Arriving in France

We always had a difficult relationship with my father-in-law; he tolerated, rather than enjoyed our visits. It was exacerbated by what we saw as his detachment during the time that my wife's mother was dying from breast cancer and his subsequent relationship with a neighbour. There is nothing inherently wrong in this, but my wife found it difficult to accept (and still does). So it was a great surprise when he told us that he would be moving into his partner's house, allowing us to take over his house while we found our feet in France. Thus our transition to French life was eased by his generosity. It was the summer of 2002, so I decided to make it an extended holiday, enjoying the sun, the World Cup and improving my French.

Our stuff arrived a few weeks later on a lorry direct from Sheffield. The stress of seeing it all arriving and being transferred to to another garage proved too much and I had my first French seizure (we don't call them "fits" any more didn't you know? And don't worry, a "French seizure" does not involve use of the tongue). My most common fits, sorry, seizures, involve an inability to speak, dizziness, nausea, jamais vu (a feeling that you have never been in a place when you are somewhere you know very well) and, bizarrely, recurring memories - these memories are extremely vivid. They are of some incident in my past, but when the seizure is over, I am unable to recall the memory. Generally a seizure lasts a few minutes, but in this case it was more extreme and caused some worry amongst family members and bemusement in the removal men.

It was quite fitting (no pun intended) that I should be in a state of dizziness when we were finally installed because most of the time I had spent in France prior to this was on holiday, most of which were passed in a state of dizziness brought on by an excess of Burgundy red...