Eating from the land...

We have had the most unbelievable weather recently. Our fruit trees are completely covered in blossom and remind me that it won't be long before I'll be fruit picking. I've set myself a challenge to make sure we don't waste any crop from our land this year and we have a number of apple trees as well as pear, plum, cherry, quince, sloe, raspberries and blackberries - so I have quite a lot of work on my hands with jams, pies, drinks - perhaps some gin!

I'm still preparing my veg patch, which I really need to get finished now. I dug in a few tractor loads of old horse manure a few weeks ago and have quite a bit more digging to do! So I will have veg from the garden this summer to add to the fridge.

It's not only fruit and veg though, as I'm sure you know we bought our first pigs in January, which was very exciting. We decided to buy Rare Breed Berkshires - seemed the right thing to do seeing as we used to live in Berkshire! We bought a male pig who was a few weeks off slaughter and two girls with a view to breeding. Our male had already been named Robin and after spending some time with the girls, we named them Pepper and Olive. The pigs have been so much fun, they are really friendly - we scratch them and they drop on to their sides so we'll tickle their tummies. They are also very muddy and very good and turning up any grass, roots, rock, walls around them!

At the end of March the time had come to send Robin to slaughter. We investigated our options of driving him to our local abattoir or having a home kill and eventually decided on a home kill, which was done by a french retired butcher called Christian. We checked that it was going to be done humanely and he confirmed that a quick shot to the head and he wouldn't know anything that went on afterwards. We began to get really nervous as the day approached, I decided to have a couple of glasses of wine at lunch to calm the nerves. He arrived at 3pm on the dot on a friday afternoon, Stu and I had already separated Robin from the girls and put him in one of our barns, we were brushing him and giving him love when Christian arrived. Suddenly before I knew what was going on Christian had walked into the barn with his stun gun, I heard one squeal and they were dragging Robin out - that was it. They had to hang him in a tree to slit his throat and let the blood drain, I was in charge of pulling the tractor forward acting as a winch to pull Robin into the tree. I watched as they worked on him and it wasn't as bad as I thought, once he was truly gone they set about cleaning his insides and taking the hair off. They worked quickly, speaking all the time, most of which passed me by; in 45 minutes they were waving as they pulled off our driveway and we had a pig hanging in our barn. Robin had gone.

He arrived at 6.45am the next morning and we really didn't know what to expect other than he'd asked us to buy garlic, onions, white wine, salt, pepper and parsely - so he was going to cook! He set up in Stu's workshop with lots of vats bubbling away on gas rings, we had crawled out of bed, pulled on some old clothes and were sipping coffee as he took the saw to the first of Robin's legs....he worked fast as the morning went on he was throwing meat at me left right and centre, I was bagging it up as quickly as i could. All the extra bits were being thrown in various vats to be cooked - we still didn't really know what was going on. He handed me a pot of terrine (pate) and told me to go and put it straight in the oven for 3 hours and when he started on the black pudding or Boudin in french he asked me to taste the fresh blood after he's salted it! After 5 hours of cutting and cooking, we had 40 pork chops, 5 huge joints, 2 filet mignons, 80 black pudding, bags of terrine, a pot of 'pate de tete' - for those of you that don't know, that's EVERYTHING from the head - Stu saw an eyeball go in!, bacon, liver....I think that was it. The experience was absolutely amazing and the freezer as planned was full of meat.

It's not just the pigs, we also had 11 hens, 2 cockerels and 4 ducks until last week when we sold 2 hens and a cockerel. We get so many eggs each week, I can't cook them quick enough and we're now ready to eat some chickens. Our beautiful chicks from last summer are still here and laying us stunning blue eggs, we don't really want to eat them just yet- but I think we will eventually. We rescued 6 hens from a lady earlier in the year and we think we're going to start by eating those, although Stu has already killed one, we're going to take them to a local abattoir who do all the horrible work for just a couple of euros - it's a no brainer.

One of our ducks 'Em', is now sitting on lots of eggs and on the 20th April we should have some ducklings, which is very exciting. So, we will also be able to eat some of our own duck later in the year. Needless to say, we also picked up a new freezer on the weekend!

Bring on the house cow and little lambs I say!

I have a Kitchen! Yay!

