Why this title? Since we bought our French house, the question we get asked most often is:
"So, whereabouts in France are you?". Having tried all sorts of sophisticated ways of explaining, we finally settled on this as the quickest, simplest answer.


Saturday, February 12, 2011

Week -To- View

This week I’ve had a busy but very productive time out and about trying to find a well -restored traditional farmhouse that won’t cost an arm and a leg. Luckily the weather was on my side as the temperature went up, the sun shone and the countryside buzzed in anticipation of spring. So, into the car with my Summer Hits CD (always the optimist) on full volume, camera at the ready and a list of possibilities to view.   
The first two properties I saw were quickly rejected; one on the grounds that the badly bodged “restoration” work had succeeded in removing most of the house’s original character and the other since half the roof looked ready to collapse and the 70s inspired wallpaper in all but one of the rooms continued across the ceilings and doors – why, oh, why... ?  
I finally struck it lucky on Thursday in the countryside of the Vienne after a friend alerted me to a farmhouse on the edge of a little hamlet that friends were about to put onto the market ( MI5’s intelligence network is on the slow side compared to the intel of a property finder on a search ).  By now, I was more than a little sceptical that this would be what I was looking for but ... sometimes it’s good to be wrong! What a delight it turned out to be. Original beams, fireplaces and beautifully re-pointed stone work complimented perfectly by shutters in a delicate shade of green. By the time I drifted through the farmhouse kitchen en route to a well maintained garden complete with fruit trees and potager, I was completely sold. (No pool but, hey, nothing’s perfect and there was plenty of room to put one in). Even the price tag was enough to make me want to reach for my cheque book. Fingers crossed, this will be “the one”.
Now, as the sun drops lower on the horizon, senior and junior cats line up in expectation of their evening meal and I can hear the encouraging sound of a cork being drawn, I can settle down to reflect on what has been a tiring but very rewarding week. Bon weekend!

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