Contents

1 Running away to the Circus 7

2 The Arrival 15
3 Alistair and the Giant Misunderstandings 24
4 Les Voisins39
5 Language Lessons 54
6 Les Amis69
7 Brexit Stage Left 85
8 Autumn 94
9 Deuche Courage 106
10 Winter 116
11 ‘O Christmas Tree’  130
12 Are We there Yet? 143
13 Another Road Trip 155
14 Kia Ora, Auckland 162
15 It’s Just a Perfect Day 170
16 Fireworks 182
17 Le Mans 186
18 Drowning and Surfacing 194
19 Visa Day 198
20 More Fireworks 206
21 Clown 218
22 Beauty and the Beast 230
23 A Romantic and a Belated Pragmatist 252
24 Belonging 259
Acknowledgements262

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 1

Running away to the Circus

The air is warm and gentle, and the evening does what long,
balmy summer evenings will. It casts a spell. Not that it needs to
— this rural French setting is enchanting enough.
We’re in the grounds of a manor house — a grand edifice that’s
peeling and faded but all the more charming for it. A makeshift
bar runs across the great entrance to the house, selling wine,
beer and plates of cured ham, cheese and bread still warm from
the oven. The eccentric outdoor lighting — over-​sized modern
lampshades on wooden stands placed at intervals on the lawn —
casts a glow over the scene.
We sip and we chat, heady on wine and excitement. Dogs stare
hopefully at half-​empty plates, and children squeal and chase
one another among the wooden tables. On this sultry August

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 evening, in a place that is more dimly lit theatre-​set than garden,
it’s easy to believe in magic, in ghosts, in a night without end.
The manor house belonged to an old lady who stipulated that,
on her death, it must never be sold but used for the public good.
Its current residents are a troupe of actors who, in exchange for
a peppercorn rent, perform shows throughout summer. In a yurt
in the next field a ‘circus’ is to take place. Not a traditional circus
but — it turns out — a theatre of the mind, where a simple trio
of performers fires up our dormant imaginations, and we are all
six years old again. On a tiny wooden stage, in the middle of a
field, in the rural depths of France, I am transported. But then I
already was.
I am living an existence I could barely have dreamed of five
months ago. Back then, I was content enough with my life in
Auckland. Content but also exhausted from surviving in an
expensive city. It was a circus of sorts, and I was the resident
juggler. How, I would think to myself, did I get to 63 and still find
myself renting, working full-​time, yet struggling to make ends
meet? I was immensely grateful for my amazing daughters and
friends. I was fully aware that my humdrum routine of Wordle,
dog walks and early nights with my book was something families
in war zones could only dream of. But I was also guiltily ponder-
ing: is this all there is?
I was online ‘dating’ — if you can call it that. You know, just
in case. The same way some agnostics occasionally go to church.
In truth I didn’t really see the point anymore. Married for seven
years and now divorced, my past was littered with dashed hopes

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 and failed romances . . . ex, ex, ex, ex, ex, ex — like a row of cold
kisses.
It’s a wonder I was only slightly bruised and not wholly broken.
I’d survived narcissists, depressives, control freaks and alcohol-
ics. (Some people were all these things at once.) It’s not that I am
flawless — heavens no. But I was spectacularly gifted at choosing
men who’d flatter the bejesus out of me then inevitably, some
months later, express disappointment that I wasn’t quite what
they signed up for. In other words, that the five-foot package of
positivity and delight they first encountered was showing herself
to be something quite other — a woman with emotions, scars
and needs. That regrettably, because of this, I wasn’t a fit for
the role they’d had in mind. Consequently, going forwards, they
felt cheerful and optimistic about the viability of their personal
business without me.
My latest round of online dating only confirmed my
worst suspicions. Every snapper-​holding, singlet-​wearing,
Harley-​straddling male deepened my despair. Every page of
ghastly misspellings and arrogant list of deal-​breakers (right up
there ‘must be drama-​free’) made my heart sink a little further.
And then I met Alistair.

