Friday 19 April 2013

Homeward Bound

French Roads
When we are in another country we do try to "go native"as much as we can. But given the length of journey in front of us we decided to go for the "full English" option offered by our host. Having looked at the B&B details that we had downloaded prior to  the trip, it seemed there was no extra cost for this service..... Wrong! Having consumed said breakfast and paying the bill it seemed that an extra 24 Euro was now required. The first time we thought we'd been had during our trip, and it took another Brit to do it. But as true Brits ourselves we didn't make a fuss and paid up and went on our way. But that particular B&B will not be getting any recommendations from us......so there!

Having a navigation nightmare in Rouen last time we were over here we decided to make our way back to the tunnel via Caen, this would be a longer route, but we were in no real hurry and it had two big pluses, 1 we would get another go at the magnificent Pont de Normndie and 2 we wouldn't spend hours lost  and going round and round Rouen's one way system. I still have the vapors about the place, one day I'll go back and face my demons, but just not  today.

The first hour and a half or so of our journey was spent touring through the beautiful Normandy countryside. I've never seen so many dead straight, empty roads. It's like driving in England thirty years ago, but without your car breaking down every few miles obviously. Though we did wonder quite where Declan was taking us every now and then we stuck with him and just followed the road.

Pont de Normandie

Going up
 The Pont de Normandie is quite a sight, you can't help but be impressed. In fact one day I would like some-one else to drive me over so I can get a better look. It spans the Seine between Le Havre and Honfleur, and even on a murky day like this one was it looked great.

Apparently there's even a cycle and  foot path as well which I found surprising.


 It's a pretty steep climb up and over but I would pay good money for the experience, oh come to think of it I did.

The rest of the journey was pretty uneventful, just lots of well surfaced, uncrowded  motorways, just like England...Not. We did have one diversion off coarse, by taking a wrong exit but Declan came good and soon had us back on the rails.
We arrived at Calais with enough time to take in City Europe and all it's delights. So stocked up with wine beer and this evenings dinner we set off to find the terminal. This proved to be Declan's downfall, he was totally bewildered. So we had to turn him off and us the signage. What a come down. 
So I totally blame Declan for missing the VERY LARGE STOP sign and thus incurring the wrath of, I must say,over zealous gendarme. Ooops.

Well that was it. We are now home and stacked with information and dreams. The house has been on the market for a week and a half and we've had six viewings so far, not bad.
As soon as we get a buyer we will be back to France to view more places and if any of these are still available we will have a second look mat those.

Watch this space. 


Sunday 14 April 2013

Wednesday. Off to Normandy.


The House at St. James
So it was time to say goodbye to Finestere and say hello to Normandy. It would be a fair drive, so we fired up "Declan" the sat nav and made an early start.
We were to meet the immobilier in a small place called St. James, which was also the location of the first property of the day.
Now St James turned out to be a quite beautiful little town, with narrow streets and many nice shops, of which we saw a good deal of as we went round and round the one way system trying to find the spot where we to meet our guide.

Neglected Garden
A reminder of home

In the end we gave up on that plan, found the first available parking space and phoned the lady and said she would have to come and find us. Which she duly did, bless her.
The house was but two minutes drive out of the town centre and was in a wonderful location.The view across the valley to the neighbouring  chateau was lovely. It would quite obviously make a splendid B&B, but only for some-one with a larger bank balance than we could muster. It was crying out for lots of money to be spent on it. Apparently the current English owners had bought it some four years ago and never come back once, very strange. 
So after a good look round, (the cellar was pretty spooky), we made our way back to the car taking in the view one last time.

Just to show your real life is never far away, as we were heading back to the car a Brake Bros; lorry sped by. Karen was most pleased to be reminded of her current employer whilst in the depth  or rural France. Me I saw no-one from the job centre once.
Montreuil Poulay


Extra Cottage

The final property of our trip was about 1 1/2 hours away at Montreuil Poulay, a small village in the Pays de la Loire. Now this place got me very excited.
It consisted of a large stone built house facing straight on to the village square and the church. There are only two bedrooms at present but even if the larger one was split into two, it would still be more than big enough for purpose.
Also, the loft, already divided into two parts would make a good bedroom and bathroom.
The rear of the house also ticked many boxes.

