The die is cast

It took only a few days to decide to contact the Immobillier in Excideuil and make the offer. How low should we go with our bid? How do we do the sums on this, given that we are not familiar with the French way of dealing?
Somehow the answers came, the bid was made and in what almost seemed like an instant our offer had been accepted and we were about to embark upon the most exciting adventure...the purchase of our new home in France, with all the joys and problems which we would inevitably experience. It was to be a very steep learning curve, talking to friends who had already gone through the process, or who were just a few steps ahead of us. It seemed as if the whole population was caught up in this process of buying in France and the publishing industry too seemed engrossed in the idea. Most "coffee table" magazines were intent on featuring articles by "experts" on the problems and pleasures of buying in France, or quoting from peoples' experiences, mostly positive, thank goodness. There were Television programmes devoted to it and of course Peter Mayle's book, A Year in Provence was top of the list for many months. It was obviously the thing to do at that time and has remained so ever since as the constant flow of traffic continues, although it's true that the flow has now become two-way with the passage of time, and the changes in families and responsibilities which have resulted in ex-pats returning home.

The various steps proceeded with few if no problems. The "compromis de vente" followed by the study of the sale document and the provision of various certificates, was duly completed, thankfully supervised by the daughter of a close friend who was a solicitor in London, who spoke fluent French and was herself buying a property in Normandy. It seems it was necessary for the searches to take 3 months in a rural area because of the possible problems of boundaries, or some other obscure reason which really did not concern us since our next visit would not be until the spring of the following year, however a date was set for the final signing, the "Acte de Vente" and on February 13th at about 11.00am the house was ours.
The obviously delighted vendor lifted his hands in the air and threw a very large bunch of keys in our direction. You will recall there were several doors by which to enter the house and all the keys were very large and impressive.
Formalities were concluded, arrangements made for electricity and water to be supplied to us as the new owners, insurance arranged with the same company, just to make things easy, and we were off to visit our new home and explore the many rooms which had become something of a blur in our minds during the waiting period.
The next day was Valentine's Day so we celebrated with a bunch of 100 anemones and drank a bottle of Champagne from plastic beakers which nonetheless tasted delicious.

The Journey home

Saturday morning arrived, as they usually do at the end of a holiday, and all we had to do was pack and leave the Gite clean and in good order, but our minds were buzzing with the discoveries we had made and the decision we were about to make. We said farewell to our hosts, having first been invited to view some of their daughter's paintings and prints. They were impressive and we were to discover more of her work in later years.
The journey back to the French coast was fairly uneventful, but with a slightly different route, this time back to St Malo, it was enjoyable. The difference being the thoughts we had about the possibility of actually buying a little piece of France, something we had never seriously contemplated.
Was it all a dream? Could it really be possible? Were we really serious about this, and of equal minds. Were we just plain "bonkers" to even think of such a thing, and if so, should we spend some more time searching for the right property, in the right location, with a more conventional profile. So many questions, so many doubts, so many possibilities, so very exciting.
Our arrival back in Portsmouth saw us busily pursuing the many agents we discovered who were seling properties in France and we began putting together a formidable portfolio of prospective houses.
There was just one problem. I was working full time and the opportunity to hop back and fore to France to view properties did not seem even a remote possibility at the time. One only did that once a year for the annual vacation, and it was a significant operation requiring planning, routes, insurance and all the other little jobs that make going on holiday such hard work, but loaded with eager anticipation. Which left us with the inevitable choice of either putting in an offer for what we had seen, or shelving the whole idea until some time in the future.
The choice was obvious, make an offer and have an open mind as to what to do if this was rejected, and so the process began.

Still more rooms to discover

Turning left at the top of the street around the corner of the house we climbed up 3 typically French concrete steps and entered the "school room". Why this extraordinary name you may ask. There was little evidence to suggest it had ever been used in this way apart from a faded paper list pinned to the back of the door, and one or two other remnants of paper which may well have been left by children at some time, although there was little evidence throughout the building that children had ever played there. This room is sandwiched between the garden room below and the straw bedroom above in a section which seems to link two halves of the house and is still the "school room", but the other notable feature here are the two enormous beams which support what is thought to be a typical Louis XIV ceiling with grooved rafters.

The final door took a little while to open mainly because the lock had clearly been installed the wrong way round and Francoise had difficulty until she realised it was necessary to turn the key as if to lock the door to open it!! This led into what might loosely be described as the garage. In one corner was an even larger "cuve" or "barrique" which this time really did look the business, because alongside it was a wine press with all the necessary bits and pieces, all of which looked as if they had been used until quite recently.
In addition there was the usual assortment of rubbish and a wooden staircase leading to a similar sized room above which became the "studio". Both these rooms had a network of wire fastened to the ceiling, which we were told had been used to dry tobacco, another important product grown in the region. The stairs, which we mounted with caution, were covered with old and very dusty straw, which made it almost impossible to see the treads, and there was a great deal more in the room above.

