A long hot day

Monday was frought with viewings. We had an 11am appointment with a lady that we had met before in a town called La Souterraine, which is in the Creuse region of the Limousin. We drove for an hour and a half to get there and managed to pull up outside her agency without one wrong turn. La Souterraine is, like many villages in France, very old with lots of small twisty roads that look wide enough for a mini and not much else, normally cobbled and very steep. The last time we visited we went around the church square in the hub of the town many times and kept getting a glimpse of the agency but could never work out how to actually drive there. This time we were pros, we swanned around as if we'd lived there for years, confidently parking on a narrow street and giving all the french men that were hanging out of their windows watching us big smiles, even though they reciprocated with hard stares. Zoe was ready for us, she knew exactly what we were looking for and had 4 properties that she wanted to show us. We jumped in her car with her and off we set. In England, you would expect a few minutes drive to a house, ten minutes at tops; we were in her car for four and a half hours.

The first house was a mess, we had been warned before we got there but the French do not believe in presenting a house like we do and believe that it is the buyers job to decide whether they like it or not, not the sellers job to show it off to make a sale! Not only was there rubbish absolutely everywhere in this property but also the little dog, who was close to having a hernia when we came into the house, had left us a little present on the lounge floor; it was brown and didn't smell too good. The house had potential but it was very close to the other houses in the hamlet and with one small outbuilding it wasn't for us.
(The poo house)

Next we went to one that we were excited about, but unfortunately wasn't officially on the market yet, so we could only view it from the outside to see if it was still of interest. We drove through the hamlet, typically very small lanes with the houses so close to the edge of the road you could almost shake hands with the women chopping their veg at the kitchen window as you drove past. The house we were viewing stood tall just far enough at the end of the hamlet to feel part of it but not on top of it. It was a pretty house with a long barn attached plus 2 other barns, which were separate and a cute garden plus orchard and field for animals, it was quite high up and as you looked around there were just so many trees, it was a great setting. We both took to it immediately and agreed that we would like to come back and have a look inside.

The final two properties were no good. The first had so much potential; the house was brimming full of amazing features, there were beams, and oak staircases, huge rooms and doors, beautiful tomette tiling in the attic, which could have looked stunning. The land was interesting, with barn after barn after barn but the amount of work was quite overwhelming and we were told that a local businessman had bought the house next door just to park his work lorries in the barn and we were put off. The last house was situated so close to a busy road that we really couldn't get over the noise. It was a great shame because the house was so pretty and the land ran down to a small river with a little sandy spot, which was completely private. It could have been bliss!
(The river at the bottom of the garden)

We finally got back to the agency tired, hot, hungry and thirsty, we made an appointment to go back to the house we liked and then set off on our long journey home. A glass of wine on the patio was calling me the whole way down that A20 and through the forest and when I finally got to pour it I wasn't dissapointed. We sat in the late afternoon sun, letting our bodies relax from all the miles and agreed that we had one more house to add to the 'quite interested' pot.