Gillian Harvey is here to tell us all about writing location and the process of falling in love with where you live all over again. 💫
Happy endings – and then what?
When I moved to France in 2009, I really felt that I’d hit the jackpot: I’d stepped away from the daily grind and chosen instead to take a chance on a brand-new sort of life. And it was wonderful. This, I thought, was my happy ending.
But that’s the problem with happy endings. It’s all very well and good watching a film, hearing the music crescendo and seeing the main characters finally embrace; or reading the final chapter of a novel, when the character you’ve been rooting for wins the day.
When it comes to real life, happy endings are often, also, new beginnings.
Life in France, for me, was wonderful for a time. We’d bought the obligatory fantasy property – a stone house with an enormous garden – and spent our time shopping for furniture in brocantes, or exploring quaint towns and villages in our new stomping ground. And I’ll admit it – we spent a lot of time feeling smug.
What people don’t tell you about life in a dream location is that after a while, when the ‘newness’ fades, you find yourself in a supermarket trying to remember whether you need bananas, or in the queue at the bank trying to sort out car insurance in your faltering second language; or going to the pharmacy to get a bit of cream for that pesky verruca and realise that you’re no longer living the dream. You’re just living.
It’s a bit like a love affair. At first, everything’s rosy – new, exciting. Your new partner’s little habits are endearing. You tease him about his snoring, giggle when he slurps his tea and find the fact he can’t cook toast without burning it somehow adorable.
A few years down the line you’re elbowing him in the ribs when his snores thunder in your ear, tutting when he slurps his tea and sighing loudly when the smoke alarm goes off yet again at breakfast time.
Don’t get me wrong – I still enjoyed living in France. I just found that over time my focus shifted from the marvellous novelty of living here and I became preoccupied instead with the small stuff – paying the electricity bill, cutting the grass or getting my work in on time.
Then something wonderful happened.
Despite living in France for over a decade, I hadn’t yet felt the urge to set a book here. I was waiting for the right idea, that spark of inspiration. And suddenly, out of the blue, it came.
I’m a fast writer – I think fast and (thanks to a few years as a legal secretary in a past life), I also type fast. But never have I found the words pouring from my fingers at the rate they did when writing ‘A Year at the French Farmhouse.’ Descriptions I’d clearly been storing in my subconscious clamoured to be put on the page: I described the local town, the beautiful lake, the stars that seem startlingly close due to the lack of light pollution.
A couple of months later, I had a book. But I had so much more than that too. I’d begun to see my environment once again – to take in the scenery, the beautiful backdrop to my humdrum life. To gaze at stone buildings with ancient turrets, take a moment to pause by the local swimming lake. To realise once again that I am living the kind of life many dream about.
By virtually stopping to smell the roses, or the croissants and coffee so that I could commit sights, sounds and sensations of life in France to paper, I was able to renew my love for the beautiful place I call home.
All I need now is to find a reliable cure for my snoring husband and I’ll once again be living the dream.
Gillian Harvey’s brand new book A Year at the French Farmhouse is out now! Pick up your copy and start reading today: 
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