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Sarah Jane Butfield

Find out what it takes to keep the Glass Half Full, as challenging life events including grief, loss, PTSD and devastating floods, test this expat step-family to their limits. 

After enduring divorce and numerous child custody battles, Sarah Jane knew that a fresh start in Australia was their only chance of future happiness and that as a family they were making the right decisions. Living the Australian dream in Alice Springs was everything they hoped for until life-changing events started to test the foundations of this resilient family. Using every ounce of positivity they could muster they struggled on and just as they thought the worst was over Mother Nature intervened and washed away the roots to their new life during the Brisbane floods of 2011. This story lets you experience Australian life with an inspirational woman and her courageous family, as they struggle to survive challenging life events and keep their dreams alive. 

Life is never without its challenges, but how many life-changing events can one family endure before they reach breaking point? Find out in this heart wrenching and touching true story.

PublishDrive

Sarah Jane's Travel Memoirs Series

Glass Half Full: Our Australian Adventure

The title says it all: what we have and where we are. This book, 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. 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.

New photographs, edited and re-formatted version uploaded 13th July 2015

Two Dogs and a Suitcase: Clueless in Charente

Martin Papworth

Meet Sarah Jane, a woman with a reputation for culinary catastrophe who tries to keep her family fed in challenging circumstances in rural France. Frugal living was not part of the plan when they arrived from Australia to undertake the renovation of a quaint cottage in the Charente. However, when life throws them a curve-ball the challenge was set. How to survive in France with very little money and two Australian cattle dogs. The answer came in the form of 5 chickens, 4 ducks and a vegetable garden! The frugal plan was to save money by any means possible, to enable any money they could earn to be invested into continuing the renovation of the cottage. In true 'Good Life' style Sarah Jane attacks this challenge head on by keeping some small livestock and converting a garden, that resembled a meadow, into a French 'potager' or kitchen garden. The French tradition of using produce from their 'potagers' is renowned for enabling families to create meals that are healthy, cost effective and simple. There are 31 recipes for a variety of food and drinks, included in a month by month account, of how they transformed a neglected garden into a frugal yet productive expat kitchen garden.

Our Frugal Summer in Charente: An Expat's Kitchen Garden Journal