We are living The Dream. We rent a house in the south of France, and now we are in the middle of buying one. We travel together for my work, variously in the car or the camping car, seeing the places where my customers live and work. We have great friends in England and we are making new friends in France and around Europe. Sometimes I feel I don’t deserve this, but other times I remember I worked hard to get to this point, and its not always simple or easy (thank you French paperwork and taxes).
The weather has been a bit crazy all over Europe this year too. The Gard is green – in June! Normally by now the grass is all brown and crunchy and the little stream at the bottom of the garden is dry gulch. This year we just mowed the weeds (lawn) for the 6th time and the stream is still cascading its way past us, adding that musical sound to the burgeoning crickets, breeding frogs and the Golden Oriel which is near here somewhere but somewhat elusive.
We are buying The Dream House – sadly for the previous owners it was their dream too, but, due to bad timing for them and good timing for us, happily it will be ours in a couple of months or so. Not the typical English dream of the French stone farmhouse (Mas) with acres of vineyards, though I will admit to having had that dream myself. In this region those places are large and expensive enough to be out of our budget, plus there’s the maintenance to consider.
Instead we will purchase a villa built in 1995, in local style, to the plans of the then owner. Fortunately that owner was not as challenged in the architectural department as most of the French seem to be from our previous house viewings. It is very popular to build your own home here, or to buy new, as they consider it better to pay for the privilege of the 10 year guarantee rather than to get along to Mr. Bricolage and get down to some DIY. However, its not very popular to use an architect, but to just go to a builder with your plans or ideas. The results can be at best highly entertaining (one bathroom, only access via the main bedroom) or downright daft (same example, add shower to bedroom so bed no longer fits, add gite that you have to go through main house to get to, build a wall outside your garage so there is no access for a car, etc).
Ours was built for an electrical engineer, so we are due to inherit a lot of detailed plans of the electrics, the underfloor heating pipes, the garden watering system and even the plants they planted. The only anomaly we have beyond decorating is the the semi-sunken bath – base at floor level – good – but a large tiled step all around it – bad. Why? Oh, and its pink. And so are the toilet, basin and shower tray, and all the tiles on the floor and walls – bathroom boudoir 😉
But we can move in, everything works or has to be before we do, so nothing big we have to do, except minimise bath use and adjust to pink hued ablutions.
I did mention maintenance above didn’t I? Ah, well, here is the potential coche-mar (nightmare) in The Dream House. The very large garden. Very, very large (in our opinion, though not perhaps in an avid gardener’s). 3400 square meters of large trees, mature bushes and weeds. Large enough that we will be charging up the walkie-talkies so we can locate each other when its time for a coffee!
We did dream of a low maintenance place and have, like so many before us I am sure, been seduced by a Dream House which ticks many boxes, but not that one!
Gardening is good keep fit – that’s what B keeps telling me – he says do that and save on the gym fees! (Spend them on gravel and paving stones to reduce plant areas!) So I was the one who mowed the lawn at the rental house today, to get into training……