Fidelma Cook: I feel an excitement that, as a woman of a certain age, I haven’t felt in years

In the harsh light of unshaded ceiling bulbs you see the dusty outline of much-loved paintings and pictures now gone; the dimpled carpet memories of furniture. And when, exhausted and weary, you take a last look, you realise that here, you have ceased to exist in the brief time it took to dismantle your possessions.

Actually there is something sadder. Walking away knowing your buyers have just pulled out of the sale, you’re heading for a foreign country and you’ve a gut-wrenching fear that you have made an appalling mistake. Even worse, you no longer have the money to fund your appalling mistake.

It all seemed so easy at the start of the summer. A snap decision finally to put my money where my mouth had been for years – to move to France.

To live a life in a perfumed cloud of wisteria and lavender; in a slow-motion muslin-wrapped fantasy where I would grow six inches (easy when you’re just over 5ft tall), drop 20 years and make a perfect omelette aux fines herbes.

In my mental meanderings over the years, usually fuelled by red wine (French, of course), I saw myself languidly sashaying onto a terrace, platters of fresh figs and cheese in either hand, to add to the heaving plates of ooh, Frenchie things laid out before my guests.

My friends, all beautiful and tanned like me, would look up and groan at more gorgeous things created by moi. I would give a Gallic shrug and say, “C’est rien.” Behind them the swimming pool would shimmer into infinity, reflecting another perfect heat-hazed day.

Really, I should have left it at that – in my head and my daydream. I can’t, won’t, don’t cook; frankly, I’m not even interested in trying. I’ve never made an omelette in my life, loathe fines herbes and don’t even like the smell of lavender. What’s wisteria anyway?

But no, instead I decided in a mad menopausal moment to live the dream and go for broke. To cash in the two pensions (25% each), sell the flat and just take off. Me and the dog, Thelma and Louise heading to the land of the sunflowers.

I spent the summer wafting around Glasgow blithely telling everybody – taxi drivers, waiters, drunks in pubs – that I was off to live in the south of France. Yes, as soon as the flat is sold; one last great adventure – not a qualm at all.

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Well, bugger, the flat suddenly sold and a quick house-hunting trip to the south of France ended in flu, a growing horror that French villages after 8pm look like the villages of the damned and there are only so many miles of boring, perfect vineyards one can take.

I crawled home to a Glasgow which was suddenly bathed in a Renoir glow. The meanest pubs I passed looked enticing, warm and welcoming. The shouted curses of the drunks under my west end window at 3am were now welcome signs of a city life I was leaving behind.

Friends who previously were treated with casual acceptance were now elevated to sainthood – the people who would have nursed me through my final days, prevented the dog eating me and been there forever with kind words and compliments.

It suddenly hit me. Soon they would be here and I would be there – somewhere, some godforsaken place in la France Profonde, counting the stars in the dreadful silence of the countryside, numbing my fear of the dark with enough vin rouge to give me the courage to go to bed.

No more home delivery from Chow’s. No M&S calorie-counted microwave dinners for one. No more garlic chilli chicken from Mother India. I counted the list like counting sheep before sleeping. Come the morning though, I knew there was no going back. I realised I had become a victim of my own fantasy and big mouth. It was easier to go into the unknown than admit I couldn’t hack it.

And so I’ve stiffened my backbone‚ as my mother was wont to admonish when my courage failed me, the Edith Piaf CD is back on full volume and the Tesco baguette awaits the Normandy butter. There is a faint chance that the buyers of my flat will return – but I won’t.

Sitting here, close to the Channel and France, my possessions reduced to a laptop, two suitcases, the dog and her blanket, I have a long-forgotten sense of glorious freedom. I also feel that stomach-churning anticipatory excitement that, as a woman of a certain age, I haven’t felt in years. My life is no longer bound by work or child; my year no longer mapped out with familiar landmarks, my future no longer secure or safe.

And I swear I’ve already grown two inches and become five years younger.Maybe I’ll make an omelette aux fines herbes for lunch before booking my flight.

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