Bonjour!

I’m Alison. For many years I was the Executive Assistant to the CEO of a large global company in San Francisco, where I honed my organizational skills and became an excellent multi-tasker.

I started this blog because my husband and I decided to pack up and move to France and begin a new life in a country where we don’t speak the language and are unfamiliar with how things are done. What could possibly go wrong? We arrived in April, 2019. This is my place to document what we’re up to.

In May 2019, we started renovating a 300-year-old house in the little village of Le Grand-Pressigny in the Loire Valley. After 18 months of full-time renovations, we moved into the house in November 2020. The house was mostly done (will it ever be completely?) and we hunkered down while we sat out the pandemic. We slept in an upstairs bedroom for a few months while work continued downstairs. By August 2021 work continued but at a slower pace, with most things finished. That’s the time when it starts to be a challenge to get the builders to come back for the smaller projects. Eventually, we were tired of people asking if the house was finished so we said it was done. The little projects were completed eventually.

People are always asking us why we would want to give up our comfortable life in northern California and move to rural France. Why wouldn’t we? Sure, we could have stayed in California and enjoyed a good life. But we were ready for a big lifestyle change, a chance to make new friends and learn a new language and culture. So far so good, but stay tuned to see how we do.