A long hot day

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

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

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

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

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

Our 2nd viewing (Bessines)

Today (Sunday), we had a viewing north of Limoges in a small village called Bessines sur Gartempe. This is a private sale with a sad story as the owners are being forced to sell due to ill-health and we could tell that they really didn't want to go. We met them at midday in the heart of the village square at the local bar. They pulled up in their english Jag and were very friendly, they bought us a coffee and we sat outside under the wooden veranda covered in wisteria. We sat next to another english couple who were much older. She had long silvery hair, was very slim and extremely tanned. She was dressed all in white with rips in her trousers (an attempt to appear trendy) but still mangaged an air of elegance with perfect teeth and a soft well spoken voice. He had an Irish lilt, but wore an Aston Martin team polo shirt with a pair of slacks and a Patek Phillipe watch; understated wealth. We passed the time of day and they all warned us that in a few seconds at the strike of midday the church on the opposite side of the square would sound a siren, which still sat there from the wartime and had been used post-war to call the local fire brigade etc. in an emergency. There was no emergency today, just a timely tradition that seemed to comfort the village. We sat saying nothing but with grins on our faces as the sirens went off twice and then finished our coffee and made our way to their house.

We pulled into a small hamlet past a dairy farm and took a tight left into their driveway, where in front of us stood a large barn and to our left was their very pretty and very symetrical house with blue shutters and more wisteria.

It was a little awquard as they were not estate agents and we had to be a little careful with our comments about their lovely home. But they nervously led us into the first barn and then in to the back garden, followed by their house and then the 2nd barn. The house was lovely, not finished but what they had done, had been done well. It had fabulous proportions; tall ceilings, large rooms all with solid oak floors and fireplaces with marble surrounds, it was grand. The attic was ripe for conversion and it already had 4 bedrooms. The kitchen had a simple 'country cottage' feel and was definitely to our taste. The barns had so much potential and, as usual, full of beautiful solid wood beams and so much space your imagination can just run wild.

Unfortunately though, the houses felt very on top of one another within the hamlet and that was something we couldn't overcome...on to the next one.

On the way home, we spotted a roadsign saying 'Meilhards'. On our last trip in May, we fell in a love with a house that not only could we not really afford but we also weren't in a position to buy, we found ourselves diverting off our route to sneak another peak of this lovely place. When we pulled up there was no-one there, so we drove the full length of the driveway and parked right outside the house as if it were ours. We still love it and are viewing it properly on Tuesday.

The local area

The following day we didn't have any viewings, so we decided to try and aquaint ourselves with the local area, in the hope that it would help us feel a little more at home. Rob had recommended a local walk that would take us about an hour through the forests, where he promised us we would find a lake hidden in the middle of nowhere with a beautiful house sat on it's edge. The house, he said, had a tin roof and hadn't been lived in for many years. They themselves had made some enquiries locally to see who owned it and whether there would be any chance of buying it but they were told by the locals in no uncertain terms that buying that house would never be an option.

Quite excited by the promise of this magical walk, we made some sandwiches and packed our rucksack with the food, camera, sun-tan lotion, mobile phone...we never manage to pack light! Rob had hand-drawn us a little map, their almost 2 year old daughter had also added her own little scribble to help us out. It was mainly directional arrows, with a couple of landmarks, I wasn't convinced we would find the lake, let alone find our way home again; this hour walk could be a days adventure in my mind.

Turn right out of the driveway and walk through the hamlet past the single horse lonely in a field, past the mairie with the most prestigious looking building in the hamelet, past the beautiful church with its bells chiming at us and the main crossroads in the heart of the hamlet. We were looking for the graveyard, one of two landmarks on this piece of paper, where we knew we must turn right. We found it and we were confident that we were genius map readers and definitely on the right track. This single lane was stoney and dusty underfoot and led up to the last few houses in the hamlet, which were all extremely well kept with neat lawns and an abundance of colour around their doorways and windows. As we passed these houses the lane turned to a track with tyre marks that could only have been made by a tractor and we were in the forest; it was stunning.

