unexpressed thought.

Although large parts of Garner’s diaries ultimately came out in her published books, she says she preferred the raw, unpolished emotion of the diaries to the edited and polished form of the finished books.

“In my heart I always liked my diary better than anything else I wrote.”

Lett’s Schoolgirl Diary and a page of Abigail Scott Duniway’s diary of the Overland crossing.

I’ve kept diaries since childhood. Memories of presents from Christmases past always included diaries for me to fill, usually Lett’s Schoolgirl Diary, dark green, like the one pictured above. Somewhere in the chaos of stuff that survived my travels from England to the US to France, a few diaries remain.

Unlike Abigail Scott Duniway whose 1852 diary detailed the family’s overland crossing to Oregon and was later the basis of her novel, my diaries recorded nothing much more interesting than “Mummy went to church, and we had egg on toast for tea. Later, in my teens, typical entries ran along the lines of: “Skipped night school again and snogged for hours with Sid.” (translation for non Brits: making out)

Fortunately, I kept up the habit — diary entries not snogging with Sid — and in adulthood, entries grew more extensive and interesting. Therapeutic too.I completely understand Garner’s comment about writing to ‘relieve the pressure of unexpressed thoughts. Rather than simmering for hours over a problem or a disagreement, I write about it, and the relief is almost instantaneous.

Fine if the diaries are meant for your eyes only, but, as Garner discovered, publishing intimate thoughts, especially those involving other people, is often problematic. But she decided that if she were going to write less than flattering observations of other people — ex-husbands, ex-friends, her parents — she would be just as hard on herself

Which she has been. Writing in The Australian, Kate Legg says of Garner, she’s “prepared to reveal intimate, rather shameful things. Things that most of us wouldn’t cough up with a gun to our head.” Insecurities, sneaking vanities, humiliations, small mean moments, shameful thoughts, paranoia, and self-loathing- the list goes on.

Isuppose there’s a balance between digging that deep and staying on a safer, less revealing level. I remember writing about my early years in France. While published pieces tended to dwell mostly on the excitement of the new experience, my personal diaries revealed the lonely moments, the money worries, the guilt I felt after a friend wrote in an e-mail that she could never live so far from her children and grandchildren. The line that got to me was, “If you’re at peace with it, so be it.”

That line played over and over in my brain. What was wrong with me? What maternal gene was lacking that I’d chosen to do it? Perhaps someone like Garner would have explored her feelings more fully, worked them out, written about other examples of maternal deficiency, got it off her chest and to hell with what people thought about her.

It would take a certain amount of courage to be that kind of writer. I’m not sure I possess it.

I do admire Garner’s achievements, though.

I was 68 when I moved to France from the US — just about at the end of what scientists in a recent study refer to as four pivotal “turning points.” They occur around the ages of nine, 32, 66 and 83.

Skipping quickly over the first two because they happened so long ago, I zeroed in on the third and fourth — 66, which marks the “early ageing” phase and “late ageing” starting around 83. According to the study, these final two turning points are defined by decreases in brain connectivity, “believed to be related to ageing and degeneration of white matter in the brain.”

Reading this, I had a thought. I’d viewed moving to France as quest for adventure. Now I’m wondering if it was just decreases in brain connectivity — you know, degeneration of white matter.

I prefer the adventure explanation.

Still, I arrived not knowing a damn thing about pretty much anything; what living in a small village without transportation would be like and unaware that the place I’d rented sight unseen would border on unlivable. I’d given little thought to health issues — other than chronic eczema for which I’d packed a supply of cortisone. Essentially, I just stuffed three bags with my laptop, clothes and a duvet cover my daughter had given me (comfort in case I felt homesick) then flew off into the great unknown.

Regardless of what prompted the move, my early 70s — the tail end of early ageing — were thrilling. Ageing was mostly an abstract concept — something that happened to people far older than me.

Living it up in a Munich beer hall

My early 70s functioned much as my 60s — except that life in Europe was more interesting and adventurous than it had been in a small Washington town where Saturday movies with the “girls” and Sunday night dinners had started to wear on me. I knew I’d miss my family, but they had their own lives. I wanted something more.

