See & Meet – Azille

When you pull up to Natalie Trent’s house in Azille, France, you will find a sign that says, “La Dolce Vita,” on it. The sweet life. Thirteen years ago, that sign was hung. A sign indicating a new Bed & Breakfast for guests. A sign indicating a new chapter for Trent. 

She bought the three-story house that has stood on Grand Rue for decades, in 2003. Afterwards, she spent months working on it, overseeing repairs, painting walls, and figuring out a theme for each guest room. She told me she slept in each room to get her ideas. The end results: the Safari room, the Tatami room, the Boudoir room, and the Moroccan room, where I stayed as her workaway.

Recently, Trent decided to shut down the B&B, though the self-catering gite is still available.

“After 13 years it became boring and humdrum,” Trent said. “The need to change careers was long overdue given my history.”

A history that started right after high school when she spent two months near London. 

“I was then very sure that I wanted to travel and see the world,” Trent said. 

Without money for college despite her good grades, or the experience required for the Peace Corps,Trent decided the military would be her solution. 

“I was ready to go out into the world and do something,” Trent said. 

Trent was able to travel to Florida, Mississippi, Texas, and Italy, during a non-violent period.

But that didn’t satisfy her travel bug. After getting her degree in accounting, Trent went on to join the Peace Corps. Given her desire to work with children, she was sent to live in Bolivia and work with Aldeas Infantiles. 

“I was to work with the older kids preparing them to open and run their own small businesses,” Trent said.

She prepared workshops that explained basic business procedures and skills to kids and young adults, as well as taught accounting classes to moms.

After returning to the states, Trent was still not done traveling. She later sold her condo in Seattle and moved to France, where she lived on a canal barge near Dijon for two years. 

Though Paris had been a target destination in her 20’s, Trent had a change in heart.

“I began to feel the need to get in touch with nature and the basics of life, rather than keeping up with the Jones’,” Trent said. 

Soon she realized the little village of Azille, near the tourist areas of Canal Du Midi and Carcassone, was the perfect place to establish another dream: running her own B&B, which combined her business, accounting, and people skills, and also, her love for cooking.

“What I really like about cooking is creating different flavors with techniques and spices,” Trent said.

For her 16th birthday, Trent created a menu, bought the ingredients, cooked the dishes, and had a dinner party for herself and a few friends, who insisted she should have been doing something she wanted. Trent recalls thinking, “But I am doing what I want.” 

Since then, Trent has continued her passion for cooking, collecting recipes and cookbooks, creating dinner menus for visiting friends, and teaching anyone who wants to learn, myself included.

Despite getting the chance to use her skills, she got tired of the same routine of prepare rooms, check in, check out, clean rooms, repeat. After more than a decade of business, Trent shut down her rooms to guests. 

Instead, she has opened them to kids in need by becoming a foster mother. 

“I had always thought about it and given my feelings about having children, it made sense to help take care of others’ kids,” Trent said.

Since her twenties, Natalie felt that if she was going to have children, they would be adopted.
“I started traveling, never had a long, serious relationship, and it was never right,” Trent said.

But as is the case most of the time, life had other plans. After moving to Azille, Trent became pregnant with her daughter.

“I still didn’t know it was the right time,” Trent said. “I only knew that I was ready to become a Mom. That felt right.”

Eleven years later, Trent is a single parent, and her daughter remains her top priority. Trent admits she never knew what unconditional love truly felt like until the day she had her daughter. 

“Becoming a mother changed everything about how I felt about life in general,” Trent said. 

On a regular morning, Trent wakes up, squeezes lemon juice into a cup of hot water with ginger. She lets her daughter know she is about five minutes from missing the bus, while making sure her foster child, who is younger, hasn’t spilled jam on her dress.

Trent says the most rewarding part of either fostering or being a mom is the same. 

“It’s about watching them grow and learn and laugh and smile,” Trent said. 

As her day continues, she tries to do her morning yoga but is called three different times by three different people. Trent switches from English to French depending on the caller. She hangs up and laughs, realizing she only has ten minutes before she has to pick up the little one for lunch. Trent shrugs and gets ready to leave; she’s used to the daily interruptions.

I asked her what advice she would give herself at 22. 

“Always go with your gut,” she said. “I wouldn’t change anything. I have no regrets about life.”