Chapter 2: The move to France
In August 2017, after much distress from Greg's mum (Françoise) talking about Greg's dad (Serge) behaving strangely and getting increasingly deaf and refusing to believe it, and a number of visits from Greg's parents over the years and holidays with them where Serge confided in his sons that Françoise was getting more and more unbearable and he was considering divorce: Françoise finally managed to get Serge to doctors to get an assessment - he was diagnosed with FTD (frontal temporal dementia, with a prognosis of 5-10 years - the same kind of thing that Bruce Willis has) and they did some genetic testing and found out it was a hereditary version. 50% chance of Greg or his brother having it. Both Greg and his brother got tested. Greg didn't have it. His brother does - his brother also has 50% chance of passing it to offspring. In the end they opted to do IVF - think they did over 5 implantation's and 2 rounds of egg harvesting to get their kid.
At the time, Serge was ok, just losing words and adapting by using a different similar word or using the wrong word....we visited as much as possible, Greg arranged as many family holidays together as possible.
- 13 – 15 October 2017 Nantes;
- 14 – 18 June 2018 Nantes;
- 1 – 7 October 2018 Barcelona;
- 20 – 29 December 2018 Christmas in Thornbury;
- 24 – 27 April 2019 Loire Valley;
- 25 – 30 August 2019 Dordogne;
- 18 – 29 July 2020 Brittany;
It was tough, you could see that Serge was struggling, and finding everything exhausting (we took Serge, Françoise and Greg’s brother to Barcelona in Oct 2018 I think that was our last holiday abroad together - and you could see that Serge was struggling - he had stopped painting (which he had really enjoyed at the start of his retirement and was still running a bit). Greg used all his holiday to visit his parents, I'd go with him, we would take them for walks. do stuff. have dinner. Generally, spend time with them.
By 2019 Greg still did not want to move to France to help his parents (I found this upsetting, as Françoise has struggled with their retirement and move to Lannion for many years and was now struggling to care for Serge). Greg wanted to stay in the UK to get UK citizenship, and was travelling to and from Bristol and Lannion to spend about 2 weeks with his parents every 2 months and working remotely from his parents place. Françoise was not sleeping (even though they were in separate bedrooms) and I think this was about the time that the doctors stopped seeing Serge as his symptoms were getting worse and there is no point in seeing a speech therapist if you can't speak, He was down to "yes" and "no" but even then it wasn't clear if it actually meant that. He could weirdly still read out loud... like labels and stuff but had no idea what a spoon was for and would just poke food with his finger, while holding the spoon in the other hand.
Anyhow, Covid happened and this made Serge (and Françoise) deteriorate faster. and Greg wasn't able to go and help as much – and told me he felt like moving to France was going to be like killing his dad. It was all very stressful. Greg got his citizenship (just as COVID restrictions were opening up) and we started planning to move to France. During all of this Greg's little brother Ronan (and everyone else in the family) was so wrapped up in how Ronan was dealing with (or feeling about) his diagnosis that he, and everyone else felt that he was excused from all familial responsibility and barely visited his parents, despite living about 3hrs drive away in Nantes. They (Ronan and his girlfriend Fanny) moved to their house the same time we moved to France, and they chose to stay in Nantes - and actually found a place further away!, This is despite Ronan being flexible with his career (musician/artist) and being able to work from anywhere and also because both Fanny and Ronan find Françoise "too difficult".
Whatsapp 24 July 2024
Eventually, once Greg had gotten UK
Citizenship, we prepared to move to France (we talked about what we wanted to
do in France, I didn't want to work in Paris (nor did Greg). We had originally
toyed with the idea of living in Paris but as any potential work for me (in an
English speaking international company in my field was located in Nanterre
which was the polar opposite outskirts of Paris to where Greg’s previous
company was we decided against it. I wanted to work locally - and I knew it was
not possible in Lannion to remain in my field - Greg wanted to keep in his
field as he could earn better money there and I guess being forced to go to the
office in Paris would be a good break from the family responsibility in Lannion
- anyway we talked about having a cafe in Lannion, I could cook and run it,
Greg could work a bit in Paris a cafe with me - and coincidentally, the
bar/bistro that we always used to go to in Lannion "Ty Cosy" - run by
our friend Ingrid - we found out that she really wanted to sell - so we talked
about buying that from her. So, we sold our house in Bristol - which was a
Palava (Greg wrote about it in his annual 
newsletter to our friends “Happy 2022”) - we
paid off our mortgage to try and get a mortgage with a private French bank, but
they fell through, so we had to delay our purchase of the house in France and
stayed in Greg's parents house in Ploulec’h, just outside of Lannion for a
month while we waited for the money to come through, then transfer it from GBP
to Euros...and we had to delay the purchase of the house in Lannion until late
December. The move was stressful, Greg had taken a redundancy package to allow
him 6 months to prepare the move and stuff....but had opted to hire 2 dudes
with a large van each - so we had to pack everything and lift it into the vans.
