Two dogs and a suitcase: clueless in Charente. E-book. Formato EPUB Sarah Jane Butfield   -  Sarah Jane Butfield, 2015  - 

'Take two dogs, an expat family and eventually some other animals, facing all that France can throw at them, and you have another brutally honest episode in Sarah Jane's travel stories!' This travel memoir, the sequel to Glass Half Full: Our Australian Adventure, follows our French exploits as we endeavour to rebuild our lives in another new country, after spending four and half years in Australia. The title says it all: what we have and where we are, but that's only part of our story. Our goal, or hope for the immediate future, is to focus positively on the present so that we can start a new, optimistic future back in Europe. Our main aim is to be nearer to the children, leaving the dark clouds of the challenges we faced in Australia as a distant memory. Journey with us as we arrive in rural South West France; enjoy my reflections, thoughts, and observations about my family, our new surroundings, and our lifestyle. Follow the journey of my writing career and how we start our renovation project while managing our convoluted family life. Once again, we will laugh, cry, and enjoy life to the fullest with a generous helping of positive spin thrown in for good measure. Reader feedback is appreciated by all authors as it enables us to fine tune and improve the reading experience. The re-formatted and professionally edited version of Two Dogs and a Suitcase was uploaded 8/8/15 and photographs were added 27/10/2015. I hope you enjoy our story.

Glass half full. E-book. Formato EPUB Sarah Jane Butfield   -  Sarah Jane Butfield, 2014  - 

Is the glass half empty or half full? Ironically, sometimes life influences our view, and alters our perception. Life changing events, up to 1997, almost destroyed me. At my lowest point, and just in time, I met Nigel. He helped me to discover how a positive attitude can change everything. I decided not to squander anymore of my time or energy on undeserving people. This new positive approach helps me to perceive my glass as half full, with my aim being to achieve a happy and healthy life for my family. Together, we live life to the full. In 2008 and with good times ahead of us, my glass was half full. As a family, we made the biggest and most difficult decision of our lives; part of our family would immigrate to Australia. We lived the Australian dream; embracing the adventure until adversity came to test us. A sequence of life changing events including, a close family bereavement, PTSD ( Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,) following a road rage car accident and the shock of losing the roots to our Australian adventure as a result of the Brisbane floods tested us on many levels. Glass Half Full follows our journey into happy, sad and challenging times. Find out, what it takes to survive, when the odds are stacked against you. Do you fight back, and if so at what cost physically and emotionally? Could we maintain our positivity and family values against the odds? This is our story.