So, I'll start from the beginning with the plans for our Kitchen. When we bought the house we were lucky enough to have a large amount of old oak left in our hangar. We had always planned to use as much of the resources we already had on the land as possible and so it was obvious to have a real oak floor in our country kitchen. When it came to the crunch and we really looked at the oak, we realised that some of the beams were so huge that we would need to get them to a mill to have them cut down, Stu has some pretty major table saws and stuff but nothing as big as we needed! Also, even if we had got it cut down, Stu would have spent weeks sanding all the wood down and trying to prepare it. It turned out that one of the french people that lives in the next village is a carpenter and so we decided to get a quote. He came and looked at the wood and calculated how much useable stuff we had, it was a perfect amount to do the kitchen area. He said he'd cut all the knots out for us and we were saying 'no!' 'we love the knots', he thought we were weird but agreed to keep them in. The quote was much less than we expected and we had the wood back at our house within a week, it was sanded, tongue & grooved and stunning!

We had spent some time planning the type of adhesive we were going to use, which wasn't simple as we have laid underfloor heating - but we got there in the end and bought it from the uk as we could get better advice and, as always, it was cheaper. So finally by mid February we had everything we needed, Stu's younger brother flew over to us and they laid the floor in a couple of days. The room was transformed! We sanded and treated it overnight for two nights in a row and finally it was done.

Our Kitchen had been sat in our main barn since summer last year, which had been a real stress as we had no idea how the wood was holding up through the winter and really didn't know what we would find when we unwrapped it. So, heart's in our mouth and a little prayer said, we were ready to bring the kitchen in. We were lucky, it was seemingly unharmed by the change in temperature and humidity from summer to autumn to winter and it was definitely as beautiful as I remembered it in the shop. We bought it in unit by unit and started to try and make it fit, I say try because it didn't really fit! I don't know where we got our measurements wrong but let's just say we had to make some adjustments, I don't think you'd know - but we do! It took us a few days to get it really right, levelling it and fitting the cornice etc. all take time but we got there.

The worktop was the final piece of the puzzle but Stu was too scared to cut it, we had two huge lengths of real oak and he said that if he did it wrong there would be no going back! Luckily we have an english friend here who is also a carpenter and he came over for the day and did a fantastic job. By early March we were there, I had not only a lovely kitchen, but my big oven, a beautiful butler sink and a dishwasher! Cooking is a joy again.

We had a few visitors in March, which was great but as always it did mean that the work on the house slowed down a bit, the bathroom upstairs has been finished and looks beautiful and work has started on my larder room, which is where I intend to store all our meat, jams, juices etc.

A busy Winter

Reading my last post really makes me laugh, particularly the 'we should have a Kitchen in the next few weeks' part! It's the 2nd February 2011 and I still don't have the Oak Floor or Kitchen, but it's ok, we're doing it right, no rushing, no bodging, the screed will dry over time and luckily for us time is what we have.

Late Autumn and Winter bought a tonne of challenges for us, on the 20th October our puppy had a horrific car accident and we spent weeks looking after him, changing his bandages and trying to stop him from over doing it.

4 weeks later and we left him with people he didn't know while we whisked ourselves away to New York. We had a fabulous time with my sis and her husband; they introduced us to lots of their friends on Thanksgiving, we skated in Bryant Park and did some Christmas shopping, it was really lovely. We got back on the 29th November and then just 3 days later our beautiful black cat Scamp was also run over, but he didn't survive it. He was the most loving cat with such a funny little personality, he was a daddy's boy and always climbed up Stu and wrapped his two front paws around Stu's neck for a cuddle just as a child would do. We were so upset, but he is now buried next to our beautiful wedding swing, where we often go and chat with him. A week later and his brother Marble seemed so discumbobulated that we decided to go and get a rescue cat to try and cheer him up. So on the 11th December we collected 'Amie' a 5 month old girl beautiful in white and ginger looking for a loving home. She spent a week playing around our house, helping me dress the Christmas tree and snuggling in front of the fire and then just 5 days later she died, and we don't know why. So Marble was left again with just us to keep him company and then we left him to go back to the UK for Christmas. Luckily our neighbour comes to the house twice a day every day and she kept him entertained. We had a fantastic time with all our friends and family over the Christmas period, lots of food, drink, games and laughs. We got back to France on the 2nd January ready to get back down to lots of work and Marble was definitely very pleased to see us. Things have settled down now, Marble seems content sleeping on our bed during the day unless we're outside doing something interesting and then he comes and joins in. He wakes me up at 6.50am every morning, not a minute earlier, not a minute later, and so like the obedient owner that I am, I get up, he runs down the stairs twisting and turning through my legs as though all his christmasses are coming at once and then he sits at the door at the bottom of the stairs looking at the handle, not me - he doesn't look at me, he just stares at the handle as though maybe just maybe he has enough cat superpowers to make it turn quicker if he stares hard enough. Once he's in, he's happy munching on his breakfast and I'm free from the danger of a cat trying to trip you up and can make my cup of tea in peace. We have a routine and he seems to like it.