My impulsive move gave me exactly that. I felt adventurous and unencumbered. I’d started a new life, a romantic relationship that involved last-minute flights or trains to Germany and Switzerland. One year, with a female friend, we’d decided Hungary would be interesting. I’d eaten breakfast at home in France, lunch during a layover in Rome and enjoyed a late dinner at a Budapest restaurant. I could barely believe my new life.

In my early 70s, I rarely gave a thought to health, decline, or mortality. My body felt reliable, cooperative, and — most importantly — it didn’t demand attention.

Falling in love

Just before I turned 74, I did the unexpected and fell in love; he lived in England, I was firmly committed to life in France. For a while, still without thought of age-related concerns, we flew back and forth. Then, while visiting him in England, I had my first hint that health could have a few tricks in store. My lifelong asthma was well under control, but sudden attacks of breathlessness almost caused me to pass out. I turned out to be severely anaemic. No cause was found, but a blood transfusion resolved the problem.

My partner was visiting me when Covid broke out. Flights stopped; he couldn’t return to England. Contrary to all previous vows —we decided to live together. The days of impromptu travel were over, replaced by a pleasant, more domestic relationship (or as domestic as I’m ever likely to be).

Then at 78, what had been dismissed for months as sciatica turned out to be degraded hip cartilage — bone on bone, as the surgeon explained. Within weeks, I had a new bionic hip.

The surgery itself went well; emotionally, it was a rude surprise. I hadn’t abused my body, yet there I was, suddenly confronted with the fact that joints have opinions, and they don’t always share them in advance. I remember feeling oddly betrayed, as though my right hip had broken a long-standing agreement we’d never actually discussed.

Apparently, it’s not an unusual reaction. The late 70s, I understand, are when many people experience their first real “physical reckoning” — a moment when the body shifts from background support to active participant. Knowing this now doesn’t change how it felt then, but it does make me slightly less personally offended.

Six months after knee replacement, I celebrate my 80th birthday in Rome

Six months after knee replacement surgery, I celebrated my 80th birthday in Rome with my friend Kit. We walked and walked, me wth my cane tapping the cobblestones. Early the following year, I took the train to Madrid to meet my daughter and son-in-law for a trip around northern Spain. And more walking, this time, sans cane.

Now at 81 and recovering from the third joint replacement, this time my left hip, I’d like to feel like 70 again — and occasionally do — but I mostly feel like an old car that keeps needing replacement parts. Earlier this year, we went on a five-day Mediterranean cruise. My left hip — with no sense of timing — started sending warning signs shortly before we left. Not wanting to postpone the trip, I had my doctor prescribe a short course of cortisone. It worked until the ship docked back in Marseille. I had to use a cane to walk off the boat.

The sense of betrayal has faded. In its place is something closer to a working relationship. I look after my body — walking, therapy, attention to diet, etc. It looks after me. Within reason. The reality is, even in my early 80s, I don’t have the energy I did 10 years ago. The last trip back to the States was physically exhausting; I abandoned vanity and ordered a wheelchair. I also need more sleep than I once did. When darkness falls, I rarely want to leave the garret. I no longer drive at night — cataract surgery could probably address that, but honestly, I have no great desire to go out at night.

Just as my 70s changed over time, I wonder what the mid-80s will bring. As I recover from the latest surgery, I hope to return to walking in the vineyards and depending less on others. Writing and reading will remain central to my life. Staying engaged probably will too, though, as the world grows increasingly grim, I feel less drawn to it.

Mostly, I remind myself that ageing is not a one-off event, it’s a continuing process. And, of course, we all age differently.

My mum with friends, and, at 98, deciding the rainbow wig wasn’t a good look

And, assuming I get there, there’s the question of the 90’s. While physical frailty becomes more common, mental engagement varies widely. Some people decline significantly; others remain surprisingly intact. The list of celebrities still active in their 90s grows ever longer: writer and feminist Gloria Steinem, actors William Shatner, Clint Eastwood and comedian Mel Brooks, to name a few.

Lifestyle factors seem to matter as much as genetics — staying mentally active, socially connected, and emotionally flexible. My mother gives me a reference point. In her early 90s, she knitted constantly and still acted in community theatre — until she decided the publicity pictures made her look too old. Vanity must be genetic.

