Travel dreams stir a young girl, who sways on a front porch swing
in the unique town of Opp, Alabama, to escape to "A French
Opportunity." Aboard the front porch swing conducted as an
imaginary train, she visits faraway places. She leaves her hometown
with Jim, her young, "funny as all git-out husband," riding in a
1957 Chevy, not her romantic train. Children max out her checkbook,
breast cancer causes an ugly scene, and there's always more and
more work to finish; yet somehow she finds her way to her true love
- France. She writes passionately of this love, sounding like Paula
Deen longing to be Catherine Deneuve, while never forgetting Opp, a
town with front porch swings, not Eiffel Towers France's
picturesque landscape and villages are shared from the viewpoint of
a soft-spoken lady who says, "Forget the grits and taste the wild
mushrooms," and enters with a "Bonjour ya'll" wearing a big smile
under her floppy-brimmed chapeau. Debbie's storytelling is
sprinkled with humor plus a few tears and lined with her southern
speaking habit that she says is, "stuck in my brain with super glue
mixed with Brer Rabbit Molasses." Experience the beautiful variety
of France when she sees fairytale castles, shops markets for
antiques and junk, wanders country roads bordered with fields of
poppies, tastes buttery croissants, and as she sleeps in
farmhouses, B&B's, and chateau hotels. Debbie, a mature mother
of grown children, ventures on a solo trip to France leaving a
husband and teenager behind. While in France, she is haunted by a
Miami car's bumper sticker: Got Brains? Driving a car without
automatic transmission while juggling maps and guidebooks is a
challenge, but she is a winner with newly acquired confidence. At a
stop In the Burgundy region, ladies with big, floppy-brimmed hats
flow from a church wedding along a narrow lane. Debbie wishes she
had a beautiful hat, and she recalls painfully her battle with
breast cancer when she wore hats daily. She thought she would never
want to wear another hat. Her confidence is tested when her
Parisian taxi driver takes a side street in pursuit of a truck
driver who cut him off. Verbal French insults fly, and she hopes
she will not be in an evening news report. Then, she is shocked to
see the beautiful, reserved hotel on a street lined with sex shops.
Returning to France for a longer visit with husband Jim, they stay
in a beautiful seventeenth-century farmhouse in the Loire valley.
Exuding French ambiance with Renaissance fireplaces and exposed
beams overhead, the home is the base for exploration of some of the
most beautiful villages in France. They end their journey near
Paris in an ancient farmhouse B&B. A love story involving a
physician in Napoleon's army is connected to the farmhouse, and the
welcoming owners tell the enchanting story. Another region of
France rich in old chateaus and villages with honey-colored stone
houses is shared with colorful personal anecdotes. Debbie and Jim
adore La Prairie, a group of farmhouses in the Dordogne, a few
miles from the fairytale city of Sarlat and near picturesque
riverside villages. They ramble through it all: shivering in the
darkness of caves, ogling the ancient chateaus, sniffing roses in
the gardens and filling their baskets in the markets. Almost from
the beginning, Debbie wishes she could find a little place of her
own. Then, after hours of searching the Internet for a bargain
property and finding houses with no resemblance to the glossy pages
in decorator magazines, she thinks she could possibly live in a DIY
project with a portable toilet. Jim brings her back to reality with
his usual wit and hopes she isn't serious. Finally, she calls a
French realtor hoping to find her own farmhouse. Debbie shares a
peek inside the open door of opportunity with romanticism and
optimism despite the quirks of French real estate. She leaves the
door open for fulfillment of "A French Opportunity."
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