We windled our way through the forest for a few kilometres stopping every now and then to take some pics and look at wildlife. Rob and cleverly remembered every point where we would be presented with an option of left, right or straight on and had made a simple mark on the map so we knew which way to go. After some time we came to a clearing and walked down a very steep rocky track, wondering whether we could find a way back with our 4x4 to put the car through it's paces! As we were now travelling downhill we were getting more excited by the prospect of falling upon our lake, but so far it was nowhere to be seen. The views were beautiful, we were surrouned behind us by the magnificent pine forest and in front by fields and the view of the next hill and the next pine forest.

Finally I caught site of some water between the trees and as we continued to walk I said to Stu that I thought we had found it; nestled down low, quiet as a mouse and so still you could hear a pin drop was, just as Rob said, a beautiful lake, with lillies sat quietly on top and a house that had stood for hundreds of years and that if it could speak, no doubt would have some stories to tell.

We were calm and quiet just as our surroundings were; it was catching. We sat on rocks and stared at the water watching the dragonfly go about his business and the water boatman hopping his way across the lake and then chatting about the house imagining what we would do with it if it were ours. We loved every minute of it.

Our walk home took us back through the forest and a couple of open fields, where Stu jumped at tiny little frogs in front of him and I spent ages trying to take shots of butterflies that just kept flying away from me. Everytime we came across an open field, we would both comment on whether that was not enough or too much land for us. Finally we found ourselves out on the main road, which we knew would take us back into the hamlet and we hoped that we didn't get home too soon.

General Photos

Our first viewing

We woke up on Wednesday morning very late. The first thing I did was draw the curtains to see where we were. From my bedroom window, I saw was a large field surrounded in pine trees and a house and church steeple poking up from the back of the landscape; it was beautiful. I woke stu up and we made our first cup of disastrous tea. We had been clever the previous afternoon and made sure that our last fuel stop was in a big service station where we could buy bread and milk. Milk, in France is really different to milk in England. Firstly, it doesn't seem to be fresh, it is all in long-life cartons and not refrigerated, once you've found it you then need to choose from entier, demi-ecreme or just ecreme - none of which really meant much to us, so thinking we were chosing somewhere in the middle, we bought our carton of demi-ecreme milk. Being true brits, when we woke up on our first morning we wanted a cup of tea to wake us up and get our day started properly, the fun bit was boiling the kettle on the stove and waiting for the whistle, how basic, this is a good start. Our lovely owners had also put some tea in the gite so teabags were not a problem either, so we were very dissapointed when we poured our demi-ecreme into the mug and found a creamy milk with bits in! Yuck! A glass of water would have to do until we got to the supermarket and started the challenge of choosing our milk all over again.

I unpacked (most) of our bags into the 2 bedrooms, covered the shelves in the bathroom with a million and one products, most of which we don't really use and then spread some paperwork out with the laptop to feel as though I had a bit of office space. Then I found all of Stu's birthday cards and our leaving cards and dotted them all round the place to put a bit of us (and you) around. Once the gite looked a little more homely we set off round the twisty foresty roads to find the local supermarket. Very well prepared I proudly packed our goods into my Jute Tesco re-usable bags and confidently said 'non' to the lady when she asked if I had a club card, or at least I hope that is what she asked - I generally work on the basis they all ask the same question at that point so I can pretend to understand them and offer them a really confident anwer....hmmm hope she wasn't asking me if I was having a good day...

We put our curry on the stove for a couple of hours and then went over to see Cally and Rob as agreed at 7.30pm to go over some bits of info they had for us regarding our bins and what to do when a storm comes in etc... We were interested to learn that as it has been heard that a french woman once saw a ball of lightening come through her bedroom window everyone now closes their shutters through a storm - crazy! We enjoyed a couple of drinks with our hosts and then made our excuses to go back to our dinner and relax together for our first proper night in our new home.