It is now very cold again, we've had some beautiful sunny days but it's been about -7 most days this week and the garden looks sad. I love it when the sun does break through the clouds and I feel just a little warmth on my face, it reminds me that Spring is just around the corner and not only will that put a smile on my face but the garden will start smiling too. We walk the dog for an hour each morning and feed the chickens as we go, then we'll come back in for a warm cup of tea and I sit in the office for the best part of the day working on the business. That means that Stu is now on his own with the build, but it works well for us. Our carpets were fitted in December, so the bedrooms are looking nice, we completed the underfloor heating & screed downstairs before we came home too. As we've had to wait for the screed to dry in the Kitchen Stu has turned his attentions to the upstairs bathroom and he's doing a great job. All the plumbing & waste has been run, the bath is in and has been well used! He has taken his time over the planning of the room, getting the tiling around the bath just right as well as the plastering. He has handmade and painted our sink unit, which looks beautiful and it's now really coming together. We decided to use our neighbour who is a carpenter to prepare the Oak for our Kitchen floor as he has big machinery and will do it in a matter of days rather than Stu sanding it all for weeks, and that is due back with us this week. So next week Stu will start to prepare the Kitchen floor with a thin layer of self-levelling compound and then those boards can go down....my Kitchen isn't far off now!

Some news & pics on the build

Last time I wrote we couldn't make a decision about the way to heat our house and hot water and that was delaying us massively. We finally made a decision on a Solar Hot Water system that would use a minimal amount of electricity to run and Underfloor Heating to warm our cockles in the winter. We ordered all the kit, which came from the UK and had a 3-4 week delay on it and finally after a lot of waiting we are starting to lay the Underfloor Heating in the morning, this should mean that we'll be laying screed and thinking about an Oak floor in our Kitchen within the next 2-3 weeks.

We've also had our plasterer back so the Kitchen walls are looking more presentable. Stu has been spending his time putting new floors in the bedrooms, upstairs bathroom and landing. This was a mammoth task as the worst floor had a 5 inch difference in it's level from one side of the room to the other! He spent many hours and days levelling the beams and applying wood treatment to every bit of wood in sight! We now have 2 large bedrooms ready for carpet, our bathroom has a beautiful softwood floor and the landing has an Oak floor. Stu's brother came and helped for a couple of weeks, which was fantastic - he's a Carpenter and Stu turned into his labourer for the time that he was here. They worked brilliantly together and all I had to do was keep the food and beer (mainly the beer) flowing!

Stu has also started fitting our beautiful bathroom upstairs, which has been a complicated job with beams dictating where the plumbing and waste can & can't go. The Solar Hot Water system is going in at the beginning of November, so a bath may be possible before December - woo hoo!

We have a very tight schedule between now and Christmas, we're going to New York for 5 days at the end of November and then home to the UK for Christmas on the 20th of December so in terms of actual number of days left to work - there aren't many!

A moment to reflect...

Living here must be the best way in the world to learn about the birds and the bees; I guess that's why so many people say that they'd like to bring their children up in the country. Our chicks being born was an absolutely fantastic thing to watch - no heat lamps or special pens, no human intervention - pure and simply, a mother hen who knew exactly what she was doing. She sat on those eggs for twentyish days, leaving them for the smallest amount of time to get food for herself, she lost out on exercise, she lost out on the run of the farm, she lost out on the first pick of the food, she lost out on interaction with the other hens, time with the cockerel, but in the end she was the winner because after almost a month of total and utter dedication she was blessed with some beautiful little babies and it didn't end there. I have witnessed her showing them how to walk, how to eat & drink, how to forage for worms & grubs, I've seen her protect them by putting herself in the line of fire and all of that was done with pure instinct. Isn't that fantastic; it's so simple. Don't you think that as humans we spend most of the time just really complicating things and sometimes when it comes down to it, we've forgotten how to even trust our instinct. France has given me time and with time I think I'm learning to trust my instinct a little bit more.

