When we were just starting to let our little holiday house as a gite we were asked to house some holidaying friends of friends who had been flooded out lower down in the village. They stayed for a week and left a delightful message of thanks in our new ‘livre d’or’/visitors book, hoping we would go strutting, proudly as peacocks, into the future. Recently, strutting is not something himself can manage and I feel less inclined to do so either! But we have managed to stumble into 2024, spending ‘Reveillon’, New Year’s Eve, with French friends of friends which taxed my language skills but led to lots of laughs and corrections. It was a warm and touching way to finish a difficult year.

However, despite the new challenges, we have refused to give up on the things we used to do without a second thought and last October took ourselves off to Toulouse for the day to visit a photo exhibition of the coup in Chile in the 1970s. As a four and five year old, Mr McGregor had lived in Chile and although he and his family returned to the UK after a short sojourn, he still has relatives there and so he had a particular interest in seeing the work exhibited.

I am the designated driver now and hadn’t driven into Toulouse before but wasn’t too bothered by the prospect. The day we had chosen was dryish so the drive was fine but Toulouse, or rather its road layout, had changed dramatically since we had last visited. After driving down a bus lane and then doing a right turn that may have been illegal we found ourselves on the far bank of the river. Following my nose rather than the GPS that was equally lost, we got back to the vicinity of the Chateau d’eau gallery but all above ground parking was ‘interdit’. Some choice ‘gros mots’ from me but, eventually, by carefully following signs to a car park we drove back across the river and parked under a ‘place’.

Over paninis in a nearby cafe (I had to ring and cancel our lunch booking at a fish restaurant as we were too far away to arrive in time) we regrouped and discovered we were by a stop for a bus that would get us almost back to the gallery we wanted to visit. With his two crutches, himself was treated politely by the bus passengers and a seat was quickly vacated. A short walk to the Chateau d’eau where we were both given free entry despite owning up to having no paperwork to support his handicap (a result of no given diagnosis).

The gallery in a former water tower and pumping station is a fascinating space and we always enjoy visits there. On our way back later we spotted the car park we had been trying to find so made a note of how to reach it next time.. Giacometti at Les Abbatoirs, fingers crossed!

In December I had a greater driving challenge to face. For the past ten years my siblings and I have met up at a Christmas family ‘do’. Originally it was because we were all travelling to the town where our mother was in a nursing home and enjoyed seeing each other as well. Ultimately we outgrew the local pub and began hiring a hall and welcoming extended family members too. This year the nephew in New Zealand was visiting in early December so the date was set.

Since we moved here and for several holidays before then I had driven myself backwards and forwards to the UK several times but my last trip was 2008 and I was a tad anxious. Plus we have started to use the shuttle and I remembered it as being particularly narrow to negotiate!

But I needn’t have worried. The biggest nuisance was ‘i’m only the chauffeur’ who took it upon himself to criticise my driving at what seemed like every opportunity. But we got there and back in one piece. (I resisted the urge to leave him on the side of the road somewhere!) As per, we broke the journey to Calais at Rambouillet on the way north and at L’Isle Adam returning south. The weather was atrocious between Brive and Limoges going but coming home the rain dried up at Orleans and I drove along marvelling at how glorious the countryside is south of the Loire.

We’d had a fabulous time in Maidstone meeting up with our younger son and grandson which involved a toy shop and Macdonald’s, of course. Our eldest son was suffering from suspected COVID so had stayed away, remembering our recent saga. I trawled the local charity shops for secondhand books and we hit the supermarket with our own shopping list plus those of expat friends all missing some blighty favourites. Then there was the evening ‘do’ with goodies and gossip, present swapping and the Poundland lucky dip, an absolute must.

To round off the evening all three generations present posed for the traditional group photo. For us in particular as the two most senior family members, we were especially grateful to have made it after such a difficult year. Here’s hoping 2024 is a little kinder….