Aici sèn pla

This blog started as a daily record to mark our fifth year at Segala. Daily it did not turn out to be but after the year I have decided to continue as an occasional diary - after all I do still like it here or "aici sen pla".


Its our fifth year living at Segala. I have decided to try to mark this year with a daily post ( some days it will be just a photo) of our life over the year. I have trawled my brain for witty titles without success then I remembered the slogan on the T shirts at the fête in Espinas in the summer.


A friend translated it from the occitan for us. It seems to mean something along the lines of I like it here. Very apt for us, "I like it here " is a refrain we use to each other at least daily so that's the plan - Aici sén pla - a year of daily musings from a contented retired expat who thinks herself damned lucky every single day.


Friday, 1 January 2016

Bonne année



2015 has been a year of ups and downs - which I suppose is only normal.

It didn't start too well as my Dad died in January. Although it was hard to lose him it was his time to go. It has been his final couple of weeks and days of suffering the indignities and neglect of the hospital which he endured which have haunted me throughout the year. It has also meant a hard year for my Mum, never mentally strong and now developing  dementia, she has struggled despite moving closer to my brother and having all kinds of support.

On the plus side over the summer we had loads of visitors including our children and their families. Lots of fun but not much blogging! We also had a couple of short breaks to Seville and Collioure at each end of the season to extend our summer.


 All too soon it was over and we were treated to a spectacular Autumn. Once more there were many blog posts I "wrote" in my head but somehow never seemed to get round to publishing.

Got some great photos though! These three were placed first and joint second in a facebook photo competition. Very gratifying result - as Trevor says one day if I work out what the knobs on the camera are for I could be quite good.

Autumn over and its back to sitting by the fire in the salon, a room which only really gets used in the winter. So far we have some hard frosts but it is still fairly mild by day, there's loads to do in the garden and now Christmas is behind us we can get down to it.

We have just returned from spending almost three weeks in a rather damp,dark  England for the festive season. We had a lovely time catching up first with friends and then spending time together with our family in a rented house in Great Longstone near Bakewell in Derbyshire. It has been a real treat to see everyone and we had a lovely long Christmas break,

After two days on the road  it was great to be home yesterday. Our New Year celebrations were low key as we arrived very tired after the journey and today has been spent getting the house straight.

Planning a civilised meal this evening to celebrate the start of 2016. As for blogging I'm not planning on any resolutions about frequency of posts - let's just say I'll do my best.


Bonne année et bonne santé as they say and  Aici sén pla say we two.

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