The way a wood-burning stove explodes into life when you place a log just so. Or how once vivid green vines become brittle and buckled like barbed wire as autumn tightens its grip. Since I decided, at the age of 33, to retire now, and work later. Bon viveur: Former city girl Felicia Bromfield 'retired' from the hustle and bustle of London for a life of simplicity in France.
After forking out a small fortune on one-to-one French lessons, I had pictured myself jabbering away at a whirl of dinner parties, a glass of vin blanc in non-gesticulating hand — having been embraced by my new neighbours, naturellement. I had expected injections of excitement to come from whipping up to Toulouse or even Paris for spur-of-the-moment soirees, or at the very least drifting in and out of boutiques.
One who no longer mixes with anyone under And has barely spoken a word of French. Nothing — I have retired. He was right — we had, albeit unwittingly, retired. And in doing so, our attitude to life has altered irrevocably. We had saved for months so that we could live — modestly — in France without working. And the real shock? The good life: Felicia Bromfield in France with her boyfriend Ed enjoy a rare trip out. And when it came to work, I was quite at home with the frenetic hours on this newspaper, which left tantalising slivers of time for black cab dashes to dinners and drinks with friends.
I concerned myself with the latest fashions, the newest restaurants, theatre productions or art exhibitions. I once had a boyfriend of Devon stock, whom I mocked relentlessly for his battered Barbour. It was all so alien to me.
I had been in my job four years when change loomed. But soon it was just a fact: we were both going to give up our jobs Ed worked as a national newspaper journalist, too and move to the South of France. At first, friends greeted the news with hastily smoothed frowns — such dramatic action was quite out of character.