On Thursday we did our first house viewing. This house is in a place called Beaumont du Lac, only a few kilometres from Lac de Vassiviere; a truly magnifcent lake in the heart of the Limousin. We agreed to view it as it is an established B&B with 6 en-suite rooms as well as separate living quarters. We knew it didn't have enough land, but agreed to see it anyway as it offered a lot of potential for the money.

We met Natalie, a young, trendy french girl that we had met on our last trip. She was very friendly and helpful and remembered us and our crazy 'pig plans'!

Stu hated the house on first sight as it sat right next to a church and we could see the land was small, but I was intrigued by the layout and number of rooms and as we went from room to room and floor to floor we both became more interested in the possibilities. We told Natalie it didn't have enough land and she said she may have a parcel close by for us for 6000 euros.

We have many more to see but won't rule this one out just yet.

Some pics of the Gite...

This gite is beautiful, developed by the owners from a tin shack and didn't they do well!

We have a lovely kitchen/diner, lounge with log fire, 2 bedrooms our double room has an en-suite with corner bath the 2nd room is a twin and there is another shower room. We have our own patio with table, chairs, sun loungers and BBQ as well as a little log store ready for the winter months!

Our Journey

We left Maidenhead, England on Tuesday 25th August 2009 at 8am. We had packed up the car the night before with 4 suitcases of clothes, tent, cooking gear, food, medical provisions, paperwork and chocolate (all the essentials!). Mum, dad, Kel and Josiane all got out of bed to see us off. We kissed everyone in turn and hopped in the car, they all stood in their dressing gowns waving us off, mum had a tear in her eye even though she had told us the previous evening not to be dissapointed as she wasn't going to cry! I hung out of the passenger window waving and shouting that I loved everyone as Stu drove up the driveway. As soon as we pulled onto the A308 I heard supercalafrajalisticexpealadocious, which is the special ring tone I have for mum, I answered and she said "you've forgotten your flask of coffee and bottle of water", we quickly turned around and pulled back into the driveway waving like mad again and telling everyone that we had had a good trip! Mum was already concerning herself with why we had turned left out of the driveway and weren't going up the M4, which is the obvious route.

Finally we were on the road, it had felt like a huge build up leaving our home, packing our worldly belongings into storage, leaving our jobs and then seeing as many of our friends and family as we could before we left. We didn't know what to say to one another for a while, I just wanted to discuss what we may or may not have left behind, and what it was that we still needed to organise. Stu wanted to play the music and keep his thoughts to himself. We were unsettled. The drive to Folkestone was easy, and so was the Eurotunnel crossing although delayed. Once in France, we hit the road playing our driving tunes full blast and taking in the fact that we had arrived in a new country and were staying there for quarter of a year.

Other than one mishap entering Paris from Rouen, where we did a sight-seeing tour of Versailles, our trip was fairly un-eventful. It was dark by the time we pulled off the A20 in the Correze region of the Limousin and took to the eery, dark roads that windled their way through the forest towards Madranges. We were intrigued, where were we going? What would our new home look like in the flesh? Will we like it? We had no real idea of our surroundings, with no street lighting we followed our headlights oblivious to the stunning scenery around us. Stu read the directions we had been given step by step and finally we found Madranges and the last left turn into a long, slightly over-grown driveway, where a large house stood facing us and behind sat the beautiful cottage that was to be our new home. It looked lovely and we breathed a sigh of relief.

Our hosts/the owners, Rob and Cally came outside to greet us; It was nice to see some friendly faces. We sat down in their living room and had a drink and a chat, we met Ash their beautiful black labrador who was very excited to see some new faces and we exchanged bits of info on our love of france, where we had all worked in England and how our trip was. It felt like we could have chatted all night but we had to get some formal bits of paperwork done and then they led us into our cottage. Rob was very proud of his hard work and achievement and keen to tell us lots about the work he had done, but it was late so they said goodnight and we agreed to chat more the following day. We didn't have the energy to unpack the car, so we found our washbags and snuggled into bed. Lovely!