Where were we going to start our house hunting adventure ? - this was the first job on the list.

We knew the department of the Mayenne just north of the Loire very well as we have French friends there and we knew that we wanted to be further south than that. Kevin was still going to be bringing home the bacon so a large reliable airport was one of the main priorities. So we set our house hunting eyes on the region between the airports of Bordeaux and Toulouse and spent a lovely week driving between the two cities deciding which department we liked best - we didn’t look at any houses but had a sneaky glance in the estate agents windows - how could we resist ?

Simon and Garfunkel on the radio reminded us that we were -

‘Seeking out the poorer quarters
Where the ragged people go,
Looking for the places
Only they would know’

We moved on pretty quickly from areas which had an over abundance of loud English voices and tried to find a more undiscovered region, a really rural lifestyle - and finally after a lot of driving, a lot of eating and a lot of wine tasting we fell in love with the gentle rolling countryside and the warmth of the welcome of the Lot-et-Garonne.

Starting the Search

Hours on the Internet and phone conversations with estate agents in France and we were ready. A budget in mind and an idea for a project too - we wanted something that we could make our own - somewhere that our attention would nurture back to life just as it had done for our home in Southampton. We tried not to have the rose coloured specs on too much. Some of the time a bit of rosiness was OK as we didn’t want too much common sense to deter us ! On the other hand we were past the first flush of youth and there were certain things that would have been a step too far ! Top of my list of must haves ? - a loo and a shower and somewhere to cook so that we could live with some modern comforts whilst we worked on the project - my camping days had never begun and I certainly didn’t want them to start now ! ! !

Searching

When you only house buying experience has been in England it can be a bit of a shock looking at houses in the French countryside. To start with France is vast - so looking at 3 or 4 houses takes a whole day - remembering that there is the 2 hour pit stop in the middle (take it from me this will be the first French custom you will appreciate - it’s a long day !). Then there is estate agent speak - there are renovation projects and then there are renovation projects - that loo and shower priority helped keep us focussed. French wallpaper in old farmhouses has to be seen to be believed and bare light bulbs seemed to top the list of interior design must haves. It can be a culture shock and you do need to be able to see through all that to what you could create - sometimes the rose coloured spectacles helped a lot ! ! ! ! !

Finding the house

For us ? A new and precious second marriage and two very stressful hour eating jobs that left us little time for each other and a heart bypass operation that left us wanting to make the most of every following day ! We weren’t retirement age so we had to think of travel arrangements for Kevin to be able to carry on working and something for me to do too - neither of us are the ‘We are on a permanent holiday’ type of folk. I have had a long love affair with France and have very dear French friends in the north of France and so the decision to make France our destination didn’t need much thinking about - in fact we didn’t want to think about it too much in case I, ever the over cautious one, got cold feet ! !

So we decided to jump and see if the parachute opened ! ! ! ! ! ! !