Best Moments of 2004?

[Ex Forum Admin]

What were your best moments of 2004? Did you finally move to France? Has business been good? Has the house renovations finally been finished?

[gail17]

Hi

For us the best moment in 2004 to do with our renovation in France was when we received photos by email of our windows and doors finally in. Still a fair bit to do, but we are now nicely on our way! Here's looking forward to 2005 when we can finally stay in the house ourselves!!

 

[SaligoBay]

Seeing the Code of Hammurabi last weekend was pretty special.   It takes a lot to render me speechless.

 

 

[Mpprh]

Best moment of 2004 for me was when an important client said I must be in UK for an important meeting.

It was the same dates mrs mpprh had booked holiday (and me) to visit her mother.

Sadly, I had to cancel the trip to her mother!

Not all good news. She s coming for Xmas. Can t see how to get out of it this time.

peter

 

 

[Russethouse]

My French moment of the year was getting to see the 'Fetes de brodeuses' at Pont l'abbe after years of wanting to.

[Nick Trollope]

A few days ago, when this site started running at a decent speed?

Of course, if anyone else had asked I would have to say; Jan 2nd, when we finally moved here.

[Val_2]

When my daughter passed her driving test first time,bought a car and then passed her BAC and got into the specialist Lycée she wanted. This week when our nasty neighbour who dosn't care about car insurance, CT or servicing finally had to get his precious wreck towed away because it wouldn't go AND just before xmas too, miserable s*d.

[Patmobile]

Last week was pretty good, my son passed his Universite de Caen exam in ancient Norman law (required in Guernsey where he practises), the gite grant was finally paid into our account, aggreement finally reached with the UK taxman, and I gave my French employers notice of quitting my job. My second retirement in 4 years.

And for 2005....? I'm hoping the best moment will be winning the French Amateur Golf Championship - yes, I'm only a beginner, but even a retired person needs a goal in life.

[Piprob]

When we saw the house standing at last in what had been a field, and our neighbours-to-be told us they like how it looks.

[zeb]

Best moment with the House Renovation was actually 1st Jan 2004 when, after months of doing the grenier conversion and then Christmas week spent waxing, sanding and staining the floor, we moved upstairs into our bedroom. I still love the room dearly - I've never actually had a room which we have designed and built from (nearly) scratch before.

Two other memorable moments:

Magic Moment 1: Bastille night in Confolens standing with thousands of silent people on the old bridge, listening to a wonderful aria played over the PA system and watching great drifts of little paper/tea light boats floating down the river.

Magic Moment 2: Spending a gorgeously warm and sunny autumn day wandering around our nearby fields, filling ice cream tubs with blackberries from the hedgerows. (None to be had the previous September because of the canicule!)

Also, I would have really loved to walk over the Millau bridge with those thousands of people(no way can I drive over it due to phobia). Did any of you do that or go to the fireworks display there? Have only seen it on the TV and it looks superb.

 

regards......helen

[Nick Trollope]

[quote]Best moment with the House Renovation was actually 1st Jan 2004 when, after months of doing the grenier conversion and then Christmas week spent waxing, sanding and staining the floor, we moved upstai...[/quote]

Magic Moment 1: Bastille night in Confolens standing with thousands of silent people on the old bridge, listening to a wonderful aria played over the PA system and watching great drifts of little paper/tea light boats floating down the river.

Of course, that reminds me of watching tall ships arrive in Brest during the Festival of the Sea in July. Loud seafaring music from a vast PA stck and the fantastic ships sailing out of a very convenient sea mist. You had to be there....

Perhaps #5 on my list.

[Chouette]

Going to see the Cirque du Soleil who were performing in Lyon in February - they were fantastic 

They're currently performing in Lille and will be coming to Paris in the new year, if anyone is interested.  I can't recommend them enough and I will definitely be saving up my centimes so that I can go along to the Paris show!

[Evianers]

Finally securing a beautiful Grandfather clock on Ebay, bid for in Antwerp and accepted in Zuerich Switzerland for a VERY reasonable price. Merry Christmas Other Half!

[Iceni]

I don't remember the actual day in October but I had been to Mayenne and was driving home, a very long drive and I was tired. I turned off the motorway at Brive and started the hours drive through the valleys to our hamlet and tears were running down my face, I was on my way home.

I no longer 'lived in France', France was home.

Happy is a really nice state of mind and I just hope that it continues. TOH is also happier than I have ever seen him.

Before you think I am wearing rose tinted specs, I still work harder than I have ever worked before, live in one room and have to remind John do do the washing up - so no change there then.

[Richard-R]

An amazing drive from Andorra to home in France. Clear-ish roads, sun and a boot full of goodies. Overtaking every thing in the way. Great music on the stereo.

[Tresco]

Whoooaaaah, hang on forum admin, (is that you, James), it isn't over yet.

Best moment for me so far, well, there are so many, they've all gone mushy, but you never know, with a couple of weeks to go..........

This was just a deliberate ploy to bring it back to the top.

[Weedon]

So many moments this year but one of my favourites was sitting in my lounger and firing my starter pistol at the birds in my best cherry tree and watching them fly up the lane 400 metres to my neighbours trees.........yesssss..thats pleasure.