Until the last couple of years of her 90s, she remained in good health. Weaker, certainly, but mentally alert and interested in the world. She read, followed what was going on, and stayed engaged in her own way. Watching her taught me that great age doesn’t automatically mean mental disappearance, even as the body slows.

Thinking about 100 also brings to mind Calvin Tomkins, whose New Yorker essay Becoming a Centenarian I recently read. Superman, as he once thought of himself, has become “Feebleman.” He writes with dry humour about physical decline, adult diapers, and worsening eyesight. Now, legally blind, he still travels, visits galleries, and continues to write. His world has narrowed, but it hasn’t gone dim.

By the time my mother reached 100, her world had narrowed too. She’d stopped knitting her elaborate projects — Snow White and the seven dwarves, fully clothed, with removable underwear for reasons unknown — and spent her days by the window watching the birds in her garden. She spoke clearly about her frailty. “The only thing that bothers me,” she said, “is I won’t know what’s happening.”

She died two months after her 100th birthday, content and at peace. She had lived her life.

If there’s a lesson here, it may be that ageing well has no single definition. It can be busy or quiet, outward-looking or inward. What matters isn’t how large your world remains, but whether it still offers something worth paying attention to. Expect change, but don’t assume catastrophe. And cultivate interests that don’t require perfect joints.

Ageing isn’t a single story. It’s a series of chapters, each written in a slightly different voice. So far, I’m still interested in reading the next one — and I hope the surprises it brings are mostly pleasant.

And I’m exhausted

It’s the day after Christmas, or Boxing Day as Brits and ex-pat Brits call it. As a child growing up in England, it was a day to go to a pantomime. I used to think nostalgically about that during the years I lived in America where the day after Xmas was all about returning unwanted gifts and getting things on sale. Sadly, I’ve discovered it’s now pretty much the same way in England.

But I digress. I’d written this piece a week after I was discharged from Lamalou’s Limb Reeducation Centre, where my left hip spent several weeks adjusting to its bionic replacement and learning to be strong and supportive once again.

I’d written that it was hard to believe I’d been home a whole week. It’s now been about three weeks, but, you probably know how it is, time has a way of getting away from you, especially around the holidays.

Anyway, while I’m adjusting to being home again, that first week was exhausting. . but also joyful.

My partner had put up our version of holiday decorations and welcomed me home with tears in his eyes, and assurances that the garret didn’t feel like home while I was gone. We don’t exchange holiday gifts, but if we did, he couldn’t have given me anything that meant more.

Homecoming was on Friday. Saturday, in the middle of a French vineyard, the annual Marché de Noël was underway. We drank vin chaud and ate fried rice and nems (egg rolls) from the Asian takeaway stand; the owners have a restaurant in the village — she’s Chinese, he’s Belgian, I think. And there was a Union Jack-bedecked stand selling things like Colman’s Mustard powder, Yorkshire Tea and Marmite for the huge gathering of British ex-pats homesick for such things.

Plenty of French wine was available, too.

Sunday, I tested my new hip by tackling the steps leading down to the garden; I’d already mastered the ones up to the garret. Piles of fallen leaves on the garden steps made the going a little precarious, but, even though I’m down to one cane — and sometimes hobble around unassisted- I used two just to be safe.

Monday’s rain dampened my plans for a walk, so I gave the hip a rest, which was fortunate because Tuesday started my thrice-a-week physical therapy program. Philippe, the physical therapist, or kiné as they’re known in France, is a lanky lad with a mop of curly brown hair who looks as though he might have recently graduated from high school — his confidence and obvious knowledge immediately won me over. An hour of therapy under his tutelage also exhausted me for the rest of the day.

Friends Stella (left) and Gwyneth enjoying cassoulet and a little medicinal rosé.

Wednesday, I returned for another session, this time with my friend Gwyneth, who is seeing Phillippe for shoulder pain. Similarly exhausted after an hour, we met up with another friend for a lunch of excellent cassoulet and a pichet of rosé — it helped counteract the exhaustion.

