Just waved off our first three guests of 2014. No pilgrims yet as the season doesn’t start till March. No, this time it was three members of an Italian circus currently performing in the area. Apparently jugglers and clowns, although sadly we didn’t see any evidence of either juggling or clowning.

Not the best time of year to stay at Happy Coulson as we are currently building new rooms in the grain loft, right next to the dormitory. After driving from Italy yesterday and a show last night, the circus folk were hoping to spend a leisurely morning in bed. This plan was scuppered when builder Jim started sawing through the wall next door. The photo shows shows the view through the new hole – the clowns were trying to sleep in the room behind Chris. Perhaps no surprise they are not staying another night…

As you can see, building work is moving on apace and we can now see where the rooms are going to be. We are on track to have them ready for April – a good job as we have already accepted a booking from 14 Italian priests.

Bookings are starting to come in now, thanks to our listing in THE guidebook for the Chemin de Compostelle – Miam Miam Dodo. Loosely translated as ‘yum yum, nap time’, this book shows pilgrims where they can stay along the 936km route between Arles in France and Santiago de Compostella in Spain.

We are also taking bookings from people keen to share the excitement of the French summer. Packed with the usual fêtes and events, this year is especially exciting. In July, two stages of the Tour de France are starting very close, including one in our home town of Maubourguet. There is also the world-famous Jazz Festival in Marciac, perfect for families during the day and with babysitters on hand if you want to sneak out for the evening. Get in touch if would like to join the fun at happycoulson@orange.fr.

Happy Love Day for tomorrow.

As you might expect from the land of polite greetings (there is even a way to say ‘Have a good end of the afternoon’), there are several ways to say ‘Happy New Year’ in French. But the one I am hearing most often, and the one that says so much more, is ‘Bonne Année et Bonne Santé’.

Good health is at a premium in our village as one family – the Bindés who live on our track – have had a rough end to 2013. First, lovely Robert the farmer had a stroke and is still suffering with eye pain and speech problems. Then, just before Christmas, his two-year-old granddaughter, who was accompanying Robert on a visit to the eye specialist, was sent straight to hospital with a suspected cancerous tumour. The little girl, now in hospital in Paris, had her eye removed yesterday and will now need chemotherapy.

Looking at the photos of our new year visit to the Mediterranean to see the gorgeous Kibbey family, who have also moved from Norfolk to southern France, I counted six healthy children (baby Jack was being carried by dad).

Instead of starting the year resolving to change something I think I don’t like about myself, I am counting our blessings and making a promise to get the most out of every single day. As the mayor of the next village said when I wished him ‘Bonne Année et Bonne Santé’ this morning: “Ah yes, because when we have good health, we have everything”.

Wishing ‘Good Year and Good Health’ to you all.

Christmas has finally arrived at Happy Coulson, following a thoroughly festive weekend in Norwich. It was so lovely to see all the lights and feel the excitement in the air but it was also wonderful to get back to our little French oasis of calm, where Christmas has to be created by us.

On our way home we stopped to spend the children’s Christmas decoration budget – 10€ each kindly donated by Nanny. After looking around long and hard at all the brightly coloured plastic, they decided they would rather buy a pack of 24 plain wooden shapes to decorate themselves. There followed a whole Wednesday of Christmas crafting.

Having our children at home every Wednesday (French children currently don’t go to school on Wednesdays) is a mixed blessing. If I’m totally honest, sometimes it’s downright inconvenient. If I am teaching private yoga lessons or have a meeting then Chris can’t get on with any big renovation jobs as he has to look after the kids.

I am at the stage now where I could be working a lot more. My business brain is urging me to expand into the gaps I still have in my working week: “Go on. You’ll be spreading the yoga love AND earning more money, very useful when you’re hoping to take the kids skiing in March…”.

