Our house sit in Salle-de-Villefagnon was our longest sit, as well as where it all fell apart. 

First a little bit about the house sit. We were in another farmhouse in a tiny village called Salle-de-Villefagnon, which really has nothing there but a small cluster of old rustic homes. It’s closest mid sized town is called Ruffec. The next biggest town was called Angouléme, which is where several of the pictures were taken below. There was also a little village about 8 minutes away that was about as picturesque a French village as I could imagine. The town was called Verteuil-sur-Charente and at the center of it was a giant French castle that was and is still occupied by the Rochefoucauld family. At the base of the castle, was a river with a small restaurant that we had omelettes at. They didn’t speak any English there, and our phone didn’t have service so we couldn’t use the translator. My elementary school training did nothing for me. But we recognized the words omelette and lardons (big chunks of bacon) and that’s all we needed. It was also one of the very few meals that we ate out while we were in France. Eating out there is an expensive venture, so we only did it a small handful of times. I had a lot of fun cooking each night with all of the delicious meats, cheeses and wines that they had at the local market, and obviously with tons of butter. 

More on the house sit… We had two dogs – Nessa (German shepherd), Lulu (black lab), and two cats Jack and Sophie. We really loved all of the animals so much, especially once I was able to track down a decent antihistamine. The dogs loved Rosie, particularly Nessa, who was so maternal it was so cute. She would just park herself right next to the baby and just have her nose barely grazing her while she was laying on the floor. At night she would wait outside our door and the second we came out in the morning she would rush in to see how the baby was. I can’t wait to go back and visit Nessa, she was a really special pooch. Lulu was more of a goofball and had lots of fun running around in the yard and being silly. The house also had a wood burning stove, so I made fires just about every night. We didn’t pack a crib for Rosie, so we pulled out one of the dresser drawers and padded it up and stuck her in there. It was great. That’s the nice things about babies, they don’t really know any different. It worked great for our little peasant baby. The house was on around 3 acres, so the dogs had a lot of room to roam around and play fetch. The couple we were sitting for were Kate and Mickey. Kate was from the UK, and Mickey was born in Indonesia but his family moved to Holland when they de-colonized Indonesia and gave anybody living there the option to hop across and settle in Holland. So he grew up in Holland and travelled around the world as some kind of engineer in the oil drilling field. They were so lovely. We had a really nice time having dinner with them before they left on their tour and cruise in India. They loved spending time with Rosie which was so sweet. When they came back from their trip we got to spend more time with them and they were so warm and pleasant and left us an open invitation to come back and stay with them when we return to France. 

We had so much fun traveling around the Charente region of France and dipping into the Dordogne region just sound of us as well. We visited the largest subterranean church in Europe in Aubeterre-sur-Dronne. I included a couple pictures of us exploring that town. Like most villages in Europe, it was beautiful. We spent a long day in Angouléme and that’s where I learned that everything in France shuts down for 2 hours at lunch time. They kicked us out of their museum at noon and told us to come back later. Sort of annoying, but I can definitely appreciate the commitment to vegging in the middle of the day like that. We had a little picnic in the village square and wandered around the little lanes and alleys. 

So we were really trying to stay above all of the crazy news about the corona virus. Every morning we’d wake up to a flurry of texts from friends and families asking if we were ok. It was a little exhausting to be honest. Even though France, Italy and Spain were the epicenter of the pandemic at that point, it didn’t feel that way. Things were so peaceful and we were just so happy. Going on little excursions and exploring the amazing French countryside. The market was very peaceful, nobody was holding toilet paper like we were seeing back home in Canada and the states. I couldn’t figure out why we would want to rush to a crowded airport, get on a crowded plan, to fly for 10 hours, then to drive another 17 hours home. It just didn’t make any sense to me. Anyways, long story short, everything came crumbling down. I’ll do my best to list out the events chronologically here. 

1. Our next house sit planned in southern France in the Pyrenees messaged us to cancel. They were not able to go on their trip and therefore wouldn’t be able to have us there. We were really bummed because they had a beautiful home right next to the Pyrenees, it had a pool, a couple acres, and some beautiful pups.
2. Things in Europe were getting worse with the virus, numbers were growing exponentially, but we were in the countryside and hardly ever saw anybody, so we weren’t worried.
3. Mickey and Kates cruise in India was cancelled, which forced them to come home much earlier than they were anticipating. I picked them up, and we all stayed in the house together for about a week while we figured out what to do next. We were only about halfway through out sit at that point, which was supposed to be a month. We had tentatively decided that we would go down to Bordeaux, and then fly over to Portugal, and lay low on the Algarve coast till this silly little virus thing blows over…
4. Started getting more and more pressure from family and friends to get home soon. Even Justin Trudeau went on television and said to all Canadians that it was time to come home now. 
5. We were planning a full day of different visits around our area, and we woke up in the morning and President Macron had implemented a lockdown order, and nobody was allowed outside except to get groceries, for medical purposes, or to exercise. So this took the wind out from our sails. If we can’t go explore, then what’s the point? 
6. We cancelled all of our plane tickets to Portugal, and booked a ticket from Paris to Salt Lake through Dallas. 
7. A couple days later we drove up to Paris about 4 hours and dropped off our car, and flew out the next morning to Dallas. 
8. Rosie screamed for the first couple of hours on the plane. That was super fun.
9. We got to Dallas in the afternoon to watch all of our connecting flights to Salt Lake get cancelled one after the other. We ended up being trapped in the Dallas airport for about 12 hours. I think we got dropped from 3 flights, and they said we needed to go to a specific booth to get our hotel accommodations, so I rushed over there with everybody else, to find a 30 person line up with one person helping people. It was midnight at this point, and there was no way I was going to wait there for several hours, so I called my mother in law Jill to see what other options we had. 
10. We found a flight leaving for Vegas in a few minutes, so I had them put us on that flight, and we rushed over there to catch that flight. It ended up being delayed several hours and didn’t end up taking off till 3:30 am. This was all much more stressful with a tiny little baby to take care of. 
11. We finally got off and on the plane, and made it to Vegas in the middle of the night, but we were lucky because Morgan’s Aunt Brandi was working our flight that night at the booth, so we were able to connect with her, and she took us back to their place in Vegas and we crashed pretty hard. 
12. Got up in the morning, rented a car, and drove 8 hours up to Salt lake. Added some time because of the baby. 
13. Got to Salt Lake, but we weren’t overly welcomed as the panic had reached Morgan’s Dad, and we weren’t exactly welcomed there, but all of our stuff was still in the extra bedroom that we needed to pack up. So we spent the night there and packed up and left promptly the next morning, and made it to Pendleton and spent the night there.
14. By the time we made it back to Vancouver we had been through various means of transit for around 5 days or so. It was brutal, but felt good to finally be in our own bed and apartment. All of the plans were alive, so that was great. 

Anyways, our Europe extravaganza was an amazing trip, but ended a little prematurely, which only means that we need to go back right away as soon as circumstances allow. Maybe the next maternity leave? It it could line up with my graduation, I could take some time off and we could make it happen again, but we’ll see.