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Rats, we were aiming to complete the sale any day now, but alas, the grape harvest is upon us and our little village is working silly hours, seven days a week during September getting all those tasty raisins in, so it seems I have a few more weeks to learn French!! 

Always look on the bright side, haha!

LC

;~) 

Rust In Peace

I guess you think you can see where this is probably going. The bride was thinking that I was impressed far more by the significant garaging space than anything else on this dank morning and I do seem to remember receiving a slap for verbalising my thoughts that we could acquire more old cars, but my mind was enjoying itself as it could hear inquisitive, yet not unfriendly French voices talking to us.

Leaving a broken Renault and a white van to rest in peace in one of the garages, we gazed at the house. It was displaying some fine tuffeau detailing at the higher levels, away from several successful attempts elsewhere to deface the facades with replacement white plastic double glazing, which unfortunately is infecting France at an even more alarming rate than McDonalds, although still a very long way behind the UK on both those fronts. The aspect of the windows on the courtyard façade had been changed from the correctly proportioned portrait format to single paned landscape units which I’m sure were a very popular price and also lets in light, but there any similarity with proper and correctly proportioned windows suitable to the building ended. A great pity. Inside however, we forgot all about the racing car and yacht wall paper in the bedrooms, as the salon was a wonderfully well kept treasure of a hundred years or more with an imposing stone fireplace and chimney and a patterned tile floor to drool over, which we certainly did.

We then both fell for the charm and character of ‘pretty house’ a small and perfectly formed two storeys of stonework and tomettes and a stone external staircase which took you back to the days of D’Artagnan as well as the first floor and just perfect for a gite, but so far, a precise location for a second gite, other than somewhere in the long row of dependences, was eluding us and in all fairness, the property was not yet speaking to us both.

So after an interesting morning including some interconnecting cellars with history and stocks of wine to be explored hopefully at a later date, we were about to leave and in preparing to bid Madame merci and au revoir, she asked if we would also like to see the garden. There is a garden we asked with genuine surprise? The agent’s details had so far failed to mention the extensive garaging, despite his manly gender, so we supposed a mere garden was even less unimportant to him. We unwound the locking wire from a hidden gate and wandered into a sizeable west facing plot, which paced out to about 550 square metres and overlooked nothing other than vines more or less as far as we could see! Imagine the scene, says me to the bride . . . a warm summer evening, the heat just going out of the day with the sun sinking slowly towards the golden horizon and there we are, sitting on the poolside deck sipping gin and tonics and wondering why we hadn’t done this years before.

Sounds like a plan!!!

I'm dreaming of a pool deck!!

LC

So where do we go from here?

Work was never so much of a chore, rather more often a joy for the pair of us and unencumbered as we were with little ones, proved a vehicle to spend much of our waking hours with. However, after several decades of hard work and play, we became aware, almost subconsciously, that despite our fortunate good health and certainly happy life, we may have actually been getting older. Obviously the cycle of work, eat, sleep, even when punctuated as often as possible with jollies away, could not go on forever. We became determined to change our lifestyle to a happier, healthier and more worthwhile one which could feed our minds much more than just our pockets.

As confirmed Francophiles, our destination was undisputed, so we began to consider a question a buddy of mine asked me years ago on one of the numerous lads’ camping trips to Le Mans, namely, ‘What would you do if you were to live here all the time?’ I was a little taken aback all those years ago when I struggled for a ready answer and was obviously nowhere near ready to contemplate such a move. Fifteen years later, we are of clear mind and want to live in a place we love, to immerse ourselves in local culture and indulge ourselves in allowing some of our passions to become more a way of life. The ‘immersion’  part of the plan will happen by simply being there and since we’ve always rather liked most of our fellow humans, we thought we might like them to come and entertain us, by spending some of their holiday time at chez nous and voila . . .  the idea to run some holiday cottages, or gites, emerged.   

We’ve been most fortunate in having and extensively using a delightful little farmhouse in Normandy for many years and as lovely as it is for most of the year, the thought of spending long, cold and snowbound winters in northern France is not a happy one, so we were drawn back to the Loire valley, the place where, all those years ago, we first found the truth in the rumour that the French knew a thing or three about food and wine! On our first foray in September 2010, we spent a delightful week in a gite which was part of a lovely set up owned and run by an English couple. The village was truly beautiful and set among vineyards and the peace oozed timeless charm with character to spare. The gite business was also for sale. Two gites in fact, with owner’s accommodation, swimming pool, well tended gardens, numerous outbuildings, plenty of parking and only 70 seconds walk to the boulangerie for those all important fresh breakfast croissants!

After much discussion, a second visit some weeks later and extremely careful consideration, we made our preliminary offer . . . but eventually just couldn't find that all important meeting of minds, but it's still a great place to enjoy quality relaxing time, supported by convivial hosts.

Still, all part of the learning process and a very useful one. We stepped up the search in earnest and visited many estate agents in many towns, inspected dozens of potential properties, all hugely entertaining, several ticking many of our boxes, but none really speaking that meaningful message to us.

One misty moisty morning weeks later found us in company of an immobilier of politeness and patience and one we now liked, as we made our way to view a property previously discarded as unsuitable.

First sight . . . what lies within?

It appeared to have insufficient land, outbuildings or garaging and the agent’s particulars showed a robust house, but one not over indulged with an abundance of attention for a few years, but the lady of the house was charming and was happy to let us take our time looking around her house and then spend an hour poking our way through the various outbuildings and cellars. I was impressed with the workshop, as it had an inspection pit and an engine hoist hanging from a roof beam and sufficient tools and equipment to let a visitor know that this was a place where serious messing about with machinery was done. There was another large garage as part of the barn and then we found a huge covered area where two derelict cars and a couple of ancient trailers were quietly rusting.

Okays, time for some sleep, so this will be continued soon . . . .

LC

Bonjour one and all

I've been promising myself a blog for months now, almost a year in fact, since we first started looking for suitable property in France's Loire valley to make a new home and a little enterprise to keep the bride and me out of too much mischief. The blog intends to both record our progress and let friends and potential visitors to chez nous, know what to expect, or at least some of the good bits, so here it is . . . a new beginning.


Sometime last century, probably the mid 80s amidst the new romantics and hot hatchbacks (I’d just bought my first proper sports car, a 1965 TR4 with rust as standard), we heard a rumour that the food was quite good in France, so having done the islands to death a dozen or so times and looking for something more cultural than hot bodies and sand with everything, we thought we might see if there was any truth in the rumour. In the intervening years, I’ve had just one bad meal (due to a dodgy snail I’m sure) and met scores of amazing people, several of whom have become life-long friends and we simply fell headlong into a so far limitless love affair with the French lifestyle, countryside, climate, culture, the emptiness of the roads, the people and their passion for life. 

Then of course, there is the view that these are only ‘holiday’ sentiments born of great times and fond memories and not what one might experience when being there for keeps, without the aid of rose coloured glasses! Well, perhaps, but then again, just what does one, or in our case two (with a supporting cast of two girl cats, a mountain range of books, a few guitars and old cars) actually do with the rest of your life, now that decades of work has provided both the means and the incentive to unplug the old and reconnect life into a new series of challenges?

Right, just do it!!

Time for a cuppa and to review the latest delivery from ‘Tool Station’ which will doubtless make light work of my imminent efforts to convert a 200 year old barn to a comfy home for us merry band of Anglais !

TTFN and more later.

LC