Our love affair with France started in 1988, as we set off for a place call La Rochelle on our honeymoon in our old Audi 80.
I scared Cheryl half to death when we passed through Le Mans and I recognised I was on part of the track because of the Armco cladding!
The old Audi was pushed to its limits for a few short moments, reaching a 3 figure sum on the speedo before I calmed down, and tried to cool the it down, over the next 3 hours to La Rochelle!
We spent a blissful few days in and around La Rochelle, drinking in the culture and loving the food and wine for the first time. We ate a superb fillet steak one night, that became our benchmark for several years as to how a steak should be, and it was to be a return to France years later that finally surpassed it!
The honeymoon could also be considered a success as our middle daughter was born 9 months later, named Jemma Rochelle!
Life then got in the way for a number of years, as our family grew and we fostered for 22 years, but there was still that dream of buying a house in France, and despite a number of false starts, we finally started the process in 2020.
Now you may ask why we would choose such a year, amid a pandemic, to finally decide we should go for it?
I think our 3 rd daughter getting married, (the older 2 were married with Children now), and fleeing the nest may have pushed us a bit, and watching every episode of Escape to the Chateau, but we knew the time was now.
We became very good at viewing countless properties on line, finding them on google earth, learning about the surrounding area, and in 9/10 cases counting them out without even moving from the lap top!
Some we would ask for more pictures from the agents, but we had a firm set of criteria and a budget and nothing was quite hitting the spot, until that day in March 2021!
It was a large stone house, with potential to be even larger, set in its own land, not overlooked with space for a pool and surrounded by vineyards. It was also already half renovated, enough to live in parts but with plenty to do. It had all the scope we were looking for.
We went, on a very pixilated Facetime call with Karen from Beaux Village Immobilier and saw enough to make us want it more. We entered into negotiations and found ourselves having agreed terms for the house, various parts and materials as yet to be fitted and most importantly (from my point of view) a shiny orange tractor and mowing contraption!
Then began conversations about whether we were brave enough to go to the Acte de Vente stage based only on a virtual viewing. The clock had started ticking in terms of signing and we were still in a lockdown of sorts.
We weren’t that brave!
The house buying process gave us a legitimate excuse along with some paperwork from the Notaire and so on the 20 th May, we jumped on a ferry, drove down, viewed the house, stayed one night and drove back to the UK.
The maddest 48 hours in which we fell head over heals in love with our old stone house, tractor and 3 large fig trees!
We decided to submit an application for the pool as a condition of the sale, but then discovered that the existing planning permission for the works to the house by the previous owners had lapsed as they had ceased works over a year previously.
Karen, our agent, has been so helpful through this whole process. In the end it required a full planning application, to complete the building work (we thought we were buying the house with) and to insert our pool.
If anyone wants to know how to submit a full application, in French and get it approved, feel free to call me! Ours was even more complicated as we are within a certain distance of the local church, which turns out to be a Historic Monument and adds another month to the entire process.
So that left us in the end with a moving date in February 2022, which seemed to be so far away.
As Covid restrictions lifted, we booked ourselves a trip to the area in September for a week. We stayed at an Air BNB very close to our house, owned by an English lady who was an art restorer. My plan was to learn as much as I could about the area while we were there.
JoAnne turned out to be a lovely person, who welcomed us into her house and became a good friend. We spent evenings out with her and her friends, joining music evenings and drinking far too much of her wine!
We had days at the beautiful beach, flying my drone over our new property and getting to know the local markets and shops.
I am pleased to say this week cemented the idea that we were making the right move, to a beautiful part of France.
We returned to the UK and had to reconcile ourselves to the fact we could not hurry up the process and would have to play a waiting game until the spring. We had a great last Christmas, surrounded by friends and family in the UK.
Then we made our plans, rented out our house, and began packing.
The signing was set to take place on 11 th Feb, so I decided to load up a Luton van on the 9 th (my birthday) and drive down to be there for this, collect the keys and off load my cargo. Our main house move via a very good removal company was then set for the 13 th Feb. This was sooner than we had expected, meaning I drove back on the 12 th , handed back the hire van and jumped on the night boat on the 13 th , and headed off for our New life in the Sun.
Talking of ‘A New life in the Sun’, somewhere in the midst of all this chaos, we managed to get ourselves selected to feature in the TV programme of the same name!
So our very busy 13 th February move date was filmed, complete with the ‘disaster’ of the lorry not having enough room. A second van had to be called to pick up the last bits that wouldn’t fit. These of course could not make the ferry that night and had to be scheduled for later. It was not the end of the world, but perfect ‘filming fodder’.
They are now due next week for their first session in France!
We had set ourselves a very ambitious target on some things, having paid a deposit for a pool to be delivered at the end of March, I have hired in a digger, and will have the monumental task of digging this hole in the next few weeks.\
The filming crew are naturally looking for the more exciting things to happen, so we may be exposing ‘Mezzanine Floor’ areas where we intended to move the stair case to and hack some very dodgy render off the outside wall to expose some beautiful stone work, a little earlier than planned..
We also inherited a cat. There had been 2 cats hanging around when we viewed the property, but to cut a long story short, one was still there when we arrived.
We examined her CV and found her ample skills in the area of ‘moussing’ were not be ignored in such a large barn like place. So we have accepted Mia back into the house. She seems to be settling in well and seems to remember her surroundings.
Another early task was to have the water tested in our well. It is a great well, very large and apparently very full of lovely clear water. We were advised that you should approach a Vet for a testing kit and they would supply you, for a fee, a validated test result on the water.
We wanted to use the well to fill the pool, but it would appear that you should always test the water first. The locals tell stories of the resistance using wells to hide dead Nazi officers! We were very pleased to get a clean bill of health for the well from the vet.
So our main focus is getting the first Gite ready for the summer, hence getting the pool in early, so we can establish this whole area. The 2 bed gite should be ready for lettings around the end of May and we will be welcoming guests in the summer, as we work on the second Gite and the rest of the house, ultimately offering accommodation for 16/18 guests in time.
We are already loving our new life in France.