Music memoir

My Happiest Days Were When I Owned Almost Nothing

The magic was contained in the simplicity of life

Like a tortoise, I had carried everything I owned and everything I needed.

Unlike a tortoise, I hadn’t contained it all on my back, but nearly.

My little Citroen car was only just powerful enough to tow the little caravan I owned, and the back of that little car was filled with everything else.

That was how I had arrived in the Limousin in Central France in March 2002, just before I discovered I was pregnant and decided to stay much longer.

With my little caravan placed on a hillside just below some oak woods and above a spring, and, just a stone’s throw away, a lake clean enough to swim in, I wanted for nothing.

My small wardrobe fitted all the clothes I needed. I had created a small, outdoor washing area where I kept all my toiletries, until I discovered that my friends’ mules, who sometimes grazed in the same field, liked eating soap and toothpaste — still in the tube!

Inside, I had a tiny kitchen, just big enough to store teas, rice, beans, cereals and bread, and a basket to keep my fruit and veggies in. I had a shelf of books above my bed and some journals to write in. I had my instruments — a silver flute and a set of student bagpipes — and I had my CD player and a selection of CDs.

Entre Dans La Danse by Skolvan was one of my favourites at the time.

The music embodied every ounce of the French peace that this little home and the beauty surrounding it gave me.

Back in England, I had felt tormented by a relationship that had fallen apart and then gone sideways, upside down, and round in circles. He had come out to France with me, stayed for three weeks, and it was just days after he had returned to England that I discovered I was pregnant with his child.

Being alone but surrounded by friends who genuinely cared put me in a far stronger position to deal with whatever his decision about his future with me and his baby would turn out to be. I needed and wanted for nothing more at that moment in time.

Daily life was magical. The sun shone nearly every day even though the winter hadn’t quite made its exit yet.

Sometimes, I sat drinking tea for hours with my friend, Sarah. Other times, we went on night walks under a full moon, up into the woods and onto the highest point of those nearby hills of Haute Vienne.

Once every week, we would go together to the local market town, St. Junien, where we would stock up on the most delicious bread, pain-aux-raisins, unpasteurised goat’s cheeses, and locally grown vegetables. Once we were done, we always met with several others at the bar in the middle of town and drank tiny cups of hot chocolate or coffee.

Sometimes Sarah and I would go to the launderette together and get everything washed, then put up lines between the many trees to hang it all on. I loved seeing all my favourite clothes and bed sheets blowing in the breezy sunshine.

On one cold, dull day, we took a trip down to the caves at Les Eyzies in the Dordogne, along with a picnic and some good, dark, French chocolate. On another, warmer day, we went to visit a forested area with gorges and waterfalls all over. There was such a lot to see yet everything felt so simple.

And life was also sweet alone in my little space. I used the time to practise playing my bagpipes. Time — and freedom from neighbours to disturb — being the thing that had stopped me from developing my skill on them until now.

One afternoon, as a storm set in and the darkness brought with it rain that hammered down on the metal roof, and a wind that shook my little caravan until I feared it might tip over, I played and played on my bagpipes to keep myself calm. My playing improved dramatically during those times.

Those were the days when texting on a mobile cost a pretty penny and was reserved for essential messaging. The mobile signal was pretty bad in those woods too, so I had to sit my phone on the windowsill of my little caravan in order to pick up any messages. It was delicately balanced and, often, the vibration caused by a message arriving would cause it to fall down.

When I had a CD playing, anytime a text message arrived, there would be an interruption in the sound waves of the music blaring out of the CD player and that would be my signal that a message had arrived, even if I couldn’t hear the ringtone over the music.

That was how I communicated with the man whose baby I was carrying. At least, in order to arrange a time that I could go to the public phone, two miles away, to speak to him.

It was while speaking to him from that phone box in the village of Bussière-Boffy that I found out that he didn’t want us to be together or to bring our child up as a unit.

It wasn’t the easiest thing for me to hear. But neither did it come as a complete surprise, for I half expected it. What it did was give me closure. And it gave me freedom to get on with my life. My tiny little life, held in a small caravan on a hillside in France.

And, you know what? It was all I needed.

It was peaceful and it was enough.

Over the years, I accumulated more stuff. A caravan grew to a sizeable house. Life became less simple and a lot busier. CDs got lost or scratched.

That Skolvan CD disappeared along with various other belongings from that time. It was one CD I really missed.

One day recently, I was driving along with a Spotify Radio playing, and A Trip to Skye by Skolvan, from that very album, came on.

In that moment, the memories of the peace and simplicity from that time washed over me and I felt the longing and the tears for those gentle days, now lost, come gushing out of me. I cried and then played it over and over until no more tears would come.

We can’t go back to what was, only forward. But if it was possible, even just for one moment, I would go back to that simple little life in a heartbeat.