Hurry up, go slow

On relinquishing the tyranny of the list and learning to take my time. Nothing bad will happen. Plus, a thrifty recipe for mussel pasta.

For many years, most of my adult life probably, I began each day with a list in the same way as the Victorians often began their days with prayer. I used lists to create calm and order, to make sense out of what was often overwhelming. Lists were my poems, my prayers.

So given my lists-even-on-a-Sunday personality, it’s sometimes a challenge to live a softer, gentler, slower life. Since we moved to France, I’ve been attempting to let go of my London habit of eternal busy-ness, that creeping, underlying belief that having too much on your plate is a sign of virtue, success and popularity. (Typical greeting, “How are you?” “Oh, you know, busy.” Sideways head tilt, sage nod.)

I’m still working the same amount here as I did in London. This, plus wrecked-house-wrangling, should be quite anxiety-inducing for someone as steeped in the waters of busy-ness as I am. But somehow, it’s not. Weirdly I find that by worrying about it less, I’m fitting more into each day.

Despite the never-ending list of things to be done on this house, I still feel like I’m on holiday - possibly because we came to this village en vacance for so many years. On days when it feels a bit much, just walking down onto the harbour for moules frites gives me a summertime-spring in my step.

When we moved here, my husband and I promised each other not to become obsessed with the renovation to the extent that it blocked out all other things. We’d seen this happen to other people and it was terrible for them and terribly boring for everyone else. We knew we needed to live here, to work, go out, and do things just for fun, so that this house we love doesn’t descend into one massive bricks-and-mortar To Do list, thus sucking all of the pleasure out of our great adventure.

We’re letting the house take its time. Our first priority was fixing the roof and the wiring, and adding luxuries such as central heating, but we aren’t rushing at the other, more aesthetic decisions like demented decorators with a clipboard fetish.

We’re living with it, letting it be.

This is a challenge for someone like me, formerly Checklist Czar of East London. But it comes with its rewards. Initially, I intended to hog the room with the best view of the harbour for my study. But then as we began living in the house, that didn’t feel right, it didn’t floooow right. Moving my study to the opposite side of the hallway made more sense. When my friend, an architectural historian, came to visit she said this would certainly have been the office of the person who built the house, a place he would have received his clients – it has the best mouldings, a beautiful tiled floor and a marble fireplace, so perfect for showing off.

The benefits of my extreme altruism are twofold. One, I have my desk in exactly the right position to peep at the peepers peering through the front gate (say that quickly after a few glasses of Picpoul, I dare you). The second is that it’s the perfect spot to watch the birds in the apricot tree pecking at the feeder. If you visit my house, I’m going to feed you, whether you come by taxi or by the power of your own wings, so I made sure they were well catered for almost before I’d unpacked our own china.

Each day, I attempt to become more patient, to allow things to unfold in their own time. Breathe in, breathe out and let village life happen. Even when it means the ten people in front of me in the supermarket are all paying by cheque. The French still love a chequebook - 80 per cent of them own chequebooks, compared to 27 per cent in the rest of the eurozone -  but it’s been so many years since I wrote a cheque, I had to look up how to do it online. Still, pleasingly, my Credit Agricole chequebook comes with pictures of rural life on each cheque.

Uncertainty is stressful. Taking pleasure in small things helps. For me, that’s having cheques with cows on them, tending my houseplants and new garden, a perfect Paris-Brest in the afternoon, sun on the water and the cowbell-clanking of rigging against mast.

It’s also a daily delight to find new places for old possessions, things I’d stopped really seeing in my old house because I was so accustomed to them. There’s an American concept of “shopping your closet”, that is rediscovering the clothes you already own instead of buying more. I feel like I’m doing this with my house, a mirror, a painting, an armchair at a time.

I am also allowing myself to do new things imperfectly and shrugging off the paralysing quest for perfectionism - better to get things done than let them fester on a list because I need to research, practice, make perfect. I used to be quite appalling at taking up new skills and having instantly to be the best at them, which made whatever it was just another chore. I am allowing myself to do things badly. I am channelling Phoebe from Friends running through the park like a child because it felt good, because it was fun.

Every day, in all but the most disgraceful weather, a group of women meet in the little square in front of our house. Some days, there might be three or four of them, some days as many as a dozen. Some have little dogs on their laps, or larger ones that scrabble about among the sage in the flower beds. The women chat and laugh, some standing, the older ones sitting on the benches. In the winter, they’re here in the late afternoon. In summer, they’re here in the cool of the evening, sitting in the shade of the palms. They are the embodiment of art de vivre, the small, regular habits, the valuing of ritual and connection, that elevate and enrich daily life.

The days go slowly, but the weeks go quickly. I can barely believe it’s almost two years since we arrived. What I have learned is that we all have the same number of hours in the day. Use them slowly.

Linguine with mussels

One of my favourite dishes in the world is spaghetti alle vongole and I make it often, using palourde clams or the tiny, beautiful tellines we get here. But you know, they cost a fortune. One day, feeling thrifty, with a bag of local mussels at my disposal, I made this instead. I really like it – it’s in frequent rotation now – I hope you enjoy it too.