not everything fit and so Greg had to hire a van himself and ferry it to race
the vans to Lannion. only one of the vans made it through Calais, and the
second was stopped because he was just behind the first and the customs forms
said Gregoire Moinet, so they could only let one through. The second van had to
come through the next day.
Françoise was not coping, she wasn't sleeping, she refused to have home help, the only respite she had was twice a week Serge would go to dementia day care for the afternoon. Serge was by now doubly incontinent. He also used to try and mop up the wetted bed with his t-shirts and hide the pee sodden t-shirts around the bedroom (we would often play a game of “cache slip” with Serge, whilst we were staying with them we would regularly hear Françoise shouting at Serge that he was being difficult/doing the wrong thing on purpose...She would also regularly shout at Greg, whilst Serge was in the room, that she wished he were dead. It was very evident that Francoise seemed to blame Greg for the situation and she would visibly scowl at him whenever she saw him, but smile at everyone else. Everyone kept telling me how lucky my dad was that he died from a heart attack, even when I asked them to stop mentioning this because I found it hurtful, as I had no warning, and they: given years and years of warning, did nothing but tell each other about their feelings on the subject without listening to one another, and not doing anything to help Serge or Françoise.
Anyway, we eventually settled into our new house (bought with the money from the sale of the house in the UK – Greg also bought a second hand electric car, installed a charging point, with some of this money) just before Christmas 2021. Greg started working for a new company in Paris the 3rd January (mainly remotely but requested to travel into Paris office for a week once a month). I continued working for the consultancy in London I had joined in 2020 (remotely) until the end of Jan as they weren't ok with me working from France. So, I set up a ltd company so that I could try and work as an independent consultant. Anyway, the whole consulting thing didn't work out, not much work. but I spent all my time keeping Serge and Françoise company, while Greg was either working from home or in Paris. I'd cook them lunch and take it over to their house, we'd invite them over for dinner all together. Anyway, I begged and begged Greg to call the specialist care homes, Serge was on the waiting list for at least 3 local dementia care homes for over a year, but there was never a room/place free. Essentially you are waiting for people to die to free up space. Things were getting more and more desperate.
Eventually, 26th April 2022, Serge got a space in the care home in Lannion - 10mins from both us and Françoise. Neither Greg or Ronan were able to help Françoise move Serge into the care home that day and (understandably) Françoise did not want to do this by herself. Françoise and I selected things that we thought he would like in his room. I went every day in the first few months, I spoke to him (more at him) did a bit of colouring while I was there (he used to like to paint and drawing but stopped.... anyway, I just hung out in the care home lounge, got to know most of the other residents. I think they thought I was a nurse. I walked around with him. When Françoise came to visit (every other day) we would take him on little walks around the compound. Unfortunately, he fell late 2023 and has not walked since and then was moved up to the 3rd floor (there is a joke in the care home that the higher up the floors you go in the care home, the closer you are to god.....you are essentially waiting to die - it is incredibly lonely there - most of the residents spend their time crying and screaming because they don't get visited at all, it’s incredibly dull lying in bed all day) where the residents who can’t walk are cared for. Unfortunately, this means that Serge is in Bed most of the time OR in a wheelchair. Greg visits at least every Friday and Sunday and his mum (Françoise) visits everyday. Serge has not spoken since last year and I think Greg is unsure if Serge recognises him or not. very sad. Ronan, visits his dad once every 2 months or so?
