I accidentally moved to France

In 1998 I bought a return ticket to Nice, France – leaving London on the 1st July 1998 and returning to the UK on the 10th September 1998. I’d just finished my university finals and my aim was to have a summer of partying on the French Riviera with two friends (a fellow Brit and a Danish/American) I’d met there the previous summer. I fully intended to move back to the UK afterwards to become a grown up, i.e. get a real job, save money, get a mortgage etc.

Then I got to Nice and my days went something like this:

6pm – 3am: Work as a waitress in a bar/restaurant in the old town of Nice
3 – 7am: Go out to a late club with other bar workers, and party until the sun comes up.
7am – 1pm: Sleep (pass out)
1 – 5pm: Go to the beach with my fellow bar worker friends.
5 – 6pm: Go home, get showered and go to work.

Repeat. 6 days a week. On the 7th day I’d get a day off which would mean I could stay at the beach longer, go out for dinner and then go drinking while I waited for my friends to finish their work and join me at the late club.

We worked hard, but we partied hard too and lazed on the beach during the day. It was heaven for a 22 year old. Within a week my two friends and I decided to postpone our departure “for a bit”. I used my return flight in the September to collect my winter clothes from the UK, and headed back to Nice with a cheshire cat grin on my face. Who wanted to go back to rainy England when you could have sunshine, blue skies, warmth and the beach?

That “for a bit” became “a year or so” and then we stopped putting a date on it….. I finally moved back to the UK on 19th July 2010, 12 years later, with a French husband, a 3 and a half year old daughter, a French dog and a French cat. My British friend then moved back to England in 2011, and my Danish/American friend is still there. So much for going there just for the summer.

Funnily enough after I moved out there my mum confessed that she always knew I would live there, and an ex-boyfriend once told me that I would only be happy with a Frenchman. Well I have the French husband now, even if I am living back in rainy Blighty now.

So why on earth did I move back to England? I’ll save that story for another day and another post…

The three of us, Nice old town, July 1998

The three of us, Nice old town, July 1998

This post is dedicated to the two lovely ladies in the photo above. What an amazing 12 years it was girls πŸ™‚ Miss you xxx

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7 Responses

  1. Wow, sounds like you had an amazing time. I couldn’t imagine living that sort of life – even at 22. Great post, made me smile πŸ™‚

    • Franglaise Mummy says:

      It was amazing and I’d never lived like that before – I don’t think I could have imagined it beforehand. Glad it made you smile and thanks for stopping by πŸ™‚

  2. Judith says:

    Sounds like a glorious life! And I do want to know why you moved back now… I came to England from the Netherlands as a year abroad in the middle of my degree. It is now 12 years later and I am still here, with an English husband, two English children and two English cats. My only excuse for the gloomy location is that it rains even more in the Netherlands.

    • Franglaise Mummy says:

      Aha, that is another story which I’ll definitely post another day. It’s interesting to hear that I’m not the only one who moved somewhere and ended up staying on.

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