Apres the salon, hair still wet. A cost-saving measure

Thursday, another session with Philippe — three a week, then a list of exercises to do at home, followed by one of those visits I put off for as long as possible. The hair salon. To save money, I skipped the blow-drying and left with my locks still damp. My partner said he couldn’t see any difference. I, of course, took offence and argued, but I couldn’t see much difference either. It looked better once it dried.

Last year holiday market, Beziers, France

Friday, we’d planned to go to the holiday market in Béziers, but it had been raining all morning and showed no signs of stopping. Perhaps the weather will improve tomorrow. Actually, with no therapy session until Monday and my hip feeling a little cranky, I’m happy to give my body a rest and do absolutely nothing. My partner has also been very good at making this possible; he’s done all the cooking this week. Another holiday gift I greatly appreciate.

So, five weeks and a few days since my bionic hip op, and life, I’m pleased to say, is gradually returning to normal. And, once again, many thanks for all the well wishes; my new French hip has responded well to the encouragement and says merci bien. Fortunately, I can’t actually hear it saying that (or I’d have something else to worry about), but I’m sure that’s the sentiment.

I hope every one is having an enjoyable holiday season and wishing you all a happy and peaceful (please, please, please) 2026

If you’ve noticed I’ve been a little quiet these past weeks—or even if you hadn’t—I had hip replacement surgery last month and, thanks to French medical health care I’m now having in-house physical therapy, or limb re-education as the French call it. All is going well, I’m walking, probably a little too much, and managing to do most of the things I did before surgery.

This is my third joint replacement in just over three years.

I don’t know how long I’d been walking with a slight limp, probably soon after I arrived in France in 2013, at age 68. It wasn’t constant or painful and happened mostly when I was tired. I never really gave it much thought, except when a guy I knew commented on it.

It comes and goes, I said. That went on for years, until about 2020. Out on a walk with my partner, he took a video, from a few steps behind, of me walking. My whole body, from the shoulders down, seemed to twist to the right; all my weight fell on my right hip and leg. Still, I felt no pain — other than vanity, it wasn’t exactly a sexy look— and continued daily walking.

But I gradually became more aware of the limp; I’d watch my shadow as I walked and even wrote a piece, “My Shadow is Limping.” By 2023, even though there was still no pain, the limp was noticeably worse. During a vist with my family back in the States, the whole right side of my body seemed to suddenly cave in. I grabbed a table for support and went to bed depressed. This, I thought, is what getting old is like. Even then, I didn’t think, and no one had suggested, that it might be hip-related.

By the next day, the limp seemed less pronounced, but back in France, while walking through the airport to meet my partner, I felt a sharp tug in my groin. Four months later, with pain so severe, I’d started using crutches, I was in surgery having my right hip replaced.

Flash forward to this summer when, during a walk with my friend, Gwyneth, I felt a sudden and familiar pain in my left groin.

Over the next few days, it grew steadily worse. I booked an appointment with the surgeon who’d replaced my right hip. While the left hip had more mobility and flexibility than the pre-surgical right — I could at least put weight on it — an earlier x-ray had shown the start of something like a bone spur.

When I sighed at the thought of another joint replacement, the surgeon said there were options we could try: cortisone injections, various forms of pain relief. Then he looked at me, “But sooner or later . . .

What to do? It was a quandary. Although the first hip replacement had gone off well, I felt inclined to postpone surgery for as long as possible. It had been a year since I’d had my right knee replaced. Couldn’t my left side hold out a little longer?

My thinking had more to do with emotion than logic.

No other way to look at it; bodies eventually fall apart. You think you’ll go on running up and down the stairs, that the 80s won’t be so different from the 70s, that you’ll just keep chugging along. But you won’t. Or maybe you will, but not quite as efficiently as you once chugged.

I told the surgeon I’d think it over, arranged for a cortisone injection in my hip, some pain killers and, since we were leaving for a five-day cruise we’d booked months earlier, got a prescription from the village doctor for prednisone.

The beneficial effects lasted until one day before the ship docked — I had to get a cane from the ship’s infirmary to walk back to the car. Back home, I immediately e-mailed the surgeon to say I’d decided to have surgery.

It’s been just over two weeks since surgery, and the difference in the recovery progress between my right and left hips is remarkable. Using crutches, I regularly walk into the village and, daily, manage strenuous physical therapy sessions. A week after my right hip, I was still using a walking frame and hadn’t left the apartment. The explanation for the difference in healing, I’m convinced, is that as soon as I felt pain, I didn’t delay.

