focus chats to Annemarie Rawson, author of My French Platter – A Journey to a Dream Life in France, about her decision to move across the globe in her mid-50s.
Pre-order My French Platter – A Journey to a Dream Life in France for $29.95 plus p&p by emailing annemarierawson@gmail.com or through Amazon: My French Platter.
annemarierawson.com
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New Zealander Annemarie Rawson loves people, animals, travelling, interior design and creating delicious food to welcome people into her home and at her table. She also collects new ‘best friends’ wherever she goes.
In her 50s, she and her husband, Steve, packed up the house, rented it out, kissed their family and friends goodbye and moved 12,000 km to South West France to work as estate managers for several private families – swapping corporate, city life for animal husbandry and the French countryside.
After a stint back in New Zealand, Annemarie decided (at 60) it was time for another adventure and did exactly the same thing, packing up the house but this time moving to London. Two and a half years later the couple has explored more of London than some Londoners and have bounced around the UK and parts of Europe, capturing it all in photos and blogs.
Annemarie has now written a beautiful book about her hankering for more fulfillment and her journey – which wasn’t always easy – to her dream life in France.
You have done a bit of European travel, what was your first impression of France?
Arriving in Paris on the Eurostar from London about 14 years ago, my eyes were popping taking in the beautiful architecture, monuments, history and green spaces. Our Parisian accommodation was in a colleague’s apartment, one street back and parallel to the Champs Elysees. The green front door sat right on the pavement and once unlocked, we entered a short but large concrete tunnel that opened out into a courtyard. Looking up, apartments surrounded us.
Through another green door, the parquet staircase led up and into a compact but perfectly formed three-bedroomed home. Voices and music from the other flats in the quadrangle carried through the open windows. Our colleague had given us the name of a local restaurant he loved, away from the tourists. It was wonderful. This is how it is to live in Paris and I fell in love with the whole experience.
My French Platter has such a conversational and descriptive style. People have said they feel like they are with you. What made you write the book?
Friends and family really, telling me how much they enjoyed my old WordPress blog and looked forward to it. I also wanted to put our experience on paper to share what happened and the beauty of France with others. A lot of memoir books are about moving to and renovating a property in France. Mine was about crossing the world to work as estate managers in a beautiful country setting and dealing with the English class structure which some English people like to keep alive – fortunately very few that we met, thank goodness.
What is so special to you about France?
In the cities, it is the architecture, galleries, parks and museums and discovering a fantastic little restaurant in a side street, where you sit cheek-by-jowl, enjoying the most delicious morsels. In the countryside and villages, it is the genuine, generous people, respect for the two-hour lunch break, the love of family and their elderly, the time taken to sit at the table and enjoy good food and wine. I also love the language – not that I’ve fully mastered it!
That was a brave undertaking in your mid-50s, leaving your established life and flying halfway round the world to live and work in a foreign country. What made you do it?
Neither of us considered it brave, it was just a hankering for something more from life. I can’t pinpoint it other than to say I wanted more than the usual day-to-day existence. There was nothing wrong with our lives – good jobs, a wonderful social life, lovely friends and family. Both of us had loved our time holidaying in France and Steve’s French is very good, plus he has a British/Euro passport. These three factors helped us decide to go as well as ‘it’s now or never’ because of our ages.
And to prove you’re never too old, we left New Zealand again, at 60 and went and lived and worked in London. It was Covid that stopped us in our tracks. Otherwise, we might well still be there …
If you have a dream, weigh up the odds then do everything in your power to make it happen. Even though it was difficult for us in the beginning, I have no regrets.
I see it says Book 1 on the cover of My French Platter. So can we expect a sequel?
Oh yes, most definitely! You have to discover what happens to us next. It is now with my editor and will be out mid-2021.
