The Offer!

We drove up to the house ready for our 11am appointment, we were only a few minutes away at the campsite but still arrived early; we just couldn't wait to get there. When driving on the road from the campsite we realised that if you stopped a few hundred yards before you arrived at the house, we had a great view of it and all it's buildings and land from across the valley. We just looked at it imagining that it might be ours.

We drove the last few hundred yards and parked up outside the barn, we got out excitedly and started walking up the lane to look at the land just like we'd done everytime we'd visited the property. We loved it and we both knew it, there was no doubt in our minds. Still, we had tried to be sensible and had made a list of specific things that we felt we hadn't explored enough like how many openings/windows were there in the big barn, we couldn't remember but it would have a big impact on our budget if we had to create lots of windows and doors. We hadn't been into the attic of the house either, and needed to have a good look at the roof and walls up there; we couldn't leave any part of the house unturned.

Our agent arrived, this time with a little old lady from the hamlet who was in charge of the keys. She was very old and very small, she came right up to us and shook our hands with a huge smile on her face before going over and opening the front door. She took her job very seriously, she was keen to ensure that our agent was selling the place to us properly and although the house hadn't been lived in for quite some time and was a bit of a mess inside, she spent the whole time sweeping and cleaning it with great pride.

We headed straight for the big barn, which would be our main gite project and climbed a ladder to look up at the first floor. The roof looked good as did the beams, Stu noticed one beam which was quite low, this was something we hadn't taken into account and needed to make a mental note of, there were no openings upstairs but 6 downstairs. We took in the details this time, where the main door was positioned, how the electricity came across from the house, the level of the land at the back (as it was built on a hill) and the damp that was there as a consequence, the views from the land and where the sun was - it was great to fill in the gaps in our minds. We then went across to the main house and had another look around there; the upstairs needed more work than we remembered, the downstairs was better than we thought.

We finally walked out into the garden with the agent to confirm all the boundaries and which bits of land would be ours, we asked her again about price and she made it clear that the lady already wanted more than the agent had told us it was on for, so anything less than the asking price was sure to be rejected. We stood there all three of us looking out over the valley and not making much eye contact with one another, all with our own thoughts, but no-one saying anything. After some time, the agent said 'you don't need to make a decision now, why don't you go away and think about it and call me later' - it was exactly what we needed to do and so we did.

Back at the campsite we set out our chairs and made a cup of tea (the only thing to do in a situation like that), we knew we were going to offer but we couldn't decide how much. The salespeople in us couldn't possibly offer the asking price, but equally we didn't want to insult the lady and had it in mind that she wanted more for the house than the agent said it was worth, also it hadn't even been put on the market yet and she had already moved, so time didn't seem to be a problem for her or a bargaining tool for us. We picked some figures out of our head mulling it all over and discussing what each other thought, finally we agreed that as we were buying an extra piece of land from a different farmer to make the barn a viable proposition to become a gite, we would make an offer that allowed for that purchase. It would be a serious offer and only a few thousand less than the asking price. I put the call in and the agent sounded positive, she said she would contact me only when she had an answer. That was it, we'd done it - we'd finally found a place that we loved enough to commit to and we were now actually trying to buy it. We were so excited that we didn't quite know what to do with ourselves.

We had to go out, it could be days before we got an answer, so we went to find all the local beaches and pretty hamlets. It was a lovely afternoon driving around the countryside trying to make sense of where we were and everytime we found somewhere really lovely working out how close it was to 'our' house. We sat on a beach for a while and looked over a beautiful lake, we stopped in a beautiful little place called La Celle Dunoise and watched the old men fishing in the river and then a few hamlets along had a beer and sat in the sun for a while chatting.

On our way back to the campsite my phone rang and would you believe it was 901, my answerphone - we had actually missed a call earlier in the day, horror of all horrors! I pushed the button and tried to listen while stu was driving, we had the windows open and the signal was going in and out, I got some words and not others, there was a long convoluted message...something about furniture, someone was worried...then there was a congratulations...something about dates and then the call dropped out. Stu had stopped the car by this point and the windows were up. I put the phone done in silence, 'what' stu said looking at me with raised eyebrows and sheer anticipation on his face, 'hun..what was it? what did she say?' he went on. I looked at him and said 'I couldn't really hear properly, but I think we may have just bought ourselves a house!' - we both went mad and hugged and kissed in excitement, it was a great feeling. I played it back and listened again, our offer was accepted, the lady was very happy that someone wanted to buy it but she was concerned about how she would get all of her furniture out....the offer really had been accepted. We drove in silence for a while, both thinking that the offer had been accepted too quickly and perhaps we should have offered less, but what was done was done and we both felt in a strange state of shock.