Among the many encouraging and supportive responses I received from readers were those urging me not to delay. A quote:

Surgery and recovery go so much faster when you are already reasonably fit. If you wait until you are disabled by the pain, your mind may be at peace, but the rehab will be a bit more arduous to tolerate. My husband had his hip replaced and then, later, his knee. He does at least an hour of cardio on a stationary bike every day. He is 81. I have had spinal surgery and both shoulders operated on, and I am 70. I am all for repair, replace and then enjoy an active life!

Someone else had a similar take based on his experience with knee replacement. “My bottom-line advice,” he wrote. “Don’t delay. Have the surgery, and the sooner the better; age takes its toll despite our best efforts to prevent it.”

Getting old, as someone said — I forget who, because I’m old — isn’t for sissies, but we’re so fortunate to be living in an age where medical technology can get us back on our feet and going for a few more miles. Whatever temporary pain and discomfort surgery might involve, it’s a damn sight better than toughing it out.

I do have to say, though, I hope my left knee demonstrates a determination to stand apart from my other limbs. At least for a couple more years.

They come in all shapes and sizes, expectations. Silly ones (although not at the time) that this new hairdresser will actually understand how I want my hair cut. I left the salon in tears.

Or, when I lived in Washington State, after a series of promising e-mails and phone calls with a guy on Whidbey Island, we agreed to meet. I would meet his ferry. I waited — full of expectation — hair blowing in the wind as the ferry rounded the bend. He’d sent a couple of pictures, but as the ferry drew closer, I couldn’t pick him out from the passengers waiting to file off. He’d described himself as ‘sort of a Woody Allen lookalike.’

A short, stout bald guy waved at me. Twas he. By the time we made the 13-minute drive to Coupeville, where we’d agreed to have lunch, I knew his life history while I, of course, remained an enigma. Although if he’d asked a single question . . . Expectations dashed.

A minor expectation compared to some. We’ve all had them. Things that didn’t turn out as we’d expected. Dreams, hopes, careers. Relationships. Sometimes — no not sometimes, pretty much always — it’s better to go in without expectations, or at least keep them to a bare minimum.

Your sense of self, your identity, is derived from your thinking mind — in other words, what your mind tells you about yourself: the storyline of you, the memories, the expectations, all the thoughts that go through your head continuously and the emotions that reflect those thoughts. All those things make up your sense of self. Eckhart Tolle

Expectations, whatever they are, set us up for disappointment when reality falls short of the picture we’ve created. We expect too much — from ourselves, from others — even from travel. I once wrote about a young American blogger from San Francisco who arrived in Lyon, France, on New Year’s Eve full of dinner expectations. Escargot and foie gras, the lot. To her dismay, everything was closed, even McDonald’s.

Things went downhill from there. Speaking on TikTok from the banks of the Rhône, a tearful Angela said that while she had no trouble socialising in Italy or Germany, the French seemed “very indifferent.” And she’d even bought a pink beret, hoping it would help her fit in. Expectations dashed, she sobbed that “France had made her cry.”

Go through life expecting too much and hurt, frustration and disillusionment are bound to follow. The advice, as I understand it, is that instead of expecting, we just allow people and events to unfold as they are. It’s less traumatic than disappointment and you may even be pleasantly surprised.

Sounds good in theory, but it’s not easy in practice. So here we are, a pleasant, maybe even romantic weekend. At least that was my excpectation. But I’m aware that the conversation and the actual experience aren’t quite the rosy picture I had in mind. Or in restaurant speak: this wasn’t what I ordered.

And that’s the problem. Things weren’t happening in the way I’d expected. So do I stomp off, slam the door — or just before slamming it, scream the most insulting thing I can think of? Well, that’s what I wanted to do, but it wouldn’t really help much (or so I’m told).

Instead:

1. I pause

2. Name the feeling: in this case disappointment. . . maybe just a soupçon of anger.

3. I breathe for ten seconds.

4. I say quietly to myself: “Let it be.”

Finally, I guess you — or I — might ask, what have I learned from this?

“Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”
― Alexander Pope

Things have not been easy lately — I know, I know, I live in a peaceful French village and to say things are not easy is, for much of the world, a vast understatement. But this is my story, and things are not easy right now.

My partner has had a hacking cough for weeks; not to spread whatever is causing it, he waited outside the surgeon’s office while I went in to talk about my left hip showing signs of giving out. The surgeon agreed that surgery would inevitably be necessary.

As I talked to my partner about it, I started crying. The sound was almost drowned out by his fit of coughing. Everything seemed horrible, like a dark cloud hanging over us. He was feeling miserable, and so was I. We were testy with each other. The thought of tackling the stairs up to the garret, hobbling around with a cane, feeling needy and self-pitying — it was getting to me.

I wish I could just shut myself away somewhere until all this was over, I said. Though my partner didn’t say so, I imagine he agreed.

That night, an email from my friend Jodie, who lives in a village about 25 minutes from ours. She’d been trying for more than a year to sell her old and beautiful house; after various deals fell through, she’d taken it off the market. Although she hadn’t known about the surgeon’s visit, she was aware of the trouble I’ve been having with my hip and was just checking in.

Rotten news re the hip. All those stairs? I’ve just had a thought, after next week my apartment is empty with no bookings till Feb next year. If you felt like a change of scene it’s yours. Two single beds or can be pushed together. Central heating, hot shower, own kitchen only four steps to get into the flat. Lamalou isn’t particularly interesting just a very pleasant place to take a break. Think it over , I mean it, might do you good to have a change of scene for a weekend, a week…whatever. If you feel the need for a leap out of your life in a quiet restful place, let me know. It’s a small way I might be able to help! XxxxJ

It’s strange how things work out. Years ago, while on the last day of a vacation in Portugal, I tripped and broke my elbow; it required surgery, which couldn’t be scheduled immediately because the nurses were on strike! We’d been in the country on one of those house-sitting arrangements, but the owners had returned and didn’t have room for us. They put us in touch with Mary, a friend in the village where we stayed while waiting for the surgery and for a few days afterwards.

Mary, who had moved to Portugal from England, and I sat in her kitchen talking about life, things we wanted to do. I told her my dream had always been to one day live in France. At that point, it seemed one of those distant things you talk about but never get around to doing. She’d mentioned a cousin who lived near Montpellier.

Although Mary and I have remained friends over the years, by the time I actually moved to the Languedoc region of France, I’d forgotten all about her cousin near Montpellier. It wasn’t until she visited me and we drove to Lamalou (not really near Montpellier, more of a geographic reference) to visit her cousin that I remembered our conversation.

Her cousin died a few years ago, but Jodie, my friend in Lamalou, is his widow. So a broken elbow indirectly brought us together, and because of a dodgy hip, I’m now enjoying some tranquillity and a stair-free environment. Not to mention Jodie’s wonderfully calming presence.

Things feel unsettled in my life at the moment, on many fronts. It’s difficult not to stress, to try to work out solutions, compromises, options, but I’m aware of the often unexpectedly beneficial way things turn out. So for now, perhaps, the answer is to wait, breathe deeply and not to force answers. Sometimes they just come about.

And the autumn leaves outside my window are golden in the sunlight.

Although I feel that I know many of the readers and writers on Medium and Substack, I’ve only ever met one in person before, Trishia Jacobs-Carney who’d read about my Little Debbie cravings and kindly lugged boxes of them over to France on a visit. I think she now, too, lives in France.

Earlier this year, I met my second reader, ReAnn Scott, who responded to an article I’d written on Substack. She was in Ireland at the time, she said, but would be visiting France in the near future. We exchanged a few texts, then in July, she wrote from Lagrasse, about 96k (60 miles) from my village. We considered various meeting spots before settling on Narbonne — I suggested that the historic food market, Les Halles de Narbonne, was worth a visit.

Although we anticipated exchanging stories over a long leisurely lunch, plans were complicated by sweltering summer temperatures (we’re both heat averse) and then a massive wildfire close to where she was staying. Eventually, though, the stars aligned and there we were perched on stools and drinking coffee in the centre of the Narbonne market.

