Raver
- raverinretreat
- Oct 14, 2014
- 4 min read
Part 1
Ten years ago, my life in England was fun. No, it was wild. Yeah, the day job bored the shit out of me, and I’m not someone who gets on with the whole arse-lick-your-way-to-a-promotion malarkey. Take me as you find me. But aside from all that, I lived for my weekends. House music all night long — all weekend long, preferably. Clubs, festis, raves, gigs. House, trance, techno, and a mosh pit from time to time. And you know what used to go with those territories...
I loved the music and the scene. But something had to give. Maybe it was an age thing, maybe it was a need to break out from what, after over a decade, had become normal life and began to feel stale. Maybe I was just plain knackered.
So the significant other and I decided to put his building skills to use, take time out and spend it doing something constructive — literally. We wanted a project we could really get our teeth into. But we couldn’t afford to buy anywhere in the UK, and so we turned our sights further afield.
Eventually, we settled on the idea of France. I won’t bore you with the whys, but voila. Here we are. Still chewing. In other words, we bit off more than should have done.
Perhaps when the money was gone and the house only three-quarters finished, we should have scarpered back home, got jobs, finished it bit by bit on working holidays. In retrospect that probably is what we should have done. Except that I fell pregnant. The option of staying and setting up a building firm while living in our own half built home, as oppose to returning to the UK to impose on family, having no income, and a baby on the way, seemed the best choice at the time.
Our original plan had been to finish the house, sell it, go to South America for a few months, maybe try our hand at another project in Europe with the money we would have stashed, had it not all gone awry. We were only supposed to be here for a few years.
Oops.
For anyone who has a dream about retiring — or working and living, even — in a hot country, fulfilling that dream puts them on top of the world, and they will find great things in every aspect of their new lives. For someone whose dreams have been fabricated in an entirely different nature, finding great things in a place you hadn’t ever expected to settle can be...well, difficult.
I had some dark years. There’s no point in pretending otherwise. The only thing that lit me up were my kids. That’s not to say I hadn’t made friends, but key people moved away to find work just at the time we were starting a family, or starting families themselves. My children were an absolute joy, of course (love ‘em, little stars). Even so, in one of the most rural places in France, stuck in the house a lot, unable to converse fluently in this new language (and not getting a lot of opportunity to practice), I felt cut off. I like to think I have a wicked sense of humour, but trying to express myself in stumbling French just didn’t translate. Even now, after so many years, it can be a struggle. I couldn’t banter with my French friends in the way I could in England, even though I desperately wanted to. And I like to talk (can’t you tell?).
Winters around here are quiet. And it rains — a lot. Using the distant amenities of the big city when you have nappies to change and milk feeds to give becomes a real chore. The only radio stations we could pick up in our little valley played classical music, or talked about food and local shop keepers. As for any gigs, we’d shoved ourselves into a musical void, except for traditional accordion music, ten-a-penny, and some pretentious jazz — all angled at the retired community. Not that I could go out partying all night when I had a young family to prioritise anyway.
I missed my family and my friends sorely. Maybe I got a little depressed. Likely. But as the years dragged on I also realised how precious the nineties were, and how distant they were becoming. Rock music was again taking hold of the UK, and dance music got thrown in the back seat. To be expected, and I loved the new sound coming out of Britain; hated the fact I was missing out. But that wonderful decade of house music and all that accompanied it was fading and I missed it like I would a child. And I don’t say that lightly. It hurt. It still does. The music, the community, the creativity that bloomed during that most special era is what I am the most proud about to have come from the UK. If you were there, you know what I’m talking about. We were family. It never occurred to us that one day it would all be gone.
So, what’s a girl to do in a situation like that?
Money was tight, so taking up an expensive hobby was out of the question. But a far off dream from my younger days kept digging me in the ribs, one that didn’t have to cost a penny...
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