—————

We messaged each other intermittently, with weeks of silence in

between. Then one night he left me a voicemail — and that was it.
Some people have a thing about teeth, others hands, hair, or a

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 way of walking. For me it’s voices. Alistair’s was an exceptionally
pleasant baritone — smooth and playful.
I also liked his approach to life, especially now that we had a
lot less of it ahead. Alistair had an explorer’s spirit. He wanted
to roam and discover — both geographically and in every
other sense. He talked about Buddhism and spiritual growth,
about travelling and trying new things. He exuded curiosity
and dynamism, and I felt that in his company I could expand,
not shrivel as I aged.
He invited me to visit him in Nelson, in the South Island of
New Zealand, where he was living until his move to France later
in the year. He’d been in New Zealand for fifteen years but now
his Irish–English roots beckoned and he was ready to go back
to the northern hemisphere. ‘I own a mill by a river in France,’
he told me. ‘Of course you do,’ I said. Then I realised he meant it.
His return had been delayed because of Covid travel restric-
tions and he was eager to be reunited with this ‘truly special,
magical’ place. Alistair told me all this straight away, so I knew
it would be an extremely brief liaison. But I still had to go and
meet him. Because, well, live for the moment, right? Besides,
he fascinated me.
The two weekends we spent together were idyllic. E-bike
rides, long lunches, afternoons lying on the grass down by the
stream on his property, so much laughing and talking. But when
he said ‘Why don’t you come to France too?’ it seemed insane.
Nuts. Bonkers. People did that in romcoms. People who looked
like Julia Roberts and Marion Cotillard did that. Not your average

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 copy-​writer nearing retirement. Besides, the romantic prognosis
wasn’t great. I was easily triggered, way too sensitive for my own
good and terrible at intimacy. Not sex, but real intimacy. By what
logic, then, did this have a chance of succeeding?
Yet what seemed more lunatic was the notion of spending my
remaining healthy years in exactly the same way I had been doing
for decades. Doing the nine-​to-​five grind, always short of money,
living in the exact same postcode, with the exact same routine.
The more I thought about France, the more sense it made.
I’d grown up in the UK, had family and friends in Europe,
spoke French (rustily) and had no house to sell nor swathes of
possessions to put in storage.
So I made up my mind to go and began cheerfully (somewhat
hysterically) proclaiming to anyone who’d listen, ‘Guess what?!
I’m off to Fraaance!’ Without exception they marvelled at my
courage, and I basked in their marvelling. Suddenly I wasn’t just
Maria the short lady with a dog. I was Maria the Brave. Maria with
a Plane Ticket to Paris.
Everyone was rooting for me. Even my employer was on board.
I went into a Zoom meeting thinking I was about to resign from
a job I loved, only to have my manager tell me: ‘No, wait. We can
make this work. You can’t say no to an opportunity like this!’
We agreed I’d work part-​time, remotely. This type of encour-
agement — often sprinkled with ‘Just do it,’ and ‘Oh wow, what
an opportunity!’ — began to dismantle the barriers to making
this huge life change.
In my heightened emotional state and believing my own

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 ridiculous PR, if I’d been asked to pen an official press release
on my decision, it would have gone something like this:
‘I want to prove that life — even in the third act — can still
take surprising turns. That you can look forward to more than
cheap bus fares and discounted movie tickets. That love is not
only still possible, but it can be the best love you ever had. That
maturity doesn’t need to be a stagnant pool where expectations
go to die. It can be more like the river rushing below the windows
of Alistair’s beloved mill — ever flowing, swirling, playing and
tumbling towards its final destination. That — health allowing
— you don’t need to do a slow fade but live each day in glorious
technicolour.’
Ha.

—————

You see it wasn’t quite that simple. Just because something makes
sense doesn’t make it easy. Just because you’ve styled yourself as a
beacon of hope and inspiration for the post-​menopausal doesn’t
mean you’re doing mental cartwheels and skipping round your
apartment singing ‘Je Ne Regrette Rien’. Not at all.
In the weeks before my departure, I was in such danger of total
emotional collapse I ought to have been red-​stickered.
I couldn’t walk our beloved whippet without getting a knot
in my throat when he tilted his beautiful grey head towards me.
I couldn’t drive anywhere, or pass any park, restaurant, stretch of
footpath, or even bus stop without sighing at some lovely memory

