We said goodbye to Karen and Brian on Tuesday and then had to re-adjust to the house being quiet again. It was odd, we had no viewings, no guests to show around, we didn't know what to do with ourselves. We had to throw ourselves into buying a house and focus on the reason we were here. We sat down and made a list of all the questions and worries we had in our minds about the house and then emailed the agent, we also alluded to the fact that we may put an offer in and tried to sound her out in terms of where a negotiation might start. She put our minds at rest with answers to our questions and very clevery skirted around the subject of price. We agreed to meet once again at the house to look at the roofs and attics to explore better in the areas that we hadn't looked at previously and also to meet a local farmer to had promised to sell us a small piece of land that we felt was necessary to buy to give one of the barns (the one that would become a gite) a small garden. Friday at 11am, it was done but still no discussion on price.
Stu and I agreed that the 2 hour drive was getting a little boring and quiet intense to do it twice in the same day, plus we wanted to use the time up there to explore the local lakes and beaches so we started hunting online for somewhere to stay. Would you believe that we found a campsite run by a wonderful english couple the next hamlet but one along from our potential new home, they were minutes away from the house and we decided that if we stayed with them it would be a great opportunity to chat with locals who already knew the area and had dealt with the local mayor etc. I rang and spoke to Neil, a middle-aged sounding guy with a northern lilt, he seemed friendly; 'come whenever you like', he said, 'just don't leave it too late, you don't want to be pitching your tent in the dark'. It was booked, I put the phone down very excited and went to bed.
The next morning, Stu packed all of our camping kit into the car whilst I pulled all the food together that we needed to eat and started packing the cool box. Fiary Liquid, Tea Towel, Bottle Opener, Cutlery, Rubbish Bags...what had i forgotten - we weren't pros by any means! Packing the car wasn't a five minute job, although we decided the more we did it the better we would get. After the last pillow went in, the boot on our large 4x4 would hardly shut; we'd been hoping we might be able to go camping on the motorbike at some point, but realised we were a long way off; I'd need to either talk Stu into buying a motorbike with side car and tow bar for very full trailer, which would do nothing for our street-cred or marriage or we'd need to ensure we only ever went camping with friends, who would have to be driving a large enough car for all of their stuff as well as ours...hmmm...we'll have to see what we can cut out of the packing; perhaps we could do with only one bottle of wine instead of two, or maybe not.....well, we'll go back to the drawing board on that one.
Finding the campsite was easy, we knew the route to our potential new home only too well and we had driven through the hamlet where they are based many a time. As we pulled up, Neil's wife Linda came out to meet us. A very quiet, gentle lady, she was smiling away and extremely welcoming, we walked up through their grounds as she pointed out the gate down to a woodland walk which ended at their private fishing lake, 'you can go there anytime' she said, 'it particularly nice at dusk', she pointed out the chicken and the sheep and the well marked out camping areas, there were 2 large caravans and 1 huge tent already pitched. She told us not to worry about the markings and that we could pitch wherever we liked the look of - under the tree, in the sunny spot, she didn't mind. Then she showed us the loos and showers and a fridge in their office which was there for us to use. The whole set up was so relaxed we felt at home straight away. We had of course practised putting up our tent at our leaving party in the UK to ensure minimal embarrasment at the point at which we had now arrived; putting up our tent in front of all the people sat out quietly enjoying the sun. As the old saying goes, 'Practise makes Perfect' and the effort we had put in at home had paid off, it went up quickly and easily; surely they would have scored us ten out of ten had they all been given cards. Happy in the knowledge that our base was sorted, we went off to do some more exploring and to buy some chicken breasts...oh and a washing up bowl...and a cooking implement...and some loo roll!
Our first night in the tent was great fun; we had a lovely chicken stir fry, I drank red wine out of a metal camping cup and stu sat comfortably in his camping chair with corona firmly in hand. We watched the sun set causing the bright blue sky to drop into the deepest oranges and pinks and finally into darkness when the moon shone brightly above us and the stars twinkled all around. It was truly beautiful and so calm, we felt very happy to be there and the only reason we finally zipped into the tent was because the temperature was dropping and we were getting cold. When I unzipped the tent the next morning it was wet from rain overnight and the fields around us looked a little frosty, but by the time we had cooked our fry up and drank our tea the sun was back out warming our cockles and giving us the energy and bravery we needed to go and see the house at 11am and perhaps to make an offer.
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