Meanwhile, I had been coordinating facial muscle rehab with an occupational therapist of mine in Australia - mums stoke led to loss of motor control on the left side of her face... we did lots of exercises together on Zoom....mum worked really hard and got back quite a bit of movement back and her resting face is ok now, but she has stopped doing exercises as activating the facial muscles gives her tinnitus!....and then she started having random passing out fits - where she is conscious one minute then vomiting and unconscious the next....no known cause. - GP's keep sending her to check her heart, 3 times now. Still no answers.
By April 2022, I was quite distressed by the whole family situation, although I thought it might be the symptoms of perimenopause. I was not sleeping well, I would either just be awake and be unable to fall asleep or when I did sleep I did not feel like I had slept at all and was having very vivid nightmares. I was also putting on weight, and my period pain was excruciating which was not normal. I went for blood tests (they wanted to check if it was my thyroid – thyroid was fine) I also went to see the midwife and gynaecologist to get a uterine scan to see if there was any issue there, but it came back clear. In hindsight, I suspect that it was the start of depression stemming from the all-consuming effort to be taking care of Greg's parents in a foreign language, and even though Greg probably took the brunt of it, he was working 4 days a week and only joined in on Fridays to Sundays, whilst they were my focus 100% of the time, I didn't have time, inclination or sufficient confidence in my French to go out and make my own friends. So was spending all my time with Greg's parents. By June 2022, feeling that Greg was not paying me any attention at all, I explained to him that it was very difficult for me in Lannion, I suppose I was feeling isolated and Greg seemed to be so wrapped up in climbing, working or his parents he really didn’t have time for me - aside from watching a bit of tv with me or going to dinner (mostly we took his mum with us too!). But there was no-one similar to me nearby. There was no good Asian supermarket (the closest was about 1hr to 1.5hrs drive away and didn’t have all the stuff I needed to make the kind of food I usually make) nearby. Once after much complaining, we went into Paris together to go to the main Chinese food importer Tang Fréres, but even that was a poor comparison to what you could find in the Chinese cash and carry in Bristol. The other Asians in Lannion, were either Chinese students at the local technical college, Mainland Chinese who had moved here to run a restaurant, or there were Cambodian or Vietnamese who had immigrated in the 1970's and their children. All of whom I have little in common with. I'm not Chinese enough to Chinese, and not white enough to be British. I essentially gave Greg and ultimatum (or challenge) to show that he was paying me attention or that he cared....I asked him to organise something for my 40th birthday, there needed to be Hammocks, Pina Colada. and I wanted to DO NOTHING, also, spa and some massage would not go amiss (so that I could escape the drama of all the family stuff going on in Lannion). Greg booked a week in a posh spa hotel in Switzerland, in the mountains with a Michelin star restaurant attached where it was half board and dinner was in the hotel restaurant every night. No hammock, there was pina colada (which he mentioned in the annual 2023 newsletter to all our friends “Happy 23”. Greg was bemused as to why I was so upset/disappointed with his amazing, kind and thoughtful offering (one day I cried so much I just asked him to go out for a walk and leave me in the hotel alone). He had essentially booked a holiday that looked after his needs which is that there needed to be mountains so that he could go for walks. I had already pointed out to him, on many occasions - like on hikes we used to go on with our friends in the UK - (before we even left for France) that my bunions really hurt and I couldn’t walk for more than 30mins without them causing me lots of pain.
Our first visitors to stay with us were some old climbing friends, who stayed with us in July 2022, I explained to them what I had been also explaining to Greg (they happened to arrive when Greg was working in Paris) that I was being ignored, and that I had no purpose in France, I was frustrated that I couldn't find work, and had no means to do anything of significance as I had no access to a reasonable amount of money to be able to start or run a cafe that Greg and I had talked about.
The problem of being located so deep in Brittany, is that it takes a minimum of 1 day travel for anyone to come visit us! and my family were very good and organised holidays to spend with us at our place. but Greg's behaviour always made them feel very unwelcome - so unwelcome that my brother kept asking me if, because of Greg's attitude and general behaviour, he should book an AirB&B 2 days into his stay with us.
The second time he came,we specifically arranged it to maximise the time when Greg would be in Paris for work. other people in "Greg's" house really stressed him out - visibly so.
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