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 attached to it. Sculptures I’d previously hated, inconvenient spots
where my car had broken down, pretentious cafés I’d scoffed at . . .
all were readily scooped up and forgiven. Even traffic cones.
Twenty-​three years is a lot of deep roots to pull up. I’d invested
years of emotional energy into settling in New Zealand, nur-
turing friendships, creating a whole new history and narrative.
My daughters were just babies in matching gingham outfits when
I first landed in Auckland with my Kiwi husband. And now, more
than two decades on, Aotearoa was no longer a point on a map;
it was in my DNA.
But France . . .
I’d been a Francophile long before I knew what one was. Even
the blandness of my first French textbooks, when I was eleven,
didn’t put me off. ‘Marie-​Claire is in the garden, Maman is in the
kitchen, Papa is at work.’ (It was the seventies, you understand).
Come to think of it, Marie-​Claire was never doing anything in the
garden, just being. So very existentialist.
I didn’t get near France until I began studying French at uni-
versity in my hometown of Manchester. And when I did finally
make it — to Paris and later Lyon — I loved it all. The stinky
cheeses, the fragrant boulangeries, the almost-​religious rever-
ence for mealtimes, the pungent Gauloises cigarettes, the French
way of shrugging and pouting, the pastis, the rillettes (a very
fatty pork spread), the métro, the architecture.
That was all a lifetime ago, and I hadn’t been to France for well
over 25 years. And now here it was, being offered up to me on a
plate. Could I really say no?

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 There was one remaining, and significant, doubt. My
daughters. They were my best friends in the world, and leaving
seemed like a betrayal. But when I asked them to tell me honestly
how they felt, they turned out to be my biggest cheerleaders:
‘Come on, Mum! It’s an adventure! You can always come back.’
When they saw me still wavering, they hit me with the one
thing they knew would seal the deal. The phantom of regret.
‘Hey, we don’t want you sitting here when you’re seventy-​three
going, “Oh, I wonder how life would have been if I’d gone to
France?” We’ll never hear the end of it!’
And there it was. That old cliché, ‘Life’s too short’, was no
longer just a throwaway remark. It was the final nudge I needed
to get on that plane.

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 2

The Arrival

If my ‘emotional reunion’ with Alistair were a scene in a movie,

it would definitely require a second take. When I arrive at the
train station, 50 minutes from my new French home, I am almost
incoherent. Two plane marathons, endless interludes of queuing,
and a three-​hour train ride from Paris have left me worn-​out,
wilted and wondering what’s so wrong with dating men if not
in my own postcode, then at least on the same side of the world.
But I am glad to see Alistair, after two months apart. I don’t
so much embrace him as topple forwards into him like a felled
pine tree. He smells nice. His hug is warm and his shirt is cool.
I’d forgotten how tall he is.
He leads me to the station car park where his pretty blue
Citroën 2CV is waiting and busies himself in the boot, producing

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 first some water and a facecloth. I freshen up in full view of a café
table of friends enjoying Wednesday night beers in the setting
sun. ‘I thought you hadn’t come,’ Alistair says as he rummages
once more, this time emerging with a basket. ‘You were one of the
last to get off the train and I thought, “She’s changed her mind”.’
I should have paid more attention to this remark. If I had, I might
have avoided a looming mini-​drama. More of that later.
In the basket are juicy flat peaches, camembert, a fresh
baguette, fat green tomatoes, and slivers of smoked salmon.
We set off with the Citroën roof rolled back, gathering speed
as we leave the town behind. The ‘deux chevaux’ bounces and
occasionally rattles, and it’s like travelling through the country-
side in a giant bread bin. I lift my face to the sky, let the peach
juice dribble down my chin and the breeze whip through my hair.
We race past fields of sunflowers that are radiant in the golden
evening light, then we slow down as we snake through one tiny
village after another. The landscape is ridiculously charming:
rugged cream stone walls, ivy-​clad barns, languid willows and
pointy slate-​turreted chateaux peeping over the horizon like
overgrown pencils.
Alistair rests his tanned forearms casually on the wheel, and I
try to take it all in. I can’t. It’s too beautiful, too idyllic. I will have
to ingest it one morsel at a time, over the coming days and weeks.
It’s dark when we arrive at the moulin, but the full moon
throws its spotlight on each charming detail. I’m smitten by it
all . . . the craggy stone walls, the moulin’s shutters, even the old
baked bean can on a stick that warns visitors to steer clear of

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 the ditch by the driveway. Most especially, I am hypnotised by
the river, wobbling darkly beyond the trees: a blackcurrant jelly
that’s not quite set.
But as I later climb the stairs to our bedroom, woozy on tired-
ness and chilled sparkling rosé, I become sharply aware of how far
I am from everything I know. There is no sound but the rush of
the river. No traffic, no people, not a bark or a siren or a bird call.
If this doesn’t work out, I will be adrift like a space traveller
cut loose from her shuttle. I try not to think of my daughters
back in New Zealand, of the dog wondering why I haven’t come
home yet, of the 18,000 kilometres between me and everything I
have loved for so long. I have to pull the shutters closed on these
thoughts . . . otherwise I will drown.

