It was a train strike that brought René and I together. And that, ultimately, is the reason I ended up in France some 35 years later.

I was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. I studied English and French literature at university and, upon graduation, was selected as the French Department’s representative as “Assistante Anglaise” at a high school in Boulogne-sur-Mer in the north of France. It was during this year that I determined I did not want to be a teacher and I found the man of my dreams. It was 1986 and I was 25 years old.

I had arranged to meet my mother in Poland for Christmas, and I had booked a train ticket to Warsaw via Paris. The SNCF was threatening to strike, as is customary in France at Christmas, and so I was sitting in the Boulogne train station café waiting to see if my train was going to be cancelled. René was sitting in the café waiting for his car to be repaired at a nearby garage. I spotted the handsome Frenchman and, when there was an announcement about my train, I approached him to ask what had been said. We started chatting, my train was cancelled, and I never made it to Paris or to Warsaw.

We spent the rest of the school year together, but life doesn’t always go according to plan. I had to return to Canada in the spring, and circumstances prevented us from making a life together. I got a job in Toronto working for British Airways, and was able to take full advantage of my travel benefits to see a great deal of the world. Twelve years later I left British Airways and I opened Metro Hound, a do-it-yourself dogwash and dog gear store in Toronto. Twelve years after that I sold the business and went to work for the Ontario government.
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I never forgot René and I never met another man with whom I wanted to share my life. In 2011 I received a message on Facebook from René: “Souvenirs de Boulogne-sur-mer.” We reconnected and 10 years later I retired and moved to the Dordogne to be with him.
Et voila, that’s my story!