Our first month in France

A month ago we moved from Amsterdam to France. We swopped the security of jobs, a tiny flat and a wonderful life there for an old farm in the Dordogne, which we are renovating into holiday homes. The most surprising change to our lives is time. 

Time whizzes by faster than ever, but it’s vaguer and less structured. I’m not contracted to work certain hours, I’ve forgotten how to set my alarm clock, I don’t commute, lunch is when I’m hungry and lasts as long as it lasts, weekends and weekdays are interchangeable, I don’t receive a monthly salary.

I still have deadlines and tonnes to do. But I get a small thrill of excitement when I realize that for the first time in decades, I don’t know what day it is. And it doesn’t matter in the slightest. There’s no present like time.