But why? I’m pretty sure I have, for the first time ever, found a true balance between work and life. This is something many people strive for and I always wondered whether I would even know if I achieved it. Well I did. The other day when I was collecting kindling in one of my spare moments, I made a conscious decision NOT to start another class. We’re fine, we don’t need any more money at the moment. Thank goodness my Happy Coulson Head is louder than my Business Brain. Roll on next Wednesday – I smell mince pies…

November is our big birthday month. Mine, Tana’s and Chris’ all arrive within 11 days. Been thinking about the best birthday presents we have ever got each other (in the order I thought of them).

1) Chris 40th – bright blue bass guitar (from the whole family). He’s always wanted to learn.

2) Me 20-something (can’t remember which) – huge shaggy white coat. Looked like a yeti pelt but now resembles a bad perm as I tried to tumble-dry it. Tit.

3) Chris 34th – a four-day-old Tana with a gold ribbon on his head (for future reference, not my finest idea, sticking a bow to a baby).

4) Chris 35th – dinner at The King’s Head, Bawburgh. Not the dinner but a wooden box with same gold ribbon on. Containing stick with blue line introducing baby India. Hadn’t thought through implications of waving a wee-soaked baton around a restaurant but hey, everyone seemed happy for us.

I LOVE making or buying presents for people but I am not great at receiving them. For many years now I have had everything I need so I rarely need more stuff, especially the month before Christmas, when you get loads of stuff.

Successful gift ideas for Kate must be useful and cheap – current favourites include notelets, funky socks, luxurious toiletries. Or handmade – a note, a card, a cake. (Really? Did I turn 40 or 80 last week…)

Chris wanted to do something really special for my 40th so he arranged a night away without the kids with a meal at a fancy restaurant. Chris knows me better than anyone so he had booked us into a cheap hotel but when we arrived there was no room with a bath, and I had packed my scented candle and bubbles…

For the first time in my life, I suggested upping the budget and we ended up in a fantastic suite with a glass-walled bathroom, his and her sinks and roomy bath. We had champagne in the bath, a wonderful meal out and breakfast in bed at 10am. Sometimes it’s just nice to treat yourself.

Best present this year, though? Sorry, babes, but it’s Tana’s homemade card with this message:
“Happy Birthday Mumy (sic). I love you and hope you have a lovely day. I love you so much I could explode with the love that I have for you. Love Tana (plus 49 kisses as he got a bit carried away)”.
Priceless.

We’re well into our second year in France now. This is it. For real. Complete with all the challenges of normal life. Among them, concerns that Tana might not be progressing as well as he should at school. Last year he was with children younger than him so could do most of the work with them. Now he has leap-frogged up into another school and is one of the youngest.

But after meetings with the teachers and Tana, we are reassured that he is doing just fine and “N’oubliez pas, Mme Coulson, Tana est presque bilingue”. Now if that isn’t progress I don’t know what is.

Having high expectations is good and I believe it has helped in my pursuit of happiness. It certainly helps Tana when he plays sport as he has a real determination to excel.

But it’s a delicate balance. In Tana’s first rugby tournament last weekend, he didn’t fully understand the rules and when he was subbed for another player he became despondent and sulky.

Cue a pep talk from daddy about how he needs to really show he wants that place – high-fiving the other player as he comes off and standing by the coach pestering him to go back on. His next touch of the ball – a try.

Now staying with my mum in England and wondering what makes her such a joy to be around? Well, she doesn’t grumble or moan. She just gets on, whether the job is making dinner or clearing out the gutters. Even though she doesn’t like cooking. (Clearing out the gutters she loves, but that’s just mum).

A little picture on her wall (something her father always used to say) reads:

Life ain’t a matter of holding good cards, but playing a poor hand well.

We could all do with trying to please our coach more. Stop moaning about your cards and get stuck in.

Well, we have survived our first full summer in France. Eight weeks of no school and our busiest time yet – surely a recipe for disaster? Actually no. All ready for La Rentrée tomorrow and feeling fantastic.

Happy Coulson has seen a total of 92 pilgrims, 20 campers, a handful of B&B guests and 5 French students, each staying for a week. Siblings and cousins reunited, birthdays and anniversaries, old friendships rekindled, new friendships explored, and fêtes, fêtes and more fêtes.

