Expect nothing. Live frugally, on surprise.

I am very fond of passing the odd moment perusing internet sites for interesting quotes about Life, The Universe and Everything. Yesterday, I happened to be reading through a few quotes about Life on http://www.wisdomquotes.com/, searching for a suitably pithy response to the comments on my last post, when I came across the title of this post as a quote from a poem by Alice Walker. I shared it with Simon, who was disappointingly underwhelmed by my discovery, and for one reason or another (oh yes, we were busy moving Ana!) never got round to posting it, or indeed any other comment, on the blog.

Although I have in the past thought of myself as someone who doesn't like surprises, experience would suggest that I have been fooling myself. Much to my surprise, for example, I thoroughly enjoyed the surprise 50th birthday celebration, and the surprise Leaving Work celebration that my erstwhile Team colleagues arranged for me - the latter of which (for the information of readers who aren't erstwhile Team colleagues) was a formative and never-to-be-forgotten afternoon of llama-interaction, (along with some extremely silly party games involving space-hoppers and the like).

I suppose that, to enjoy surprises, one has to be comfortable with not being in control of things. Of course, the converse of this, is that once you realise and accept the fact that you really are not in control of your destiny, you open the door to the Unexpected, and can experience the joy of constantly being surprised by what Life throws your way.

And so to the point.....

A little while ago, the doorbell rang - always an ominous sound in this house, as we know that opening the door will result in some sort of difficult, and unprepared-for conversation in French. There is always a tense delay in our response, as Simon and I try to out-slow each other in getting up and going to open the door. Today I won, and carried on pretending to be busy, while Simon opened the door to find Mme Burgat standing there, frailly propped up on a walking stick.

We last saw Mme Burgat in December last year when, following a comment from our neighbour that she might have some land for sale, we bravely knocked on her door to ask her about it. At the time, she was virtually bedridden because of problems with her legs, but was very welcoming and friendly all the same. Unfortunately though, she had already sold the field in question to 'The Belgians' (whoever they may be). She did mention that she might have some other land she could sell, and said she would get her grandson to contact us.

The days, weeks and months went by. We didn't hear from her grandson, and having since become aware of all the difficulties and feuds associated with the buying and using of agricultural land in this village, assumed that we never would. In fact, we had forgotten all about it.

And then suddenly, in the midst of all of our uncertainty about what is happening about the land we thought we were going to buy from our neighbour's father, up pops Mme Burgat on our doorstep, and she wants to offer us some land for the llamas.

It turns out that she has been in hospital for four months, after breaking her femur when trying to move from her bed to her chair, and has had lots of operations on her legs. She is now recovering and, determined that she will not become bedridden again, she is making herself get up and walk. And today she decided she would attempt the walk up through the village to find our house and ask us if we still want to look at her land.

So, tomorrow at 11.00am, we are going with her who knows where in our car, to look at what she has to offer. And in the meantime, our neighbour has contacted the Notaire's secretary to find out the actual deadline by which SAFER have to respond, if they are going to intervene in our purchase of his father's land, and it turns out that the deadline date is 17th June. Five days to go, and still nothing so far.

Strangely these days of Uncertainty are beginning to feel like moments to savour. Until we know for sure, absolutely anything is possible. So I will continue to Expect nothing, and live frugally, on surprise.