At the rear of the garage was a wide opening leading into the "cart room". Another large room filled with the remains of a cart, two sets of very large cart wheels and an assortment of agricultural machinery, rakes, ploughs and all the usual gear found the the average down beat French barn, together with a pile of logs for the fire, old barrels and a huge assortment of hoops, bicycle frames and wheels, and yet more rubbish, and would you believe it, another room above this which was literally piled up with straw, the only place in the building where it almost seemed logical to use it for that purpose! The roof and floors in this part of the building were decidedly suspect and in need of repair. There was one more part of the building which was of the same order as this and was the "cellar" beneath the cart room.
Apart from exploring the pig sty, which was on two floors, presumably with chickens on the first floor, judging by the netting wire closures at the front and the internal perches, we had completed our "viewing" and were left with some pretty serious thinking to occupy our minds on the return journey.
Who in their right minds would have even given it a second thought? If first impressions were anything to go by, then the visit we had made on the previous evening should have been sufficient to warn us off. What we had seen during the afternoon merely confirmed these first impressions ; and yet, perhaps there was a huge potential here for some adventure, an experimental playground, a challenge, an opportunity to purchase a little bit of France for silly money and really embark on a project which would last a lifetime.
That, I feel, is exactly what happened.

Curiouser, and curiouser.

Perhaps one of the reasons why we became bewitched by this house, was the extraordinary way we had to enter various sections of it from the street. We were able to enter another part of the building lower down the street, by a double barn door, which looked as if it had been a stable, or that animals had been kept in there, tethered to the walls. There was still evidence of chains and rings and things, but these had long since ceased to be used, and the livestock had been replaced by an army of ill assorted spiders, with enough webs to weave a doormat, and no doubt a sprinkling of mice. Above the collapsing wooden ceiling/floor of this part of the house, was the huge space I mentioned, open to the roof, two stories above. There was a huge "lintel" or "threshold" above a blocked up opening, which looked as if at one time it had connected to the kitchen.
Back to the street, and in via another double barn door into a cavernous space and our first sight of one of the large fireplaces mentioned by Francoise. The room was also filled with an extraordinary amount of rubbish, a "cuve" (huge wine vat), used in the initial fermentation of wine, numerous old barrels, bicycle frames and discarded wheels, logs and firewood, all on a sloping, seemingly dirt floor, although the fireplace would indicate that it had been a room of some significance at one time.
In one corner was a home made rustic ladder leading to a floor above, which was covered to a depth of 18 inches with "twigs" which we later discovered were vine prunings. Why anyone would save such things and store them at this level we never discovered. This room of course became the "twig room", but it was soon to disappear from the inventory for reasons I shall explain later.
In the "big room" room one could see evidence of a doorway which led into the back hall, but which had been completely plastered over on the hall side.
Leading from the "big room" was a low door which led to another room of almost the same size and with a cobbled floor done in the Italian style and usually only found in chateaux or houses of some distinction. A door from this room led in to the garden and naturally this became the "garden room". There was also evidence of a blocked doorway into the next part of the building, and to the room above.
Still two more doors to open and the visit will be complete.

Our first exploration of the house

As we made our way to the village the sky became darker and there was a little light rain which made the whole exercise even more suspect. Who wants to view a house with the prospect of buying it, in the rain, particularly in France. Clearly, I said to myself," this is a waste of time" and we could have saved Francoise the trouble of spending a couple of hours with two mad English people who had no intention of buying the place.
After all we were just on holiday!
However, armed with my ancient camcorder, which did not like the low light conditions, or the rain come to that, we stepped inside the kitchen and began the exploration of the house.
We soon discovered that there was electricity, albeit in need of re-wiring, running water, if only of the cold variety, which supplied a tap over the concrete kitchen sink, with the drain taking the form of a pipe through the wall to discharge into the street; ( that still happens in some of the houses in the village) and the third most important item, a lavatory, fairly recently installed and which discharged into a "fosse septique".
This last feature was in the back hall behind the kitchen and was separated from the hallway by a wooden partition and a fairly primitive but sufficiently effective door. The doorway from the rear of this hall led in to the "garden", an overgrown piece of land with some "pig styes" and a chicken run, together with the inevitable lavatory at the bottom of the garden, which looked as if it had been used in the not too distant past. (Old habits die hard). The garden walls were in a very broken down condition and the rear entrance, of just about vehicular size, was closed off with a couple of sheets of bent and rusty corrugated iron.
We moved back into the house and looked at the two bedrooms on the first floor above the kitchen and hall. They were inter-connecting, but of adequate size, and one of them still contained an iron bedstead,complete with ill fitting mattress.
Leading from the bedroom was another more primitive staircase which led up to a large landing which was open to the roof, and another very large bedroom measuring about 7m x 5m.
The ceiling of this bedroom was lath and plaster, which had seen better days, and was collapsing on one side because of a leak in the roof at some time. There was a long wooden clothes hanger on the wall with about twelve wooden pegs which looked as if a community of monks had just vacated the premises, and for some unexplained reason this room has always been called "The blue bedroom", possibly because it had a muddy grey/blue door, which is still there! We gave all the rooms names in order to identify which part of the house we were discussing, which names have continued to this day, despite the many changes we have made.

