I’ve made it to week two!

Favourite photo. Hmm. I’ve already shared two of my favourite family photos in previous posts, one of my mother on her wedding day with her stepfather and one of a multi-generation group, plus my grandfather (and Henry Cavill because … why not?). So what to write about and share this time around …?

From 2023:

52 Ancestors: I’d Like To Meet / Favourite Photo

From 2021:

52 Ancestors: Favourite Photo

Which leaves 2025:

There are a lot of things to not like about this photo. The corner of the car, the banana, the fly swatter, the electric cords, the strip light. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before I explain what this photos means to me, I need to do some scene-setting.

In 1990, my parents had been holidaying in France for a decade or so, and had decided to buy a property there to act as a holiday home. (There was a time a few years prior when they were going to move us lock, stock and barrel to the south of France permanently – French school, full immersion, the works – but my father woke up on the day of the signing with a ‘bad feeling’ and decided that it was the wrong decision. Ostensibly he “couldn’t do it” to us kids as it would be “too hard”. Which equates to him having an attack of the collywobbles and instead of growing up on the Canal du Midi, I grew up in a crappy Wiltshire nothing town. Not that I’m mad about it.) We spent every Easter, Summer and Christmas holiday there, until 2000 when we sold up in England and moved there (whilst my dad worked in England and came over periodically). I lived there for 4 years, my mum until my dad passed away in 2020 (and let me tell you that my Tricolore books did not have a section on “Dealing with French funeral directors” or “French Hospital Morgues: A Beginner’s Guide”).

Anyway. The image above is of the covered patio area where we spent most of the time in the summers. It represent a lot to me: freedom, love, lushness, warmth …

I miss it a lot.