She had an American accent, and she loved to travel. Other than that, I knew nothing about her. “So where’s home?” I asked. She laughed. “I haven’t had a home for fifteen years.”

When I tell my story about moving from the States to France at 68, of knowing no one in this country and barely speaking the language, it sounds adventurous, brave even. Or I thought so until I met ReAnn. This year, for instance she started off in Los Angeles, then embarked on a 15-day cruise through the Panama Canal, a visit with friends in Florida, followed by a flight to Lisbon and three months in the Algarve. Next stop, Belfast for a month, London for another month, then back to Belfast. Then Carcassonne and Lagrasse, and a quick stop in Narbonne, where we met up. I hope I haven’t got that too muddled up, but my head was spinning.

After we bid adieu, she was headed back to the States, but not for long. As I write this, I think she’s in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and then maybe England again for the holidays; then six weeks in Greece is on the agenda. And so it goes, well into 2026. You can check out more of her travels on her website:

https://myhomeontheroam.com/

She’s vivacious, energetic and as might be expected, full of interesting anecdotes — and she’s 79. A year or so younger than me. Loaded with enthusiasm, but not with money, she house sits, does the occasional Airbnb and seems to have friends all over the world. Without housing costs, which eat up a large part of a limited income, her major expense is transportation. And, that too can be adjusted by staying in one place for a few months, living like a local as she puts it.

As in In New Zealand where she cooked meals from a freezer stocked with a whole lamb and half a pig, learned lawn bowling, joined a church choir, and even picked up knitting from locals. “Honestly,” she said, “I came for the housesit, stayed for the sheep — and the choir.”

ReAnn had brought along her friend Cathy, an American who lives in Portugal. While maybe not quite as peripatetic as ReAnn, Cathy, too had tales of travel and lists of places yet to see. While I’ve rarely thought of myself as a conventional homebody, listening to the two of them, I felt ever so slightly staid. Moi? Well, sort of.

No quiet village life for this Chicago native. If I were you, ReAnn said after I’d described a fairly typical day — writings, walks, lunches in surrounding villages, reading — “I’d be on the train to Paris every month or so.”

An American friend had said something similar when I first came to France and told her most of my days involved writing. “Why live in a foreign country if you’re home all day?”

I saw her point, yet living in France — even on days spent at home or in and around the village — is not at all the same as living in the States. I thought of it then, and still do, as living microscopically, taking in the minute details rather than the big picture.

ReAnn’s counter was that she tends to stay in one place long enough to live there, not merely visit. Her travels are full immersion, not just sightseeing. Portugal, Greece, Malta, Australia, Laos, Cambodia, the UK; each stop offers customs, food, community and insight into other ways of life.

Unlike the typical vacationer, she shops at local markets, cooks meals, joins community groups, and somehow learns local traditions on the fly. The Schengen Shuffle — alternating between Schengen countries and the UK — is just part of the rhythm.

Thinking of my own uncertainty about what to bring when I moved to France, I asked her about packing. It’s an art, she said. A computer, an iPad, a large backpack, a tech bag, and one overstuffed checked bag. Clothes rotate, wardrobes are thrifted or bought from Amazon, and somehow she always has what she needs. “I’ve learned you can’t love your clothes too much,” she said, or “You’ll be carrying them halfway across Europe.”

I could see it, the appeal of that lifestyle. A wealth of new experiences, exposure to different cultures, to new ways of living. I might have been ready for it at 68; thirteen years later, I don’t have the energy or really the desire. These days, I crave more time to think, to just be. Rather than new experiences, I want tranquillity and the chance to dig deeper into what I already know — or think I know.

Yet even at 68, while I was ready for the adventure of life in a foreign country, I still had this instinct, this need to make a nest for myself. Which is why, I suppose, an item I crammed into one of the three suitcases I brought with me was an oversized orange duvet cover my daughter had given me.

Confronted with the cavelike reality of my first apartment in France, all flaking plaster and concrete floors, I grabbed the duvet from my still unpacked bags and threw it over the bed. In the weeks and months that followed, I bought threadbare rugs, chiffon scarves, bits of velvet fabrics, trailing plants and tiny Moroccan lamps that gave off an exotic glow. Only when it began to feel like home, could I settle down to write.

