Sunday, 6 June 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, 15 May 2010
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
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
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
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!
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!
Monday, 19 October 2009
General Photos
Verve & Nibbles
Anniversary Walk in the Forest
Band at the Chamberet Autumn Fete/ Farmer Strike in Limoges City
Car Washing/Collecting Logs
Car Washing/Collecting Logs
Pompadour City of Horses/Bike Ride
Sunday, 18 October 2009
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, 7 October 2009
Camping in Fleurat
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.
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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