A NEW LIFE IN FRANCE
T is French town has become my new faith. I am doing something I believe in and I am living my dream
Charlotte Buckingham tells with heartfelt honesty the experience of swapping Bristol for a new life in south-west France with her daughter Poppy, 7.
S
unday is market day. Every Sunday, without fail. In the wind, the rain, the intensity of summer; even on Christmas Day. It’s a new kind of
worship, this market day, and it is something that the French take very seriously. Ironically, Sunday is a good day for
business in St-Antonin-Noble-Val and also for the townsfolk. A rich tapestry of dried fruit, herbs, saucisson and cheese shroud the streets. A fi ne feast of food for the eyes, heart and stomach. Not forgetting the gossip. A congregation of locals can’t help but
busy themselves with the ‘he said, she said, who said what?’ A hive of excitement… words buzz like bees over pastis and grands crèmes at the market place with its bar standing proudly like an altar in the centre of town. Today is no diff erent. T is little French town is packed with proud market traders who colour the cobbles with the fruits of
their labour. Like a river that has burst its banks, people pour down the streets to see, smell, taste and buy their sweet delights. St-Antonin-Noble-Val is a medieval town
in the Tarn-et-Garonne department of the Midi-Pyrenees in southern France, where our story began seven years ago. I was 29 and living in Bristol working in
children’s media where a work colleague of mine had a renovated barn which he rented out to holidaymakers in a nearby village Verfeil-Sur-Seye. T e opportunity to bask in sun in the south of France for two weeks was something I could not refuse. As a young girl I had always holidayed in Brittany and Normandy but this was my fi rst visit to the south. With my family - my Mum Liz, Dad, Phil and sister, Adel Burgess (pictured leſt) - in tow, I drove through France in the scorching month of August. Exhausted from the 12-hour drive, we
decided to stop for chocolat chaud and croissants in St-Antonin-Noble-Val. And as
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