The Peregrine Journal

When Leaving Leads You Home

Life in France

They say you carry your problems with you.

They say in New York, you can be anyone you want.

They say a lot of things.

The pond in my backyard

I live in France, in your typical postcard medieval village surrounded by fast fuel forests, dotted with micro-lakes and covered in countryside. I bought a house for close and extended family to turn up, read, and recover from the world — and one day, for the kids to take over, whether they like living out in the middle of nowhere or not, being in their early twenties.

It cost me €50,000 for a price-to-income ratio that must be unthinkable to anyone in the Western and Westernised world of unchecked growth and exploitation. France and other balance-minded and socially responsible countries in developed Europe are something close to heaven for people who want to slow down, return to basic values, no matter how difficult or personally accountable, and reclaim the time they need but didn’t think possible to do whatever they want with their life. To calmly and quietly slot into stable, self-respecting local communities. To build a simple, original, self-actualised new life.

Here, outside the rising global din of populism and nationalism, I want to rediscover universal…