As Christmas approached the previous owner of our mas and his two daughters prepared to move out of The Other End. We were highly excited to see (for only the second time) the rest of the house that we had purchased. And not more than a little curious to see how they had been living all these months.

I met Shaun at my yoga class in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria. A teacher of literacy at the local college, he had dreams of becoming a circus entertainer.

Several fraught phone calls later it seemed that our furniture was making slow progress through France in our direction. On the appointed day we received a phone call to say it was on its way up our hill. We ran outside to be confronted by two grumpy blokes sitting in a tiny van on the drive outside the house.

Join  Marian Thornley every week as she shares the ups and downs of her move to, and life in Céret   Settling in France We woke up for the first time in our new home, realised…