 

Not high on my worst list but on the not so good was an hour later when they came back......lifes a bitch, somedays the pigeon and somedays the statue

weedon

[Celtic Voyager]

After a lifetime of waiting, April this year he arrived....no not Hugh Grant but my first ever horse.( a real youngster).

Much like it was when we moved to France ....a  very different  experience to what we expected but never the less an absolute delight and a good excuse to be outside on a cold and frosty morning!

[Gwenhwyfar]

Well it should have been when we drove off the one way Ferry at Roscoff ... but ... we had a row about headlight convertors with a very tired screaming child in the back of the car. I got out and seriously considered turning around and going straight back onto the Ferry! Lovely memory of our first moments on french soil as residents, not quite how I'd planned it!

Best moments? The day our furniture arrived and the 'house' started to feel like 'home'. But you can't beat the day our little girls came running out of their new school smiling and jumped into our arms

[Annabell]

Best moments so far:

Having a leaving party weekend with 10 of my girlfriends in Barcelona.

Moving over permanently in March along with my lovely doggie******o.

Getting a playmate for******o.

Getting the keys to our "holiday home" in St Cyprien and spending a week there.

Hubby joining me full time in August.

But the nicest thing to happen so far is our cat, turning up after being lost since August.  We had to leave him behind with my Mum as we bought our two cats here last xmas and unfortunately one of them was killed by the dogs behind.  He had been living with my Mum since March, then went missing (we think he was taken by a family visiting relatives in her road as the kids wouldn't leave him alone) then she got a phone call yesterday from a vet who was about 4 miles away saying he'd been bought in by a lovely couple that had been feeding him.  They scanned his chip and voila!!  Best xmas present anyone could have.

Anyway, 2004 isn't quite over yet and******o is now expecting puppies on Boxing day.  Watch this space!  Oh, and if anybody wants a labrador puppy next year, please let me know!!!

[Suninfrance]

Best moment for me was handing in my notice at work in June and leaving on 30th June.  Closely (very closely) followed by moving permanently to our "hovel" in Correze (19) on 1st July.  (I said it was close).

Second best moment was replacing the floor in our kitchen/dining room - this is now the warmest room in the house (it has a fire), so we don't have to freeze our socks off this winter.

Third best moment - installing the kitchen units.  I'm now a very happy bunny as I have a proper kitchen sink, cupboards and a functioning washing machine.  Doesn't take much to keep me happy

So many moments to remember.  One more - our friends from Milton Keynes visiting us on their way through to their new home in Crete.  We took their dog, a gorgeous Rhodesian Ridgeback, for a stroll around our field and the moment of realisation that he wasn't on a lead was magic - all long legs and floppy ears racing around and I'm sure he was smiling.

 

[PaysBasque]

Best Moment of 2004 was my 40th birthday party, when first of all, everybody, French, English and German, started singing a song they had composed about me, my family and my life here (and the fact that it was a very nice song!), and secondly when they gave me the text, with pictures in a frame, which must have been a lot of work to put together.

[Monika]

I can't think of any best moments. Our barn renovation is still very much in limbo, we have not even had the planning permission come through yet and I can just not imagine that it will ever materialise, that we will ever see the diggers in, the new roof up and additional to that our dog Emma has died.  Some of your posts however gives me hope including the pictures of some your dogs who are, I am sure, Chocolate labradors. Monika

[Anton Redman]

Mixture of things:

 

Being called over by Isabel to bury a very bedraggled and dead rat.  Calmly doing so and realising that the entire family of Parisians opposite were watching and expecting us to have hysterics. Isabel is a country girl and I grew up half a mile from a waste paper works so no panics there.

 

Finding the cellar 10 cms deep in water just before we were going back to UK for 10 days on business. Checking my plumbing and realising the water was coming form next door.  Knocking on next door and saying I thought they might have a problem. Being told their plumbing was done by a professional and must be OK.  Twenty minutes later I was in their cellar tuning off the water at the mains while they were ringing the pompiers. Being very grateful we had already bought the calendar when the pompiers turned up. 

 

Realising just how much I wanted to be home after 10 days in London and that home was France.

 

Getting the Peugeot matriculated despite ‘Brown and Root Plc’ having guessed my first name was ‘Dave’ and therefore ending up with a logbook in the wrong name.

 

Asking a friend why they had turned the radio on when I was trying to align their Skydish.  Then realising that I had hit 70% quality first time just using compass and spirit level and it was Sky’s background music.

 

Sitting in front of out wood burning stove for the first time

 

Realising that our local Supermarket was a tenth the size of the Tesco’s we used to go to on Saturday morning but was full of food we wanted to eat.

 

Getting the Christmas T shirt from the local builder’s merchants.

 

Realising we only had about a fortnight’s real work on the house to go.

 

Not falling off the roof when I was putting the cowl on the chimney.

 

One great piano recital in the middle of nowhere.

[Anton Redman]

Getting my own ID back on the forum.

Spending 20 minutes chatting to a little old lady at the Controlle Technique station and realising I had understood every word and vice versa.

Getting 200,000 kms on the Peugeot in under 4 years without a scratch.