I have been rubbish at writing for our blog, so please allow me to begin at the beginning of this great adventure…. which is when we finally left Paris!

Most readers of this blog know that I am not from Paris and never liked living there. Of course, the city is beautiful and it’s a great place to be a tourist, but living and working there is not my cup of tea. So after 6 long years, I am happy to be leaving.

Many people asked us what we were planning on doing with the flat. Our flat was pretty and rather big, well situated in Paris and since we haven’t moved in 6 years, the rent was relatively affordable. That said, we were renters, and one of our goals is to decrease our living expenses, so to keep renting an expensive flat in Paris without living in it makes no sense. We let our landlords know that we were leaving and resigned the lease.

A considerable amount of downsizing was necessary, which consisted of:

• Selling some furniture (using sites like craigslist or gumtree).
• Donating furniture to good-will organizations.
• Distributing furniture, art work and other house ware to my daughters-in-law.
• Selling books to Shakespeare & Co. (the English ones) and Gilbert Jeunes (the French ones).
• Gifting books and other stuff to friends & family – this I very much enjoyed 🙂
• Leaving boxes of books on the street with a “Take me!” sign – we lived on a busy street so everything was gone within minutes!

What was left we packed as so:

• Boxes with the stuff going into storage.
• Boxes with the stuff we wish to bring on the boat. These were going down south with the transport company along with the boxes to store. To identify them, we wrapped a brown tape around each box. The plan was to ask the shipping company to unload the boxes and store them in our locker while keeping the boxes wrapped in brown tape close to the door so we can easily access them. This was my idea! 😉
• Two suitcases each & our PC bags, out of which we would live for the next month. And the cat.
  

The movers came Friday morning, 25 March 2016. I was exhausted and slept through most of the move. By the end of it, our flat was empty and its walls were bare, bringing me back 6 years when we had first visited it.