Last post from France

Later today the phone line will be disconnected and my year in France will be nearly at an end. So this is my last post from France.

There will be more posts on the blog to come when I return to the UK. I want to sum up the year and also fill in a few of the gaps - thoughts I have jotted down in notebooks and on my computer, but never got round to posting here.

I have a busy two days of packing and cleaning, but I feel that I've ended my year on a good note and I am ready to return to the UK.

On Tuesday evening we were taken out for dinner by a French couple who have become good friends. Although I have been plagued by wildly ambivalent feelings about our return, during the meal I thought "I really don't want to go back" and I suddenly felt very much at ease and ready to return.

I guess one of the feelings that had plagued me was a nagging doubt that I wasn't entirely comfortable in France. On Tuesday night that doubt evaporated.

I felt that I would be okay if I didn't go back to the UK - that I could live in either place. I'm not sure I can explain these feelings any more, but it has given me a real sense of peace.

One final thing I want to clear up before I log off is about the NHS and health care in Europe. I've noticed that a few people in the USA have found this blog via a web search - perhaps in response to the huge debates around health care in their country at the moment.

I am critical of some things about the NHS and have found the French system to be better is some ways. However, I do love the NHS very dearly - as do 99.9% of the British population.

My criticisms of some aspects of the NHS and my involvement with Crohn's and Colitis patient organisations and health care pressure groups in the UK are to make the NHS better - and to keep private health care out of the NHS.

My main grumble is that there is too much emphasis on budgets, internal markets and cost-efficiency in the NHS. I believe health care only works for everyone as a public service not as a business.

Having read accounts from young, middle or working class americans getting ill with Crohn's disease, I know I would probably have died or bankrupted my parents - or both - if I had grown up across the Atlantic.

If I was a US citizen and I had survived, I would be knocking on doors 24/7 arguing for health care reform.

There - I hope that is clear.

Au revoir!