My dad built me the most beautiful swing for our wedding, I'm sure you all remember it. That swing now rests under our huge oak tree at the bottom of our fields and I often spend a few moments sat there pondering 'stuff'. Yesterday, I sat there and remembered my beautiful wedding day, the feelings I had getting ready in the morning, all the wonderful people (you) around me all day, helping to make Stu and I happy with all the different bits and pieces that were going on. People who were simply there because they love us and they wanted to share in our happiness in those moments. Some really wonderful things have happened in the last couple of weeks; another extremely important wedding on the other side of the atlantic and news from a very close friend of a little bambino on it's way. These are the beautiful things in life that put a smile on our faces - it's not even necessarily the actual wedding or baby being born, but just the lovely news and how that person is feeling that will lift us for that day. Somehow being here has enabled me to enjoy those little moments more and has definitely made me realise that our friends and family, those that we hold nearest and dearest, no matter where they live in the world are the most important things we have. That swing is a wonderful place to reflect, you'll have to try it when you come and visit.

Our house is evolving

I've just read my last post; it was in June! Gosh how time goes by, we're mid-august now and I can't keep up with each day. The year will be over before we know it; leaves dropping from the trees and light dressings of snow seem to be looming. The scariest bit about all that is that we don't have a Kitchen or heat or hot water...really sort of important things for a winter in the middle of rural France where temperatures can drop to below 20. The chickens are already putting themselves to bed earlier than usual and the nights are colder; what will September and October bring?

We have achieved so much with our build; mum and dad arrived just in time for us to concrete the ground floor level of the house. We made a great team; dad & Stu mixed and barrowed, mum and I layed the floor. The first room was a bit dodgy, the second considerably better and the last room was pure genius - we could definitely take it up as a full time profession, in fact I think I might. So after a week of concreting we have a floor with a damp-proof layer BUT it still needs some underfloor heating before another whole layer of screed will be required....god help us.

Our beams are exposed and there are loads of electrics now running through the beams and down the walls giving us light in all the downstairs rooms and 2 bedrooms upstairs. We even decided to get a plasterer in to sort one of our downstairs rooms out, which now looks almost like an actual room....I could put a sofa in it just to make me feel better, but it would be silly really!

Stu has exposed our beautiful fireplace in the Kitchen, he's pointed the chimney breast which is made from red bring and has laid a hearth from large pieces of granite that we pulled up from the floor, it looks fab. Stu and I also concreted his 60sqm workshop in preparation for hot water and heating tanks. That leads me on to us trying to make decisions on our hot water & heating using renewable energy. It's not simple, 3 quotes and 1 meeting in French later and we still can't decide what to do...it's holding us up; the house is crying out for some heat and a finished floor and we're running out of time. It's the first real pressure we've felt. It's a large investment and we don't want to get it wrong, we need a little shove from behind like a child on it's first day at school, a little 'it's ok - you're doing the right thing' type of encouragement.

When our puppy, Red arrived, our world as we knew it ended! He has eyes that make your heart melt and a tale that wags so excitedly that you can't help but smile, however, even though we had read loads of books and watched Cesar Millan we still weren't prepared for how much time this little bundle was going to need. It was a massive challenge for us to start with, we were so focussed on our build and working so hard each day and all of a sudden we had a routine to put in place and someone or something else to think about, it was really hard. He got wayward and started biting, probably because we gave him too much freedom and not enough boundaries - we needed supernanny! We've had him nearly two months now and after some hard work he is so much better, he loves his cuddles in the morning and has learnt lots of tricks... he loves swimming and chasing chickens! He's growing so quickly but doesn't realise how big he is. People in the street love him, the French are a nation of dog-lovers so when we take him to restaurants he generally gets better treatment than we do! We love him and wouldn't change him for the world; I think we're over the shock now and he's settling in as a very important member of the family.

On the animal front, the most exciting thing over the last 2 weeks has been the arrival of some new chicks. I'll write soon with all the beautiful (and the gory) details!

