I suppose that now I must label myself as an emigrant. I haven’t lived for any decent period of time in my native country since 2008, a whole six years ago now.
Strangely I find it hard to see myself in this role, as this emigrant person- I suppose because the emigrant had always a certain image in literature and films, the forever lost Paddy pining after his native fields and friends or the hugely successful millionaire returned Yank.
I am very definitely neither of these and find it very difficult to relate to either- the reasons are many.
Most important I suppose is my age when I decided to move, 59, the moment when one is dipping ones toes into the Troiseme Age the time of pensions and grandchildren. It also marks the time when you have made friends with whom you are entirely comfortable with and trust- you know that your friendship has staying power and a mere couple of thousand kilometres distance is not going to shake this.
More important even than this is the family, my own children and grandchildren, my brothers and sisters and brothers and sisters in law. In a strange way the same rules apply as those relating to friendships. Some you move out of contact with and then contact again only to find that all the old affections are intact, those affection forged in the family home and then again reinforced with the shared experiences of growing older together.
I suppose really that I have put the cart before the horse here and should have said that old friends become a sort of family and the rules of acceptance of people complete with the odd stray wart is part of the process of growing old together- or growing up together in the case of the nearest and dearest.
Then there are two major factors which differentiate between me and an old style emigrant, one is modern communications and travel,You know the stuff I mean, emails, mobile phones, Skype, Face Time, Face Book, Twitter, texting, and then Ryanair and the revolution in airline costs.
The other factor is in fact a lot more deliberate on our part : The fact that we have a B&B.
This provides us with the space to put up with quite a lot of people at the same time and old friends, and even old acquaintances, can stay with us comfortably without being invited.
This makes it very easy for friends to stay, maybe only for a night if they are on holiday in France, this in turn keeps the friendships simmering gently on a back burner.
The one thing we never anticipated when we moved here was the wealth of new friends we would gain in Le Presbytere. Old nodding acquaintances becoming buddies, long lost buddies re-entering our lives and brand new friendships with people from all over the world being formed over dinner and a few glasses of wine on the terrace of Le Presbytere.
All this without mentioning the friends we have made here, from all over the world, of people who like us have moved south in search of the sun.
So emigrant yes, but not to be pitied like Bob Dylan’s “who wishes he should have stayed home”