—————

Over the next week, I start to become accustomed to my new

surroundings. Although ‘accustomed’ sounds a bit pedestrian.
What I am actually doing is slowly waking, rubbing my eyes,
and finding the illusion is still there.
I wake daily to what sounds like torrential rain, only to realise
I’m in summer now and it’s just the rush of the river. As the heavy
walnut furniture swims into view when I first open my eyes,
I’m reminded with a jolt that this isn’t my own home. And as
the duvet falls and rises gently next to me, I remember that I’m
no longer single but living on the other side of the world with a
man I met only months ago.

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 The sense of unreality is compounded by the shimmering heat
and the long, hazy days. To arrive here in the heady midsummer
is to step into a beautiful dream halfway through: one that is
oscillating, unclear, mysteriously enchanting.
By midday we swelter, our skin glistens and one by one our
intentions droop like week-​old lettuce. No ‘Hmm, shouldn’t I
be sorting my tax, taking up watercolour painting, signing up
for online Pilates?’ No, no. It’s all out of the question. The heat
comes along like a polite but firm butler to remove your shoes,
relieve you of your ambitions and plans, plump up your pillows
and leave you to get on with it. ‘It’ being seeking refuge in the
river, flopping on the bed like a drowsy cat, or collapsing onto a
sun-​lounger in the shade of the old walnut tree.
The moulin sits alongside the beautiful River Vienne, in the
French department of the same name. And this tumbling mass
of water is a godsend.
When the mercury hits the thirties, I pop on my water
shoes and carefully descend the rough stone steps into the cool
water. The current tugs at me as it roars past the mill, but it’s
only kidding. It means no harm. As I make my way further in,
it becomes calm again. Even the stones are hospitable, flat and
wide like moss-​covered ottomans. There’s one we call the Jesus
Rock because it lies just below the surface so that when someone
stands on it, they appear to be walking on water. Another
rock is slanted, smooth and large enough for two — that’s the
sunbathing rock.
The ‘moulin’ itself is enchanting — a three-​storey turret of

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 cream and brown stone with bright blue wooden shutters and
walls that are solid as eternity. A working flour mill for almost
two centuries, it was turned into a rudimentary dwelling some
fifty years ago. The first floor is our living and kitchen space,
the upstairs the bedrooms. The millstones have retired — one to
a life as a picnic table right outside the front door. The other has
given itself up to being a layabout, languishing on the ground
floor of the mill — a cool, musty space Alistair now uses as his
workshop. This is where we enter our fortress — and when you
bolt the great wooden door behind you at night, a great sense of
safety and wellbeing descends.
Yet I’m not entirely at ease. There are challenges within and
without these two-​metre-​thick walls. First, the obvious one: will
Alistair and I work out? Was this really the best idea? Out of all
the things I forgot to bring to France (unbelievably, these include
swimming togs), my relationship baggage wasn’t one of them.
And in all the books I’ve read on how to win at romance (and
I’ve chewed through a few) I don’t ever recall ‘move to France’
being a tried-​and-​tested formula for success. Plus Alistair and
I didn’t even date. We totally skipped the ‘movies, dinners,
walks, getting to know you’ stage and went straight to moving
in together. In a foreign country. Even the most sadistic reality
show creators couldn’t have dreamed this up.
There’s also the challenge of acclimatising to an entirely new
culture. And I don’t mean the French one. Oh no, that part is
relatively simple. I mean how to live in the countryside, when I’ve
always been a cinema, shopping and brunch-​with-​friends kind

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 of girl. I had pictured the ‘French me’ frolicking from boulevard
to bistro to boutique, with accordionists gaily playing in the
background. But the mill is in the heart of ‘La France Profonde’
— about as depopulated and rustic as you can get. No accordions
or happy chatter spilling from cafés. Only the occasional distant
bray, the sound of a shotgun from ‘la chasse’ (the hunt), or a
church bell perforating the stillness of a sleepy afternoon.
Yes, I should have looked more closely at a map.
The population of our tiny village is just over 400. Standing
by the roadside on an average day tells you the inhabitants total
roughly two — one of which is an elderly golden retriever called
Salsa, regularly to be found waddling nonchalantly down the
deserted main thoroughfare.
Salsa and I are already acquainted; she makes it her business
to greet everyone. But I’m going to need more than an ailing dog
in my social circle. I resolve to make friends. Human ones.