This & That

It's been a while since I've written and as I type now I am sat in an empty bedroom with pink and white flowery wallpaper, wooden floorboards and a marble fireplace looking out through a flaky old window to a view of lush green scenery out on the horizon and down below some chickens trying to take cover from the rain under a large bush. The cockerel looks 'dampened', is that a word? I'm not sure but his feathers hang low and he doesn't look as regal as he usually does. He could simply go into his house and keep warm and dry but I can only assume that as that is not part of his routine usually, he couldn't work out that perhaps just for today, he could in fact make it part of his routine. And why are all the Hens under the bush but the Cockerel isn't? Is he looking after them, making sure that they have shelter before he does? Or perhaps he's a picnic short of a sandwich; I prefer to think that come what may he will be hunter gatherer for his brood and that hopefully when he comes back to the nest they won't be put off by his sodden & bedraggled looks and that they will let him serve them for his efforts.

It's been wet, very wet for quite some time now. Not every day - we have an interlude of sun and when it does come out it's extremely hot, but the common theme during most weeks seems to be a downpour of magnificent proportions - not just a light shower, this is serious rain. Obviously we do have the rain to thank for all the wonderful lush greenery around but come on - this is June, it's summer isn't it and we decided not to move to Wales or Scotland because it rained too much! Have we made a catastrophic mistake? It would be the law of sod that each time I check the weather forecast for England, there seems to be sun. I'm sure when I lived in England the sun was always in Limoges and the rain was just outside the window. I could be at the British Hearth Foundation now sweltering in a British Summer and chatting to all the old dears buying their Mills & Boon about how Britain has never known a summer like it. Oh well, for now I will enjoy letting the rain do the job of watering the garden and bringing on my lettuces and runner beans and in August I'll gloat that we are in the pool when the British Summer has already come to an end and the beginning of a new school term is just around the corner.

Since I last wrote we've had two sets of visitors. The first was my dad who arrived just before his birthday at the end of May. Seeing as he was filling his retirement with silly little things like racing round Nurburgring in exciting fast cars, doing charity work and having lots of social engagements booked up each weekend I decided to give him a job. He is now Head of Electrics at Muck to Merlot, Chez Watson, France. The job is a grand one and I won't hear anything to the contrary - although he was on site by 8am every morning, didn't leave til around 10pm most nights, worked a 6 day week and had a team that consisted of him, him and him - he was fed and watered impeccably (other than the odd 2 Euro bottle of plonk which didn't really go down that well), he had his washing and ironing done for him and of course the company was great. The electrics have come on leaps and bounds, most importantly the old fuse box with furry little cables, with no earth whatsoever is now pretty much out of action and we have a shiny new plastic fuse board up on the wall with loads of wires going off here there and everywhere - it looks great! I have a washing maching and a fridge which has made my life considerably easier and we even have light - such a simple thing we take for granted, but we can in fact now see which walls we are knocking down and which should be left. Phew!

We celebrated dad's birthday on the 30th with two new arrivals - Kat & Ben. They drove down like the proper townies that they are (& we almost used to be) in their BMW Coupe, armed with posh wellies and an even posher BBQ. They did the journey in record time and arrived early enough for us to cart them off to the local campsite for their first shower in France as we were one nut & bolt away from sorting out our plumbing and all the shops were shut on Sunday - so we had a night of no shower. We baked a cake and had a feast from the barbie and sang Happy Birthday to dad, it was a lovely social evening and our first proper gathering in our new home. Kat & Ben tucked in that night to the tent in our front field, which Kat described as 'Glamping' rather than Camping as they had a full double bed, base, mattress the lot, table & Chairs, kettle, tea and even a heater wired from the house. They said they wouldn't use it as they liked to rough it a little more than that, but I'm pretty sure it was on by night two! They were fantastic, they stripped wallpaper, cut down trees and moved huge boulders from the barn floor - they worked like trojans followed up each night by a meal outside with a fire going next to us. Good friends, good food & good chats; it was over all too quickly as by the Thursday they were back to boring things like work, paying the mortgage..you know - stuff like that. The best bit was that we didn't put them off and they have already booked to come back and we can't wait.