This summer at Happy Coulson has been all about people. Different nationalities, life experience and personalities, all thrown into one big melting pot. Give it a stir, savour the aroma and enjoy the feast!

We should be exhausted, and certainly we know we’ve been busy. But when your job is helping people on holiday have an even better time, and when most of those people are, or become, your friends…

Let’s just say, there are worse ways to earn a living.

A momentous week has passed chez Happy Coulson. My brother and I together for a whole week for the first time in 23 years. Jim and I haven’t avoided each other over the years. On the contrary, we have always got on brilliantly. But living on opposite sides of the UK and having four young children between us has meant that quality time together recently has been rare, almost non-existent.

But that mattered not a jot from the moment Jim arrived. The cousins were soon inseparable and after a few days, as the mountains emerged from the summer haze, so too did the prospect of many more joyful weeks together over the years to come, remembering old and building new friendships.

It is easy to beat yourself up about not staying in close contact with family and friends: I should make more of an effort, phone more often, blah, blah, blah. But I’m a bit phone-phobic and hate those duty calls when no-one really has anything to say. I never phone any of my friends – it’s not that I don’t love them, we just have more to talk about when we do get together!

One of the best things about moving to France is that when people visit, it’s usually for a substantial amount of time. So everyone has time to relax into the holiday spirit and really get to know each other.

One year ago today, on Indy’s fifth birthday, we waved goodbye to England and set out on a grand family adventure. Today we celebrated Indy’s sixth birthday and one year of Happy Coulson.

At 1am on Friday 20 July 2012 (it’s exactly 1am on 20 July 2013 as I write this), we unlocked the doors of a rather rundown and musty smelling old farmhouse. The next day we had our first alfresco lunch in the overgrown garden and plucked up the courage to tackle the marshy pond the estate agent had optimistically called a swimming pool.

One year on and I think we have earned the right to pause for a moment and look back at everything we have achieved:

And it’s not just the things we can see that we can be proud of. So far, we have provided accommodation for 58 pilgrims and 12 B&Bers, started local yoga and Zumba classes and witnessed our children becoming bilingual. The house is always full of life – sometimes we have 12 for dinner, often from several different countries. It is hard work and there is still so much to do. We will never be rich but we might just make this work. With help from friends, family and workaways, Happy Coulson really is becoming the dream we had.

Be the change you want to see in the world.
Or as our French student, Pauline, would say: “Quand on veut, on peut”.
Happy days indeed.

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 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.

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.

Is it really Monday tomorrow? I need another Sunday after our weekend of thoroughly French activities. Friday night was the Fete des Ecoles – the end of year show. First, several short plays – Tana and India were rabbits – and lots of amazing songs. Followed by a presentation on the week-long trip for children as young as six, which traced the Adour river from mountain to sea. Aperitif and snacks in the playground while the salle was reshuffled and finally a full-on, sit-down meal with copious amounts of wine that went on well past midnight. The children ate in a separate room by themselves, painted each others’ faces and played in the road outside the school in the darkness. Carnage. Awesome carnage.

Saturday saw a rematch of a recent BBQ with our neighbours, Franck and Shirlie, and friends, Jim and Becci, who live in a library bus in our garden. In France, you generally start a social event with an ‘apéro’ – your choice of drink ranging from wine with cassis to beer or Pastis. Franck and Shirlie arrived at midday, the apéro was served and it began. Basically, we ate and drank all day, breaking for our first game of petanque.

Then the boys went to fetch Franck’s ping pong table and there ensued a fierce Anglo-French battle, dominated by the French but thoroughly enjoyed by the English.

Chris rediscovered his teenage love of ping pong and we will be looking for a secondhand table. In fact, at the hog roast we went to today (not quite so French as it was organised by the local expat group), he met someone from the next village who has a ‘club’ in his garden where men gather to play pool, darts and ping pong. We are so checking that out…