Home for chickens
I was very taken with the presence of a large chicken area with a very nice walnut tree at it's heart. There was also a decent vegetable patch and parking. Not that that would be an issue as the square at the front was mostly empty.
The other aspect of this property was the self contained cottage next door. (Seen to the left in the main photo). Which was in with the price.
Access at present is through the garage at the rear. Opening this proved a slight problem, so after I managed to break off the handle off we had to call the owners son who duly arrived and showed us our error....we'd been pushing it the wrong way. Oooops.
Anyway it turned out my little mishap wasn't a problem and he showed us around.
It consisted of one extremely large downstairs and an equally large upstairs. And it didn't look although it had been used since d'artagnan and his mates were at large.
If we sold our house in England for a good price, and managed to knock the owners of this place down a little, it could be a goer. But we'd have to be very sure of ourselves and more than a tad brave.
Plenty to think on for our trip back to Blighty in the 'morrow.      

Monday 8 April 2013

Tuesday Afternoon..........

After what was a a very enjoyable and laid back morning we drove off towards Pordic blissfully unaware of the stress's and strains we were to encounter during the afternoon.
We were to meet the immobilier at his"office. To get there we had to get off the sleepy rural roads we were becoming so at home on and back on to the major duel carriageways. These were quite the busiest we'd had to deal with especially around St. Brieuc. But Pordic was reached without incident  and we set about trying to find the office, which unlike the previous office we'd visited was on the outskirts of an industrial estate on the edge of town. We were feeling along way from Huelgoat.
At the office "he" turned out to be a "she", because the person we'd had the appointment with was out with another client. This wasn't helping our mood. And that was further compounded when we were told, despite having a four door Peugeot, there was no room in the car for us and we would have to follow her and her father in our own car (She didn't drive). Now i'm not keen on following other people, especially erratic Frenchmen, who don't use their indicators, going round large roundabouts in pretty heavy traffic. But what can you do?
But after a deal of swearing and cursing on my part, we got back on some sensible roads and arrived at our first property of the afternoon.
Allineuc

 
      I was very taken with this place. It was set in a pretty little village quite close to the church. It defiantly had B&B potential Apparently there was also a good fishing lake on the edge of the village which could be bait for any guests we might reel in. Ho Ho.

Anyway it's one on our "would have another look at" list should it still be on the market when we are ready to take the plunge.  



Plourhan

Loft to convert!!



 Our next port of call was not on our original itinerary, but was found by our guide for the afternoon.
It was situated in a town rather than a village but was very close to the coast, which could be a plus for us helping to pull in trade.
The layout was a little bizarre though, in that it had a large bathroom downstairs with access from both the dinning room and the kitchen, meaning if you wanted to avail yourself of the facilities, as Karen says, you would have to make sure you locked both doors......Strange.
Lanvollon


    This place was a real disappointment it ticked none of our boxes at all.
To begin with it faced straight on to a busy road, the above photo is taken from the rear. Also the small triangle of garden allocated to the house was very small and the owners, who lived next door had put a swimming pool on their side, imagine the noise! If I don't like living next door to a trampoline I couldn't possibly cope with a swimming pool.
The inside also wasn't exactly inspiring, so we put that one down to experience and made our escape.

By this time we were quite knackered and had along drive in front of us back to Huelgoat. We'd left at about 9 O'clock that morning and wouldn't be back at our B&B until after 6. We'd covered many miles and taken in allot of information. We would recount it all that evening over a pint or three, whilst watching France get stuffed by Spain with our new best buddie in the local bar.

Here's to tomorrow and Normandy........

Friday 5 April 2013

House Search Tuesday Morning...

So our search continued. As Tuesday was such a busy day, With five properties to view, and many miles in between, I'm going to break this into two posts.
We were beginning to feel at home in our French surroundings, driving was much less of an issue than i thought it would be, and we seemed to be getting on pretty well with the few locals we were interacting with, mostly bar shop keepers and bar owners I'll grant you. One bar owner in particular was very memorable. A biker/ Olympique de Marseille fan, we quickly bonded with a love of beer, football and most importantly Didier Drogba. It was a fun place to spend the evening and we made a special note to return the following evening to watch France take on Spain.
Entrance Hall

Nice Kitchen

Enjoying a cup of tea
The first view of the day quite took our breath away. Situated in a very quite village about twenty minutes drive from our base in Huelgoat and right next to the church, it was quite simply beautiful. Strangely enough, it is owned by a very nice couple from Pluckley, who knew Ashford very well, gave us tea, and looked after splendidly.