Head of Electrics still had another week before his return home, which was great because there was lots more to do not only with the electrics but he also stepped in to help with other jobs. We put a gate up in preparation for our puppy, and also had to whack out all of the ground level floors with a deadline for the machine hire. Each time Stu and I reached the point of not being able to dig anymore, dad did a stint on the machine - we all spent most of that week still shaking when we went to bed and having to unfold each limb out of bed the next morning. Still we did get the machine back on time and we have kept to our schedule of digging all floors up. By the end of the week we were all pretty shattered, but we needed to find enough energy to collect a beautiful little puppy and go to a local party before dad went home.

Chickens

The farmyard gets bigger….

The following day we had some more animals to collect; only this time we were far less aware of what we were doing. We had found another English couple an hour away who were breeding birds, some as layers and others as meat – Stu had spoken to them and agreed to have a trio of one Cockerel and two Hens. When we arrived we met Jill first, she was a well dressed lady – didn’t look like a Chicken Farmer at all. We sat in the sun having a cup of tea whilst their ducks wandered past us, the Jack Russell fought for our attention and the Geese made lots of noise in the background. Jeff also sat with us and talked about their life in France and their kids in the UK, how prices had gone up and it was because of the English. As we were talking, I guess he was summing us up in his mind because he decided to bring out some ducklings and gave us a ‘gentle sell’ to try and get rid of some birds. I gave the little thing a cuddle as he looked at me making a funny squeaky noise. He was cute and I loved the idea of some ducklings, but I wasn’t as confident as I was with the kittens and felt that we were already in deeper than we could swim so we should take small steps. I gave him back saying that although we did want ducks this was something we would leave for a while. Jeff took us over to the three birds we had agreed to buy; they were waiting in a very small cage for us. We looked them over as though we knew what we should be looking for, I just saw feet that reminded me of dinosaurs, beaks that looked like they could be painful, a few feathers tufting out on the Cockerel - was their such a thing as ‘tufty feather disease’, perhaps I should be taking this salesman up on my findings, or maybe I’ll just stay quiet in case it’s nothing. We told him we were happy with them and he said he’d show us the rest of his Bird Fleet. We walked up to a dusty area, where we had lots of long pens built from a simple wooden frame and chicken wire attached to one another. The first pen had a Cockerel in it that looked four times as big as it should be, I would have been scared if it had come anywhere near me. The second had some beautiful beige birds – Buff Orpingtons I think they were. I liked them; they were pretty and fairly small. The next pen had quite a few birds in it and they were all pecking at a dead hen, I didn’t want to look but I couldn’t take my eyes off them. How could they be doing that to one of their own? It wasn’t a pretty sight. He moved us on and showed us a few birds that he recommended would be good for us, but I was nervous. Stu and I agreed that we should go home with three and come back another time for some more. We paid our 50 Euros, he put them in a box for us and off we went with our Chickens in the boot. When we arrived home we put them into the house Stu had built for them and put some food down in their little garden area, they pecked around and seemed fairly happy with their surroundings. A little later I was working in the house and I heard a cry of excitement from outside, I ran out only to find Sash looking at me with a big grin on her face – I ran over to the chicken house and she told me to look inside. It was our first egg. Not any old egg either; it was the first bit of produce from our farm, a beautiful warm egg, a blue egg. That night, we decided we better put the Chickens into the house ourselves to show them the night time drill. This seemed like a good idea at first – Sash headed up the team as we talked tactics before entering the Chicken garden. I had a broom, sash had a stick and Karen and Stu just made themselves big with their arms stretched out. We all walked slowly, following Sash’s commands herding the Chickens towards their house; they didn’t like us and they definitely didn’t want to be anywhere near us. Just as we thought we had them close they applied their own tactics similar to the Red Arrows darting off in different directions, just testing how agile we really were. We weren’t as agile as them. The evening went on and the situation didn’t change, the birds outsmarted us every time. Finally Karen, driven by tiredness and a no desire whatsoever to spend the entire night trying to put these birds to bed, mustered up some sort of inner strength and focus to catch a bird. She went for it, cornering the Hen getting two hands around her belly and not letting go as she flapped her wings and struggled, she got her over to the house and in she went. One down, two to go. She didn’t stop there; surprised by her own skills she went on to do the same with the second Hen, only this time Karen did scream a bit but we managed to get the Hen inside before bursting into a fit of laughter. A camera would have been ideal and £250 would have been coming our way from ‘You’ve been Framed’. Just the Cockerel left and he was a much scarier proposition, plus he had found an area behind a building which was difficult for us to get to. Sash and I got into the undergrowth and tried to move him back where we wanted him but in his bid for freedom he flapped his wings so hard that he managed to get over the fence and was heading through the Lilac bush towards our tent in the front field. This wasn’t good, 6 acres and we could have been chasing him all night long. Sash and I shouted to Stu to get round the other side of the Lilac bush and he, like Karen was now at the point of ‘do or die’; the Cockerel needed to get safely into his house so we could go into ours. Stu climbed through stinging nettles and brambles and finally caught the bird, he flapped and squawked but Stu held on tightly and got him back round to the Chicken garden and safely into his house. We locked the door and laughed at ourselves praying that the Chickens would learn to go to bed on their own before too much longer.

