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.