Our first Annual Update sent to friends and family:
MERRY CHRISTMAS
EVERYBODY!!!!
For the first time this year, we are sending our
Christmas wishes with a
recap of the year.
We feel that, with all our moves and changes, we're losing touch with too
many people that we'd love to keep in contact with. Plus, it has been a
crazy year. I personally am too old for all this!
1997 started at La Bellanderie, the lovely
old manor house in the village of Saint Hilarion (50 miles southwest of
Paris) that a friend, . . ., rented to us the year before so that we
would have the space to lodge our always-expanding family.
Nick (11 in July) and Tom (8 in
October), my contributions, Daphné (10 in August)
and Alban (8 in September), Marie-Hélène's
contibutions, and Charlie (2 in August), our first
joint effort, each had his or her own room, and all had a playroom as well
as acres of woodland and stream to romp around in. That house has spoiled
us all for life; we may never be able to afford one like it again!
But the writing was on the wall in France. The economy was gurgling happily
down the drain; no government seems able or willing to tackle the entrenched
set of entitlements and expectations that bleed the country's coffers and
render individual initiative a last resort reserved for those who can't get
what they need from the government. While the French brutally disposed of
their monarchy, they never seem to have lost the sense that the government
owes them a living. In return, they accept great governmental intrusion in
their lives; . . .. Plus, perhaps because I did not chose to remain living
there, my own initiatives tended to fall flat.
Prompted by Marie-Hélène, we began to look
into professional possibilities in California, where I have wanted to return
ever since those dream years at U.C. Berkeley. With the livelihood of five
kids to consider, it was not a decision to be taken lightly. Each of the
older four would end up living a long way from one of their parents, for
example, and neither Daphné nor
Alban spoke more than a few words of
English. Then again, I have never met an adult who regretted emigrating to
California when he or she was a kid. And when we finished 1996 accounts and
looked at what 1997 seemed to have in store for us in France, we basically
had no choice but to move on.
I asked Marie-Hélène to marry me on the fabulous roller
coaster at Disneyland in Paris that the kids call the "train fou", or
runaway train, and think that she replied "oui", although it could have been
"whoeeeeee"! It was all a bit rushed because once we had decided to move,
we couldn't dawdle. It seemed right that she married with her family
present, which would have been difficult had we waited until arriving in
California. She has never been married before, explaining Daphné and Alban
as not one but two immaculate conceptions! Some of you will have observed
that it was not my first marriage, to which I can only respond that we all
make mistakes, and that having suffered the consequences of prior mistakes
makes the consequences of the new commitment more visible. Neither of us is
going into this with romantic illusions, but both with a great deal of
feeling and heart. It took France to teach this Englishman the meaning of
romantic love.
We
were married on May 24 in the local village hall,
and catered a reception at "La Bellanderie" afterwards. To those of you who
were able to make it on such short notice, thank you very much (if you are
on this side of the puddle, be prepared for a serious first anniversary
celebration here!). Special thank yous go out to Ronnie and Louise, who
gave my family a presence in the face of all those French people
(Marie-Hélène's family seemed LARGE that day), to
Aunt Angela and Veronica
Stevens and family (who had car trouble in Leeds, but were still only two
weeks late!) and to Kay and Charles Tillion, who helped me feel that
mum was
with us. She would have been thrilled. . . .
Not a month later, we flew to New York,
spent a few days being tourists and then crossed the country from New York
to San Francisco by train. Americans will never
appreciate as do we Europeans the grandeur and glory of all that land. The
trip lasted 3-1/2 days, and through the Rockies we travelled amazing lines
with seemingly unlimited looping curves that I first read about as a little
boy in a marvellous three-volume work that dad gave me, "Railway Wonders of
the World". They are! And these wonders came served with a shower on the
train, a family room for us to sleep and hang out in, and wide-angle
observation seating for jet-lagged travellers watching the dawn come up over
the Utah/Nevada border.
[Photo taken in Colorado, with
passengers reflected in the window]
The sad part of the trip, the abiding sadness for those of us who are
settling into our new home in California, is that French judges who
apparently did not appreciate me punished Nick and
Tom for my sins, keeping
them in France when we left and not interfering when their mother refused
even to let them visit us over two school holidays. Against their own
expert's advice, they changed the boys residence to their mother's home, . .
. .
This was in the boys' best interest, according to these judges and against
the boys' own wishes, uniquely because France is best for them. What
logic! . . . (additional ranting omitted!)
It
feels so good to be back home after all the years of involuntary exile, and
professionally things already look so much more encouraging here, but do we
all miss the little guys. We found the house
just over a week after arriving in Santa Cruz. It’s on the side of a hill
about ten minutes from the ocean and downtown, surrounded by redwood decks
and with redwoods growing on the property. Apart from all the leaves that
have to be cleared off the steep, 300 yard driveway, it’s a delight. We’re
next door to the “Mystery Spot”, “seen in Life Magazine”, and within
commuting distance of Silicon Valley.
Daphné and Alban lucked into the best local elementary school, where their
English advances at an incredible pace and the headmistress and all the
teachers glow with their passion for their charges. It’s called
Happy Valley School. They both want
skateboards for Christmas, have already made friends with a hippy-looking
type on Pacific Avenue, the main street downtown (he’s a Math Professor at
U.C. Santa Cruz who hails from Morocco), and are generally making the most
of their new world. Alban has fallen in love with kids’ soccer, and both of
them are thrilled with the PCs available at school, during class and after.
[The photo is of Alban celebrating his first
Halloween in the US, at Happy Valley School.]