Marble & Scamp

We’ve arrived.

After a very long journey towing the tractor we finally arrived at our new home on Sunday 16th May. We travelled with Stu’s Mum - Karen and Sister - Sasha and we were all tired by the time we arrived. We had two car loads and the tractor to unload and dinner to think about, which all seemed too much for me at 5pm having left the UK at 4am and driven straight through with no driver swaps. The tractor started straight away so we had some fun and cut the back field. Stu had the first go of course and it ran like a dream, he dropped his hydraulics at the back lowering the topper to the ground and then selected first gear, gave it some revs and with a few chugs, off he went. Then Sasha had a go, she sat on Stu’s lap and steered Percy up and down the field with a huge grin on her face. It was my turn next, and call me controversial but I just can’t stand all those perfectly straight lines up and down the field, so as soon as Stu stepped away, I twisted and turned all over the field making circles and zig zags everywhere, Stu was shaking his head at me, but I was quite amused! Then Sash had a go on her own, Stu took great pleasure in showing her how everything worked before she zoomed off round the field – enjoying the idea that zig zags are the new straight line. We made it to Macdonalds at 9pm, it was all we could manage.

On Monday we had a Kitten to collect – his name is Marble and we had heard about him through an internet site. These kittens were free to a good home and they had one grey & white one left, which we thought sounded lovely, so we agreed to come and take him off their hands. We arrived at a typical French Farmhouse and a very pretty welcoming lady was outside gardening and waving madly at us. Her name is Jenny and she used to breed Birmans in the UK, unfortunately her beautiful pure bred Birman had it off with the local Farmer’s black and white moggie and she was stuck with a load of kittens to deal with. She welcomed us into her home where we found 4 beautiful kittens curled up on the sofa. Three of them were black and hard to tell apart, the fourth was Marble who stood out with his lovely grey and white coat and piercing blue eyes. Jenny offered us all coffee and we sat and chatted about her life and how she ended up in France; so many stories to hear from so many people searching for something more just like us. Jenny seemed lonely though, she smiled as she chatted about her home, her cats and her friends, but I felt she was missing something in her life. We played with the kittens who had slowly woken up as we chatted – Marble was funny playing with various toys around the sofas and coming up on to our laps every now and then for a cuddle. I had a black kitten in my lap who laid fast asleep for almost the whole time we were there, another kitten stayed curled up on the sofa and didn’t enjoy being picked up. The last kitten was busy playing, being cuddled and looking after his brothers cleaning them. Sash liked him, she said he was a good natured kitten and that it was a good sign he was cleaning the others. He was pure black with white markings underneath that looked like he was wearing a bikini. Needless to say Marble was packed into the cat box with a brother by his side, the kitten temporarily named ‘Kini’ came home with us too and it didn’t take us long to realise that ‘Scamp’ was a much more appropriate name for such a lively inquisitive kitten. The brothers have taken to farmyard life very well; they love the long grass and all the barns to explore. They use the litter tray even though we’ve moved it a couple of times and they sleep all night long snuggled up together in their bed. They entertain us and talk to us and give us lots of cuddles; we love having them as part of our family.

The deal is signed...the house is ours...

Wow - October 2009 since I last wrote, how time flys when you're having fun! I thought I would put a quick update out there for everyone as today is officially our last day in the UK, I've stripped the bed, tidied the bathroom, emptied the wardrobe, packed the car and it finally feels as though we are clearing out giving both sets of parents their space back - garden space, garage space, store space, spare bedroom space, dining room table space...hmmm it's amazing how much space two people can take up now I come to think of it!

