Starting Over

Oooohhh, it has been months since I last updated this blog! Think pretty much everyone has been complaining, demanding to see pictures of my new home and adopted country (for the moment). Sorry for the absolutely long delay – a lot of things have been going on lately.

First of all, let me introduce the place we’ve chosen to settle down in in France. It’s in the northwest of France, in a region called Bretagne, or Brittany in English. We are located in the small town of Lannion, which is in the north of Bretagne. When I say ‘small’, I mean a town with a population of 22,700 people. Everything and everyone is within 15 minutes drive from one another. The telecommunications bug hit Lannion a few years ago when Alcatel-Lucent (then Alcatel) decided to build its university/training center. Xav now works as a freelance trainer for Alcatel-Lucent University. That’s how we came to be here.

Xav and I had decided to stay in Louannec, which is about 15 minutes drive away from Lannion town centre. Louannec is like a little village located between Lannion and Perros-Guirec, another town (about 5 minutes drive away from Louannec) which is reputed for its slightly upper scale neighbourhoods and tourist attractions. After two-weeks of househunting, we finally found a cute orange, 3-bedroom, double-storey house with a huge garden for the dogs. I didn’t include pictures of the house just yet since the garden was just recently planted, and it’d look better in a couple of weeks’ time. Winter is not a good time to start planting anything, so the house owners waited until the start of spring (about April) to do so. True enough, after a month, the grass is about 3 to 4 cm in height, but it’s nevertheless still too fragile for the dogs to run on.



We only thought of this later, but our house will turn out to be the landmark in the neighbourhood. It’s the only orange house, and is located practically on the main road into our neighbourhood, so people will definitely use it as a map guide. Kinda cool, when you think about it :D. We are within walking distance of Louannec’s tiny town centre – one Brittanic church, one post office, one bank, one pharmacy, one butcher, one grocery store, one bakery, two hair saloons and one pet grooming store (imagine this of all things!!). There is also another bakery a 2-minute walking distance from our house. Convenient life I’d say!

In addition to this, we’ve also got the beach close by. It’s not a beach where you can lie down and suntan, since there are a gazillion pebbles scattered all over the shore. When the waves crash against the beach, you can hear the sound of pebbles being displaced by the water. Once you’ve heard it often enough, you’ll find it especially soothing. There are trekking paths on either side of the road leading up to the beach. One side is pretty much out in the open, and you have a good view of the beach and all below it. The other side goes through a forest. I usually walk the dogs by the beach a couple of times a week and we take this forest trek – cooling and pleasant to be surrounded by trees, following the coastline and taking pleasure of the wonderful view of Perros-Guirec from afar. I took the camera once and it was tough to take pictures while at the same time monitoring my two canine friends. Still, I managed to get some shots of faraway Perros-Guirec through the trees.




The weather here in Bretagne is not usually favourable, except in the summer, where temperatures soar to above 30°C. This region has always been known for its grey, rainy weather and cool winds. Must-haves in Lannion: trekking boots for wet weather, raincoat or a cold weather jacket with a hood, umbrella and a really really thick skin – all the necessities for rain. You can imagine what a weather shock it is for Xav and I to arrive from a supertropical country like Tahiti to a rainy region like Bretagne!

But that’s life when you start over sometimes ;D.