The house was in very good order, the only possible down side was that we would have to use the third bedroom as the on suite bathroom for one of the other rooms, thus reducing the amount of rooms we could B&B to two.However the loft was all but converted and a good size workshop at the back this place seems very promising. And at a good price as well, so good we fear that the chances of it still being on the market when we sell are very slim indeed.




Right next door is a bar/ shop/ just about everything else. And in the very French way the owners told us that in the three years that they'd lived there they hadn't quite worked out what hours the bar was open and what hours it wasn't, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
Also in with the price was a decent size piece of land, just down the road a little, ideal for a little veg plot and keeping a few chickens......... Move over Tom Good!




Trying to get in
We were shown around the above property by the owners because the very dippy English immobilier got her wires muddled and thought we were an afternoon booking and was miles away in her office. So we arranged to meet her at the next location.






Infinity  Garden




 

 After a pleasant drive we  rendezvous with Miss Dippy, who straight away couldn't get the front gate open. So after a little gentle persuasion from yours truly we got on the site only to find the back door wouldn't budge. So Karen and I went off to explore the garden. Now I say garden, perhaps I should say field, it was huge, we only ventured thee quarters of the way down and when we turned to look back the house was just a speck in the distance. Apparently the local farmer comes once a year and makes hay and takes it away and that's the only time any one sets foot on it.
   
Small Room
 We made the long trek back to the house to find our new friend had eventually sorted out the lock and we were able to have a look round inside. It wouldn't take long.
Where as the out side area of the property was roughly the size of Romney Marsh, the inside wasn't. It seemed like the house was the Tardis in reverse, all the rooms were small, including both sitting rooms (two ??) No way would this place be any use as a B&B, but it was useful to see a different type of dwelling and more of the beautiful country side.


We left our guide fumbling with her car keys, ( I shouldn't be to harsh, she was very sweet and perhaps it just wasn't her day), and went off in search of lunch. I can say the town of Bourbriac is very nice We parked in the town square, free again, just in time to see the last market stall packing up. Found yet another pizza bar run by another very entertaining guy, and enjoyed some great food, great coffee (and tea) and a little light banter with the host.

So to the afternoon....................... 



Wednesday 3 April 2013

First viewing day (Monday)

As we had no appointments on the Monday morning we used the time to roam the beautiful town of Huelgoat, our base for the next few days, and try to get a feel for the way a French town operated. We soon discovered how, very slowly.


Huelgoat
Huelgoat it'self is famous in the area both for a very large and attractive lake, and a beautiful walk through a boulder strewn small valley, heavily wooded with a good deal of wildlife to be seen and heard. The stream comes out from the lake via a pretty waterfall before disappearing from view beneath piles of huge boulders which mark the route of the invisible stream. As you follow the path you can just hear the water, but it doesn't reappear until you are about two thirds through the length of the path.

After a morning of relaxation it was time to get on with the reason we were here. So it was into the car for the short drive to Pleyben to meet the "immobilier"  who was to show us today's properties. Of course when we arrived it was lunch time, so we had a little wait but hey ho, we've got to get into the French way of thinking.
 The first house to visit was this very imposing farm house boasting no less than six bedrooms two bathrooms  and two huge reception rooms. Strangely all the furniture was in  with price which included two massive French style Dresser come sideboards which I thought were stunning.
The back garden was barely discernible beneath a tangle of brambles, which meant we couldn't get near the "cottage for renovation",Four walls nothing else.

  The next was one added by the immobilier at the last minute so we had no prior knowledge, but by now we were in the swing of things so why not.
This place had be run as a B&B before but had been empty for four years. The house it'self was not bad, but it's location being miles from anywhere and the fact it had no garden to speak of rather put us off, but it did have a monkey puzzle tree, impressive.
The previous owners choice of decor was novel, no  neutral shades for these people.

The final property of the day was a town house in a place called Plonevez-du-faou, and I'm afraid to say both the house and the town were not up to much. We had a good look round and made positive noises but we both knew straight away we wouldn't be back.
So it was back to Huelgoat to re stock with food and beer ready for a full day tomorrow.