So, most of you will know the story of October 2009 to now, so here it is in a nutshell. When I last wrote we were coming home for Christmas happy in the knowledge that it was just a matter of time before our new house would be ours. There were complications, but we thought that was just par for the course of what a difficult experience buying a house in France is supposed to be. However, sometime in February we decided enough was enough and we really needed to push for a completion date or we may never get into the house. Having been more than laid back up until that point, a little push didn't seem so bad, but the moment we did the Vendor freaked out, she didn't have enough time to get her belongings out...urrr September to February - we thought we'd given her reasonable time, she was stressed, worried...she didn't want to sell. I opened an extremely apologetic and sympathetic email from our agent saying that she wouldn't sell to us and there was nothing we could do about it. February 2010 and we were back to where we were in February 2009...at the beginning - a very worrying place to be.

It took us about 24 hours to stop crying and panicking and to resume fighting position and come up with a plan B, which turned out to be quite a fun plan. We bought Bertha, a double bed, roomy lounge area, tight but perfectly efficient bathroom, lovely hot water and a little kitchen....we were in unknown territory...the forecourt of a caravan dealership. As sales people ourselves, buying things doesn't normally fluster us, but this most certainly did. With £2000 cash as our budget we had to choose from the 'Bargain Basement' section of the forecourt - but a bargain we did find. After a few laughs (from the salemen) when we thought he was talking about a foot pump not a water pump, we finally did a deal and 3 days later collected our new home. Our friends found it just as novel as us and after turning mum's dining room into a sweatshop we did a quick re-fit of the cushion covers and were in France 3 days after that.

Here comes the good bit, we went with 15 viewings booked, on day 1 we saw a couple of ok properties on day 2 in the morning we found out that 2 things we wanted to see had already sold, which worried us slightly - suddenly the middle of rural France had a fast paced property market that seemingly we couldn't keep up with. On day 2 in the afternoon, the agent presented us with a property that we weren't booked to see and we both fell in love. It was the one, and we both knew it straight away. We negotiated and agreed a price on day 3 and unbelievably signed the Compromis de Vente (an exchange) on day 5. So buying a house in France didn't need to be difficult after all, in fact it was so easy that we knew it was all meant to be.

Our property in Vervaux, St. Priest La Plaine, has more land than the last one, just as much building potential for gites, is far more private with a nice driveaway off of the road and is brimming full of established trees, little garden areas and rolling countryside everywhere you look. It is also closer to the motorway and to Limoges Airport. The owners are lovely and so pleased that we bought it, they want to come back to see what we've done with the place. It all feels right. We submitted our 'CU' for change of use on a couple of the barns in preparation for gite renovation in the future and came straight back to the UK to start planning the build and embarking on getting all of our wordly belongings over to France.

March and most of April passed and then we had the good news that the planning was all positive and the owners were keen to sign the deeds over before they went on holiday. And so a couple of trips in hired trucks and a meeting with the Notaire later, we are the proud owners of a new home, significantly poorer in money but much richer in hope and dreams that can finally be realised.

Our internet is not set up in France yet, but I will update you as and when I can.

A Bientot
xxx

Quick update

Well guys, I thought I would put a post up with a quick update.

The french house-buying process is similar to the UK and normally takes around 3 months to complete. There is a kind of equivalent to exchanging and completing, the searches need to be done and here they will check for termites and asbestos as well as the usual stuff. There are some 'oddoties' (not sure how to spell that!), for instance the local mayor type of figure (the Mairie) will need to sign a document to waive all rights over our property as they do have the power to decide that they would rather use it for the community even though our offer has already been accepted! Given that we are approaching November fast, it could be late January/February until we are close to signing any completion docs - aarrgghhhh!

As we have no real reason to be in France now, we have decided to go home a couple of weeks early. So we are meeting my mum and dad in La Souterraine on Thursday to show them the house and meet the bank and then we are all off to Switzerland for a short break. Then Stu and I are going home via Paris for a couple of nights to celebrate our 1st wedding anniversary before arriving back in the UK on the 8th November.

We may not have any more updates for a while but rest assured the story has only just begun. I will continue to document our adventure and am hoping to be telling you about picking up the huge old fashioned keys very soon!

General Photos

Verve & Nibbles

Anniversary Walk in the Forest

Band at the Chamberet Autumn Fete/ Farmer Strike in Limoges City

Car Washing/Collecting Logs

Pompadour City of Horses/Bike Ride

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.