—————

I don’t know that much about Alistair, to be honest. He is a

whole country to be explored in himself. One thing I soon learn,
however, is that he can make anything out of anything and often
does. He’s practically Leonardo Da Vinci. I can’t say for sure if
he could cobble together a flying machine or design a self-​sup-
porting bridge — but I wouldn’t put it past him.
He constantly has projects on the go. Creating a timer device
for the old dishwasher so it whirrs into action at midnight on

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 the dot. Converting the 2CV to run on ethanol instead of petrol.
And another mysterious endeavour — currently in the concep-
tual phase — involving the river current and a generator.
Sadly, when it comes to engineering schemes, there is often an
environmental cost. In this case, the casualty in our immediate
environment is the dining room table. Yes, all relationships have
their conflict zones, and this splendid piece of walnut carpentry
has become one of our first.
It’s a magnificent specimen that Alistair is rightly proud of.
He’s extremely protective of it and winces whenever I slide,
rather than lift, anything across it. Which is puzzling. Because
while he values the table, he doesn’t seem to mind that its
luxurious grained surface is rarely glimpsed — thanks to the
paraphernalia that resides there. We’re talking head torches,
spanners, tape measures, screws, screwdrivers, documents,
plastic folders, books, nuts, bolts and other perplexing bits of
plastic and metal. Every now and then I will find a biscuit, a sock
or an empty water bottle.
A recent addition is an upturned lampshade that is full to the
brim with leads, plugs, a temperature gauge, and a whole range
of unidentifiable objects that could be mere junk or critical parts
of an ongoing project.
Every night I clear a space at one end of the table so we can
eat. It began as me delicately nudging some papers to one side.
Now that the items have multiplied, I do it more riot police-​style
— forcefully pushing back the heaving mass and hardly caring if
things get injured in the process.

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 No wonder Da Vinci lived alone.
But hey. It’s only a table. And some of Alistair’s projects go
beyond the merely functional to being sources of great joy —
as is the case with the two large, wheeled contraptions that are
delivered soon after my arrival. From the living room I hear
the metallic sounds of Alistair pottering and tinkering in the
workshop below . . . and I’m wholly delighted when they emerge
as e-​mountain bikes some twenty-​four hours later.
To explore the French countryside on these electric marvels
is to be in it, not just gazing at it. It’s thrilling — and guaranteed
to make you live in the moment. Which is especially de rigueur
on the gnarliest tracks, if you want to avoid a trip to A&E.
The electric factor means we can roam far and wide; but then
the thick tyres allow us to go off-​piste and a bit crazy.
Our favourite route is along the kilometres of disused railway
track near our home, now overgrown with grass and covered
with a crisp layer of leaves. It’s crunchy and golden, like ped-
alling over a giant bowl of cornflakes. When we pass the grand
cream building that was formerly a railway station, I always find
it poignant to think it once connected this little village to the
wider world. It’s now a private dwelling, and instead of men with
whistles and porters lugging trolleys, it’s home to a gas barbecue
and bits of plastic outdoor furniture.
We also bump along less hospitable terrain where nettles
graze your ankles, chunky rocks threaten to de-​​​saddle you,
thorny hedges wait gleefully for your next false move — and it’s
exhilarating. We fly past fields where tractors with seed drills

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 crawl across the land like prehistoric beasts; wobble along
behind panicking flocks of sheep; and ‘Oooh!’ at the glowing
embers of red ivy clinging to barn walls. We pass a field of kale
and Alistair stops to stuff some in his backpack (we steam it later
with lashings of butter and garlic).
Our bikes have throttles (shh, it’s not strictly legal).
My throttle is a little frisky and when I gingerly attempt to use it,
the whole bike bucks like a demented horse. On one occasion we
are on a steep, narrow street and I hit the throttle instead of the
brake. The bike lurches towards the wall and I go flying, with
the heavy metal frame clanging down on top of me. I get up and
inspect the damage. My leg is throbbing, my bottom is bruised,
but phew — the acrylic nails are intact. Alistair shakes his head.
I clamber back on, determined to show no fear. ‘You sure
you’re okay?’ says Alistair, concerned. ‘Absolutely!’ I assure him.
‘Allons-​y, Alonso!’
However, I make the same mistake as we’re speeding down a
gravel path by a busy road — and only just manage to fling myself
to safety on the grass verge. Without a word, Alistair walks over
and disconnects the throttle, then gets back on his bike. That is
what I call a very sound executive decision.

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