The
Homes that we have Known
Here are our home now and other places that
we have lived.
As a family, we started out in
1994 in Le
Tahu, in
Hermeray, France, which is in the Forest of Rambouillet south west of Paris.
When we found a place that better fitted our growing family, we moved nearby to
La Bellanderie, which was a
dream home for us. Even its delapidation added to its charm!
Then all too soon on to Santa Cruz, where our
mountain home is surrounded by lush
woodland, and we have over 40 redwoods on the property. Tom
would like to build a tree house in a grove of redwoods, and we thought
about it at length.
We
found our home in Santa Cruz in record time, thanks to Doug McGuire and Inez Pandolfi ("She's the One!") at Century 21 Arrowhead. Above
on the left is a corner of one of its biggest assets, the deck, soon after
we moved in in August 1997.
From time to time, we stay with Grand-père in La Grée; his delightful
cottage in the heart of Brittany. It too has great charm, and until
2002
had a working farm
next door where the children disappeared for hours on end "helping" Daniel, the
farmer, who generally seemed pretty happy with the work done!
During our years in Santa Cruz, we have put a fair bit
of effort into making our house our home.
On the left is the living room before redecoration.
Grand-père's photos
have now moved into the breakfast nook (below), and the sofabed, which had
made it from New York to Paris to California had to be thrown out because
the crooked French moving company which moved
us to California broke its back and then refused to repair it.
On the right is the breakfast nook after redecoration. That was in
2002, and of course a lot has changed since then, new chairs for example.
That's the difficulty with portraying our current home: it changes constantly.
Other pictures of our home are
here.
Home is where your heart is, and
for us our hearts have never entirely left from where we came:
Marlow, Birmingham, Paris and
Brocéliande.
