Trisha

Hello, my name is Trisha (short for Patricia).I’m starting to plan a trip to China in September 2028, travelling on my own. I’d love to visit these places and see you all along the way: - Shenyang, Liaoning - Beijing - Xi’an - Chengdu - Chongqing - Wuhan - Shanghai - Nanjing - A city in Guangdong province (I haven’t decided which one yet) - Shenzhen I’m thinking of travelling from north to south, but I’m still working out the route. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them! I am from Surbiton, a suburb of London, England. This suburb was famous for a TV series called The Good Life, which was all about self-sufficiency in a town! I now live in a small village in France. I am married, have two big, noisy dogs, and I now live near Toulouse in the south of France. Toulouse is known as La Ville Rose (‘The Pink City’) due to the terra-cotta bricks used in many of its buildings and claims to be the world capital of aeronautics. It has one of the best rugby teams in France, which is good as rugby is one of our favourite sports. It is only 120km from the Spanish border, so we can drive over for lunch if we feel like it. Our village is small, but we live near a cinema, so I get to see the latest movies here and on Netflix. More information is below.

I am from London in England, and I came to live in France permanently in 2016 with my husband and two naughty dogs. My husband is older than me, so he has retired. This year, 2026, we will have been here for 10 years this year. We feel very much at home in our adopted country, and most of our friends are local French people, so we are speaking a second language for much of the time. I carried on working by taking a TEFL qualification, and I have worked with various Online teaching platforms (like many people, I started working from home because of the pandemic). I enjoy reading and cooking, and I often try new recipes. We have cut back on our meat consumption, and I now know we are called flexitarians! So I have learnt to cook many vegetarian dishes and use tofu much more frequently. My two dogs, Jack and Harry, are big and noisy! They cannot share the room when I am teaching, as they like to join in 😂 they need long walks and medication as Harry is now 16 (we think, he is a rescue dog) and has arthritis, and Jack has a lifetime medical condition as he is missing an enzyme in his pancreas. He is also a rescue dog. I strongly believe that we should adopt rather than shop for animals, as there are so many strays. I speak French, so I know all about the difficulties of learning a second language and appreciate how hard it can seem. I come from a family of three girls, and I am the youngest sister. I have a niece and two nephews I visit once or twice a year to have family time. My middle sister sadly died at the end of 2023, which was a shock for us all, and my elder sister moved back to Australia this year with her daughter and their family, so now my family is on three continents. 🌍🌎🌏 I have a keen interest in rugby (as a spectator 😂). We often take French friends to see England vs France matches, including the Women's World Cup final in 2025. The Six Nations competition is hosted at each of our houses, depending on where the home team is playing. I have managed to secure tickets to the final of the Men's World Cup in Australia in 2027. I have to wait for airline tickets to go on sale, but I plan to go via Japan on the way to Australia and will be staying with my sister and relatives in Australia. 🏉🏉🏉🏆 As a lot of my background is in the music world (I worked for several record companies), I still have a keen interest in music. I have worked on country acts, which gave me a better understanding of the genre, and I went to Nashville for the CMA Awards when I was working with Garth Brooks. (That shows my age). I also worked with jazz acts and heavy metal bands 🎸 I have been to many concerts and one-day festivals, and there is a great atmosphere sharing a musical experience. My little village in France has only 270 inhabitants, but we had a lively social life before Covid! We are starting to get back to normal, but it has taken some time to reinstate all of the previous celebrations we shared. The annual Hunters' meal started again in 2025. The national holiday of Bastille Day is always a three-day festival in our village, which is exhausting but fun! I love country life as well as city living and have experience of both, having spent the majority of my working life in London. As I live in a village, there are no gyms nearby, but we have a weekly aerobics and yoga class in our "salle des fêtes", which helps me integrate. Travelling, well, as you know, I live in a different country from my birth, so I love to travel! From the first holiday, grape-picking as we couldn't afford our own accommodation, going inter-railing across Europe, including France, Italy and Greece. In many States of the USA, I have family in Atlanta, and one of our favourite cities is New York, where we have stayed several times, including once with our French friends, as they can't speak English. We have been on a coach tour of Canada and Mexico (at different times!), and I was lucky enough to have a friend working in Hong Kong, so I was there and in Mainland China briefly for a couple of weeks. At the end of last year, I was lucky enough to visit my sister in Australia and stop in Japan on the way back, where I met several of my students in Tokyo. 😊 I love trying new cuisine, so I have tried chicken feet in Hong Kong and a po'boy with a fried alligator in New Orleans. It's great to try new tastes and experience umami. My husband has two vintage cars, Citroën Traction Avants from the 1950s. We are members of three local car clubs, which means we get the chance to go on rallies and days out with other drivers, and it is very convivial. I can drive the cars, although I prefer to be the passenger, and as it is a French car, a lot of people wave 🙋‍♀️🙋‍♂️👋as we go by, as they have happy memories of their parents or grandparents owning one. 🚗