A few summers ago, I flew back to the States for an extended visit. I stayed with family, slept in friends’ guest rooms and on couches, occasionally splurged on hotels. After three months, I was desperate to be back in my own nest, surrounded by my own stuff. I’m like the house martins I watch building their nests in the eaves of the house across the road. Back and forth they go, bringing their bits and pieces, then come October off they fly to Africa, not to be seen again until spring when they’ll return to the nests they so laboriously built.

I didn’t talk to ReAnn about that sort of nesting thing, or whether she’s done the equivalent of cramming an orange duvet in her luggage, but she did hint that she might be ready to look for somewhere to land for a while, Chicago probably.

Still, I can’t imagine her staying put for long. And as the least domesticated person I know, I must admit that compared to ReAnn I do feel, well, just ever so slightly staid. But I’m not going to start . . . you know, vacuuming and that sort of thing.

It was fun, though, meeting an online friend in person; if anyone happens to be in southwestern France and would like to get together, let me know. I’ll take you to Narbonne — although the newly remodelled Les Halles in Beziers was recently voted one of the favourite markets in France, and I’d be very proud to show you around.

Actually it’s not my birthday for another eight hours, I’m just throwing an early pity party because, although I’ve done everything short of tattooing the date on my forehead, I’m convinced the day will pass without comment from my nearest and dearest.

He’s admitted as much, I keep forgetting, he tells me, not exactly shamefaced in the way I’d like him to be. In his defence, he has a very bad cold and cough, so if I weren’t so self-absorbed and lacking in compassion, I would stop pouting and tenderly soothe his fevered brow without even muttering, sotto voce, ‘guess whose having a birthday today?’

Really, why does it matter? Last year’s big 80 was a good one. Hard to top a five day celebration in Rome with my friend, Kit. After that, 81 is just sort of meh — probably why my partner can’t get it through his head that, well, in just a few short hours it will be, you know, my birthday. Maybe I should make a cake for myself, saving him the trouble because he’s sick. That would be sweet of me, right? Understanding.

Mais non. I’m stamping my little foot. I don’t want to bake my own damn birthday cake. If I did, the inscription would probably read ‘guess who forgot someone’s birthday?’

Any cake I made would be nothing like the birthday cake a friend ordered for me soon after I came to France in 2013. I could have also gifted myself a pair of turquoise stiletto boots, tres chic, but I resisted.

I’ve celebrated birthdays in Germany and Paris, all as you’ve probably observed with an abundance of liquid refreshments. Well, look, they’re celebratory occasions right? Eins Zwei Drei Soufa and all that. In Paris, the friend I was with tipped off the accordian player, but the message got a bit garbled and we got Lady of Spain. Still, it’s the thought that counts.

One year, soon after I met my partner — while my petulance and other less than endearing traits were still under wraps — we celebrated my birthday in Sete. We had oysters and champagne on a floating restaurant. It was very romantic and we said it would always be like that. Yeah, well. We’ll see how my 81st turns out.

We did have a good birthday celebration a few years ago in Tarascon sur Ariege; we were on our way somewhere, Andorra, I think. Old hotel, beautiful setting. As the song goes, It was a very good year.

Another year, I happened to have a dermatology appointment in Montpellier on my birthday, so we celebrated big city style at one of our favourite restaurants. The creme brûlée and some sort of raspberry sorbet on caramelised cooking crumbs were better than most birthday cakes. No candles to blow out, but at a certain age, candles become a fire hazard.

From amazing birthday dinners, to cabins on the water and care packages mailed here to France, my daughter has given me so many birthdays to remember, I could write an entire story about them. I feel amazing, fortunate and loved. Even when it’s not my birthday, just hearing her voice on the phone is a joy.

So perhaps I’ll call off the pity party — looking back at so many joyful occasions —  and not just birthdays — makes me realise how fortunate I am —  but wait, before I get all maudlin — what’s that I hear from the other room? Just a few hours before my 81st? Sounds like cheering. Jubilant voices. Peut-être a little celebration? Even from his sickbed, has my loving partner organised a birthday gathering? I must investigate.

“Fabulous horse race,” he says, his eyes glued to the TV.

Oh well, still a few more hours to go . . .