There were two other doors on the landing. One led into another bedroom which was full of straw to about 5 feet in the middle, which inevitably became "The straw bedroom" and the other door which was opened with care by Francoise who cautioned us because there were no floors in that space which was open to the roof. In my mind I could imagine hanging a huge "mobile" or some other creative structure in that voluminous space, although how we could have reached to the roof timbers to fix it I had no idea.
We returned to the kitchen and needed to go into the street to view the next part of the building, and began to realize why Francoise had such a large bunch of keys.

The search begins

After the first few tentative searches in various windows I made a timorous approach to the secretary of one of the local Immobiliers, who fortunately spoke a little English and was pleased to give me details of the properties we had spotted. Armed with only the briefest of details (we soon discovered that Estate Agents in France were not particularly fulsome in their description of houses at that time) we went away to consider the possibility of making a purchase, and the die was cast.
A visit to one Agent was soon followed by a visit to the second, who also was most helpful and spoke rather better English.
Appointments were made, slotted in between visits, after all were were just on holiday, and in due course we were taken to view various properties.
We looked at a Presbytery in the village of St Orse only to be told the next day that the vendor had taken it off the market and was selling to a friend!
We were taken to a house next to a farm in the middle of the apple growing area. There was some question concerning the access, and the possibility of re-routing it to avoid the farm and approach the house from the other direction. This would involve negotiations with the farmer to purchase a strip of land on the other side of the house.
That together with the fact that being in the middle of orchards, my wife was concerned about crop spraying and other unforeseen hazards, meant that it too dropped off the list.
We visited another house/farm which was vacant and in the process of being restored, but which lay immediately alongside the main road, and didn't quite fit into our image of a French Idyll. Still needed a lot of work to complete, and make habitable.
The very large barn overlooking the river and facing a small Chateau on the other bank was tempting, but with no services connected and a huge amount of work to convert, it seemed too large a task to undertake.
After all we were just on holiday!
We were then introduced to another "house" by the second Agent who described it variously as "A Monastery" or "A Chateau", and which contained some huge and magnificent fireplaces. At this point we really were becoming seriously interested, but also, for me anyway, a little overwrought by this exercise. But it was Thursday, and if we were to follow up on this we needed to move quickly, and so an appointment was made for the Friday afternoon.
Being impatient and more than a little curious we drove to the village that evening to have a preview of the house, and soon found it without any difficulty. It was rather difficult to decide just how much of this enormous building was "for sale" and almost impossible to discover what the rooms inside would look like, if in fact there were any rooms. The most daunting aspect of the property however, was the height and condition of the roof. It clearly needed a lot of work, only one section had been recently repaired, and the whole exercise seemed totally impractical.

Friday morning was clear, but with gathering clouds. It was the last day of the holiday and we had planned to visit Brantome for the market and perhaps a visit to the Abbey. This delightful small town known as the Venice of the north, is perfect for a day out, with lunch in one of the many cafes along the river.
The appointment we had made to view the "chateau" seemed to me to be quite inappropriate, since my initial reaction on seeing it the night before had convinced me that it was too large and expensive an undertaking, and I was intent on cancelling it. My wife on the other hand was determined to see this interesting house, having made the arrangement, and so with some reluctance I drove back to Excideuil to keep our rendezvous.

Areas of Prehistory

The delightful small town of Montignac is close by the cave of Lascaux, which must be high on the list of any traveller in this region. Depending on the season, tickets for the Cave, set high on the hillside above the town, need to be purchased in advance, and tours in the various languages take place every hour or two, making the timing of visits slightly important.

The original cave, discovered some years ago by a group of small boys out with their dog, has been closed to all but the most important visitors and then only one small group each day, to prevent the damage being caused by ever increasing numbers of visitors. It is a great tribute to French engineering that they have reproduced, to the very fraction of a millimeter an exact replica of the original, and even taking the trouble to copy the paintings using the same pigments and "brushes" used thousands of years ago. The paintings are stunning, and the whole experience most memorable.

A day is quickly swallowed up by these excursions, but we also visited Les Eyzies and the Museum of Prehistory, and Le Thot, the reproduction of an ancient village with the flora and fauna which existed at that time, and a very fine audio visual presentation.
All these, and many more visits, were we able to make during the five days remaining of our holiday,including a visit to Bergerac, but somewhere along the line, about the Tuesday or Wednesday we began to idly look in the windows of various "Immobiliers" and could not help being attracted to the various properties for sale, particularly because of the price,.
It was at this point that our destiny took a dramatic change in direction which was to shape our lives from that time on.