The local area

The following day we didn't have any viewings, so we decided to try and aquaint ourselves with the local area, in the hope that it would help us feel a little more at home. Rob had recommended a local walk that would take us about an hour through the forests, where he promised us we would find a lake hidden in the middle of nowhere with a beautiful house sat on it's edge. The house, he said, had a tin roof and hadn't been lived in for many years. They themselves had made some enquiries locally to see who owned it and whether there would be any chance of buying it but they were told by the locals in no uncertain terms that buying that house would never be an option.

Quite excited by the promise of this magical walk, we made some sandwiches and packed our rucksack with the food, camera, sun-tan lotion, mobile phone...we never manage to pack light! Rob had hand-drawn us a little map, their almost 2 year old daughter had also added her own little scribble to help us out. It was mainly directional arrows, with a couple of landmarks, I wasn't convinced we would find the lake, let alone find our way home again; this hour walk could be a days adventure in my mind.

Turn right out of the driveway and walk through the hamlet past the single horse lonely in a field, past the mairie with the most prestigious looking building in the hamelet, past the beautiful church with its bells chiming at us and the main crossroads in the heart of the hamlet. We were looking for the graveyard, one of two landmarks on this piece of paper, where we knew we must turn right. We found it and we were confident that we were genius map readers and definitely on the right track. This single lane was stoney and dusty underfoot and led up to the last few houses in the hamlet, which were all extremely well kept with neat lawns and an abundance of colour around their doorways and windows. As we passed these houses the lane turned to a track with tyre marks that could only have been made by a tractor and we were in the forest; it was stunning.

We windled our way through the forest for a few kilometres stopping every now and then to take some pics and look at wildlife. Rob and cleverly remembered every point where we would be presented with an option of left, right or straight on and had made a simple mark on the map so we knew which way to go. After some time we came to a clearing and walked down a very steep rocky track, wondering whether we could find a way back with our 4x4 to put the car through it's paces! As we were now travelling downhill we were getting more excited by the prospect of falling upon our lake, but so far it was nowhere to be seen. The views were beautiful, we were surrouned behind us by the magnificent pine forest and in front by fields and the view of the next hill and the next pine forest.

Finally I caught site of some water between the trees and as we continued to walk I said to Stu that I thought we had found it; nestled down low, quiet as a mouse and so still you could hear a pin drop was, just as Rob said, a beautiful lake, with lillies sat quietly on top and a house that had stood for hundreds of years and that if it could speak, no doubt would have some stories to tell.

We were calm and quiet just as our surroundings were; it was catching. We sat on rocks and stared at the water watching the dragonfly go about his business and the water boatman hopping his way across the lake and then chatting about the house imagining what we would do with it if it were ours. We loved every minute of it.

Our walk home took us back through the forest and a couple of open fields, where Stu jumped at tiny little frogs in front of him and I spent ages trying to take shots of butterflies that just kept flying away from me. Everytime we came across an open field, we would both comment on whether that was not enough or too much land for us. Finally we found ourselves out on the main road, which we knew would take us back into the hamlet and we hoped that we didn't get home too soon.