As Christmas approached, we made our annual pilgrimage back to Freneuse to be with family.

We spent the night at Claire’s and the next morning Benoit headed for Brest, France to coach a new player and I hopped into a beautiful new, red BMW, driven by a nice young man, along with another ride-sharer for what was to be a very short ride to Paris… Remember I said there was another accident? This day went all kinds of wrong.

About 2 1/2 hours into the 6 hour drive the driver momentarily lost consciousness (he swears he didn’t fall asleep) and we grazed the highway divider with the left side of the car. Luckily, no one was hurt – we were only going 110 km/hr, didn’t flip or spin, and no one was behind us so we didn’t get rear ended. We limped to the next exit and off to the side of a little road and waited for the tow truck. The car was gouged stem to stern and both tires on that side were flat. A very sad sight. Eventually, I got into a new ride share, we managed to find an open gas station despite a strike that day (!) and off we went to Paris. This time I got there, but I encountered another strike (!!) – this time on trams – and there were no busses running so late where I was, so I Ubered the last half hour across Paris to my destination for the night (after having to uninstall and reinstall Uber because the app wouldn’t let me update my credit card! LOL.) What a day!!! That 6 hour trip took 15 hours. I was a wee bit tired when I arrived.

I arrive at France’s apartment in Paris, a friend of Benoit’s who car sat for us, and we hit it off immediately. We ended up staying up all night talking and laughing. She lives with a small, fluffy herd of cuteness: 2 cats, 2 rabbits and a blue eyed dog. We talked about our dreams, tiny houses, horses, the state of the world and what we’re doing to make it better. We went to bed with smiles on our faces.

The next day, I drove to Freneuse to Benoit’s parent’s home, where the family meets for Christmas every year. I was there about a week before family arrived. I think I slept the whole first day! :)

Meanwhile, coaching in Brest, Benoit had two major van renovations done. He got the 5 back windows tented and a trailer hitch put on. Both of these were huge improvements. The tenting means that we have privacy in the back (sleeping!, changing clothes, etc.) and it’s cooler (it gets up to 41C / 100F in Portugal). The hitch allowed us to put our bicycles on a rack, getting them out of the van (much more convenient!!).

As family arrived, we went for walks. A favorite place is the park behind the house along the Seine River. It’s fun to watch the traffic: the barges, ducks and swans; and one of my favorite places in the world to run, which I do every day when I’m here. Beautiful.

Benoit had more tennis coaching to do after the holidays, so I planned to stay at the family home for a few weeks in January. I decided to take a permaculture design course while I was there, which was amazing. I took an online course by the Women’s Permaculture Guild, created by 30+ female permaculture teachers. I learned a lot, including why I was never clear about what permaculture actually is! It’s not a way to plant plants, raise animals or garden. It’s the design process that you do before you start all of that. And that you keep refining as you learn how a site works.

Permaculture is a way to design gardens, barns, farms, etc.. It’s a way of thinking and planning that takes usage patterns, both human and natural, into account when creating working and living spaces. As one of the teachers said, permaculture doesn’t teach you how to grow things. It teaches you how to create spaces to do that in.

Our idea was to stay for a few weeks, finish the registration for the van and return to Portugal in February. Just like my journey up here, things did NOT go to plan. The registration for the van hit a big roadblock: we needed a document from Opel and they stopped replying. We called and called. No one picked up. We emailed and emailed. No one replied. We sent letters and letters. No response.

At one point, I drove to the headquarters of Opel to ask in person. I randomly picked one of the two huge, identical glass buildings and walked in. The jovial guard at the front desk smiled kindly. Everyone was working from home. Yes, I could go up to the homologation office, but the only people in the building were the maintenance team. They’d also fired 50% of the staff. He pointed to the other building and said it was now for sale.
Wow.
Ok.
“You have to be really persistent.” he counseled, “Keep calling.”

Finally, having talked to all kinds of people in the car industry we found out two useful things. One, that most of the car brands in France were having issues with registration, which helped us feel better. And two, that sending a registered letter seemed to work in these cases. Holy cow.
We flew down to the post office and sent one.
And, lo and behold, nine days later the missing document arrived! Hallelujah!

The rest of the process happened really, really fast; faster than predicted, which is amazing since the rest was all with French administration offices. When does that ever happen?! Vive la France! :)

It still took more than a month to finish the everything, but at least we could leave Freneuse and go to other parts of France! Which we did.

On the plus side, all this waiting meant I had plenty of time to get my French passport before we left France! After three and a half years of tests, phone calls, paperwork, inquiries, and interviews I was official! Yay!!!!