Talbert Pipes Life in France Adventures Three Years On, pg 3 You just never know what you will encounter here One thing I've learned is to wear my bathing shorts and t-shirt all summer because I never know when we'll find ourselves by the ocean, and once I'm there I can't resist wading out into the water. Yes, it doesn't matter what I am wearing, which is why I try to mainly wear stuff that won't mind seawater... We were so excited to see this grey Renault Clio hatchback that we just had to stop and snap a picture of it My language skills continue to crawl along, occasionally advancing in fits and starts. I am conscious that I can now communicate a lot more, and am able to ask for what I want and even complain when I don't get it! It doesn't feel like I've improved much, yet I do note a lot of practical day-to-day ease that didn't use to be there. Oddly, getting BBC by satellite dish has actually increased my desire to study French. I'd wondered if English TV would forever stunt my French progress but it seems to have had the opposite effect, I suppose because it eliminates a lot of the quasi-resentment I felt for the language. Before, it was omnipresent and inescapable, and it tended to make me feel my back was against the wall and I was being forced to learn, which was no fun. Now, it's more like an interesting option that will provide me greater advantages, and that's a lot more enjoyable. So, here we are in 2005, three years after arriving in a foreign country, still alive. Daily life today is nearly the same as it was in the US before the move. The biggest recent change was closing the retail shop. We're now in the midst of re-arranging that area into a smoking lounge, shipping area, and home gym, and we've also relocated our aquarium into a smaller and more-easily serviced setup. In general, this has been a year of looking around, realizing we can now change our surroundings to better please us, and doing just that. The funny thing is, for the first time since we moved here I have recently felt little tingles of wanderlust - time to look towards the next big project, maybe? I've been turning over some ideas for a very large-scale pipe project that would have been unthinkable a year ago, but now seems enticingly challenging... we'll see. Bye for now!