Nearly a year into our French adventure and we’ve got some real friendships taking shape. In the past, I would have been mad keen to know immediately if someone was ‘going to be my friend’. But I have learned over time that sometimes the best friendships blossom in the most unexpected places, so I have stopped trying so hard and now enjoy sitting back and seeing what path a new acquaintance might take.

The BiblioBus

The BiblioBus

The friendships growing up around us are with a mix of people of varying nationality, age and life experience.

Jim and Becci have been staying with us in their library bus for a while now while Jim renovates his sister’s house. We’re pretty similar people so it was on the cards, but we have now passed the polite first stages of friendship and are now in a place where we really enjoy helping each other out but we can also be rude! Happy days.

Some of the less likely friendships are developing with my wonderful yoga students. French couples, Claude and Sylvian and Janine and Alain, have been coming to the class I run in our village hall since it started. They are there without fail each week – funny, open and honest and I love them.

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Andy and Julie are another English couple who also moved to Lahitte last year. Chris and Julie now take French lessons together with Philippe, who lives in the village. Sharing experiences like these is a great way of growing friendships.

Of course, not everyone is going to be your best buddy. People are like leaves in a flowing river – we’re all moving around the rocks and branches that life throws at us, at our own pace. Sometimes a bunch of leaves will hang onto each other and enjoy the ride together for a while. Then something happens and you move into a different stream, with different leaves, at a different pace. Sometimes you meet up again and that’s cool. Sometimes you don’t. And that’s cool too.

Filed under: Happy Coulson

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