Sweet Surrender by Mary Moody

there. Being in France always recharges my batteries, and after my visit to Canada I believed it would put me in a good frame of mind for the work that lay ahead during 2007. I decided to put the TV show out of my head completely, remembering what had happened last time I left Australia expecting to return to a relatively well-paid job. In a sense, when I am living in the village it’s as though I have completely escaped from my real life into another world; a fantasy world.
    My initial trip to France back in 2000 was like falling in love for the first time. I saw the entire experience through rose-coloured glasses, just as one looks at a lover and sees nothing but beauty and goodness. My perspective has greatly modified these last few years, not just because of the everyday changes among the people I am close to when I am staying in my little house, but also because of essential changes within myself. I am just not the same woman who ran away from home at fifty. I used to fantasise about moving there permanently, and only the thought of abandoning my grandchildren made the idea impossible; I would miss them too much. Now I can see that I would probably go crazy if I lived in France all year round, because of the language barrier and the social difference among the expat community.
    Making friends has never been a problem for me, but with hindsight I realise that I would have been wiser to include more non-English-speaking French people in my social circle. I hadn’t studied French at school, so it was natural for me to gravitate towards English speakers, but it was also rather lazy. I feel very timid about speaking bad French when, in fact, speaking lots of bad French and struggling to understand and to be understood would have forced me to grasp the language with confidence. I have discovered that when I have to buy a train ticket or transact some business at the post office I can muddle along in French quite well. Gradually my ear has adjusted so that I can follow French conversations if they are not spoken too rapidly. But once I’m socialising in the company of bilingual friends I become self-consciousand tongue-tied, and resist speaking French for fear of making a total fool of myself. This has seriously limited my ability to get to know the locals better.
    There are many native English speakers living permanently in France who simply don’t bother learning the language, beyond basic words and phrases which enable them to get by in restaurants and at the market. This effectively disconnects them from the local community, because they can’t interact socially. Dinner parties become purely English-speaking affairs, and they cling to each other rather than trying to assimilate. This is not the way I want to experience France. It’s frustrating not being able to crack a joke, or to join some of the lively debates on politics which are a feature of conversation at any French dinner table.
    After my first six-month stay in France, living in a room behind a shop in a medieval village, my return visits have been shorter, usually six to eight weeks at most. Every time I get to the point of beginning to feel I am making some progress in communicating, I pack up and return to Australia, where most of my newly acquired language skills are quickly forgotten. Work, family and farm take priority. I am also not very disciplined when it comes to studying. I get fits of enthusiasm then it all falls by the wayside. I realise that unless I experience ‘full French immersion’ by living with a totally non-English-speaking family for three months at least then I will never become ‘almost French’.
    I have also discovered that life in small communities has its social ups and downs, especially among the expat community, and my village is no exception. Among the small number of hamlets which surround it are a wide variety of people from vastly different backgrounds, and there have been rivalries and