More photos, and another very small step forward

Today we went to our bank to start the application for a bridge loan, which we will need until our Ste. Colombe house is sold. Our little local bank could not deal with this today, but the fellow there made an appointment for us to see the person who could, but not until next Thursday afternoon. Nothing ever happens quickly in France. It turns out that there are not one but two employees in this bank office, one who is there on Tuesday and Wednesday and another who is there on Thursdays and Fridays - and who is obviously the only one who can accept loan applications. The fellow we spoke to did provide us with a list of papers we would need, or at least all the things he could think of. There might be more, he cautioned. We will of course need our agreement to buy the Nojals house, also proof that we own the two houses we now have, copies of our French tax returns, and - of course! - a copy of a current bill from the electric company. It seems that the standard proof that you exist is a copy of your electric bill. I can't begin to count how many times we have had to provide copies of one. It is no small wonder that almost everyone in France owns some sort of copying machine.

Anyway, on to some photos.



This photo is taken from the stairway in the 'tower' addition to the house. This room will be a combination dining room and gallery. Through the curtained doorway is a glass veranda, looking out over the view that appears behind the title of this blog. I plan to have at least one easel there, both to use and to show paintings to passers by when I'm not there. The sofa will be moved to the living room and the chairs (more of the herd) will be moved elsewhere. The chandelier may also be replaced with something a bit more, ahh, simple. Although, having been here for this long, I'm getting used to this sort of thing.
Another view of the gallery-to-be, with more members of the chair herd. There must be about 20 of them. We're keeping some, but not all - where would we put them? And we so rarely have dinner parties for 20!

Here's the building that will be my summer studio, or possibly year-round if we put in some heat. It's an old 'pigeonnier', which were quite the thing in Dordogne one or two hundred years ago. To the left of it is a wood garden house that was used as a workshop and is still full of wooden toys. To the right is John, probably wondering how we're going to clean up the mess inside that building:
YIKES!!! There will definitely be some cleaning up to be done. Right now, the deal is that we keep the furniture we chose and someone - not us - will clear out everything else, including everything in this building. We'll see.... We have a friend who might be interested in doing the clearing out in return for the furniture we don't want. this would work out well since the trailer that he would use to pick up the furniture could travel to there with some of our current furniture in it. Again, we'll see.

Here's a photo of the side of the house with the cellar entrance. The fellow standing there is our estate agent, Mikaël. This photo was taken back in mid-November, when we first saw the house.


OK, I Promised some photos of odd things, weirdnesses. Here they are:

This is the second cellar. The main part of the house has a full cellar, and the addition, the tower (also referred to as a pigionnier) also has a cellar, but with no doorway into the main cellar, so it's a sort of hidden away room. John has designated this his hideout, and wine cellar. OK, that's not all that weird. But here's what's in it now:
Ooooh, look it's Bambi! And Badger! And, ahh, Sanglier? I don't remember any kids' stories with cute wild boars in them. One has to guess that the late owner of the house was a hunter. These are some of the better looking examples of taxidermy. We opted not to keep them.

The late owner was also a woodworker, and here's some of the toys in the garden workshop.


OK, that's it for today. Tomorrow we're off to the house in Ste. Colombe to talk the the friend who may be clearing out the Nojals house, and to start packing!!

Getting Closer

Things are moving along. The real estate agent let me know this morning that the owner whom he has been dealing with has OKed the deal, including the furniture - lawnmower and all. I guess she doesn't need it after all in her Bordeaux apartment! We're still waiting for the notaire to sign for them, but this woman who has been dealing with the agent seems to be running the show. Last we heard, the notaire was just waiting to hear from the son who lives in Italy. But I'm reassured knowing that at least the main owner has OKed things. So maybe I can let myself start thinking about things like stripping wallpaper, chosing paint colors and all that.

Wheeeeeee!!!!!

Here's photos of the various rooms, and other little oddities.


Here's a couple of photos of the kitchen. That intrusive white thing on the wall near the sink is the gas central heating. Oddly, these things are often placed smack dab in the most inconvenient location. Perhaps in the fullness of time we'll have it relocated to the cellar. The cabinet in the other photo is built into the wall and one of the first things I intend to do is to remove those ugly doors. Inside, there are good looking wood sheves and they'll be a great place to store things like colorful Le Crueset pots and other cooking equipment. As for the decorative panels on the door to the hallway - that wallpaper will have to go! But the kitchen is spacious and light and we can probably fit all of our things into it. Amazing!



One of the downstairs bedrooms, showing some of the junk to be cleared out and a few members of the herd of chairs that hang around the house. There seem to be hundreds of them. Nice wallpaper too, huh? (I wonder where the closest place is to rent a wallpaper steamer.)

OK, enough for today, I have things to do. I'll post some more photos tomorrow.

Sign here, and here, and here, and initial here, and here and here and here...

It's official, or at least almost official. We spent a pleasant hour or so at the office of the notaire in Beaumont-du-Perigord today signing the first in the long line of papers that will lead to owning this house.

The house was to be sold with all the furnishings, but the agent suggested we meet there this morning just go through and point out which pieces we would actually want and have the owners haul the rest away. So we left Bergerac around 9 and what a magical morning it was! As we were driving south to Nojals, the whole world was nestled in luminous fog, with houses, trees, vineyards appearing and then softly receeding into the mist, with the rising sun just high enough to cast a glow over everything.

We then went through the house and picked out several pieces. Some are antiques that are more ornate than we would ordinarilly choose, but interesting in their own way - and everything that serves to store anything is always welcome since French houses of this vintage have no closets. Here's some pics of the bits of furniture:

This piece currently sits in the living room. Sorry for the glare; the morning had become gloriously sunny by this time.

This huge thing will remain exactly where it is, since it must weigh a ton. It will be useful for storing table linens, and of course wine glasses.

We also opted to claim a few more items - wheel barrows, some gardening tools and a small trailer. There's also a riding lawnmower but the agent thinks the woman in Bordeaux might want it although he can't figure why since she lives in an appartment!

As we were strolling through the yard I took a few more photos of the house. Here's a veiw of the house from the far end of the garden.


That sort of hazy grey bit behind the middle tree is the roof of the house, seen from the end of the garden.

More photos tomorrow - John just wanted to know if we were ever going to go and have dinner. ;-)

Mirabile Dictu!

See that view at the top of the blog, the one behind the headline? We're buying that view. We'll see it out the windows.

Life continues to be strange. We went to see the larger house for the second time today, and liked it more than we did yesterday. It has 11 rooms, really. It's huge. The only problem is that there is no piovate outdoor space. We're used to having our very private garden in Esperaza and are perhaps spoiled. But we were still quite interested in this house, with the idea foating around in my head of planting about 300 feet of fast growing hedges to block the view of the neighboring house. So, there we were in the same town where we would be seeing the last in our slate of houses this afternoon. We drove to the neighborhood, saw it was completely inappropriate and cancelled the appointment. And then John's cell phone rang for about the umteenth time with what he thought was a junk message. But he decided to answer it and it was the fellow from the agency through which we almost bought the house we really loved in Nojals et Clottes a month ago, only to be blindsided by other buyers who appeared out ot he blue and outbid us. But the news was that the other buyers had disappeared! Were we still interested???!!! Well, a distinct possibility! So, jump in the car, drive to the agent's office in Villereal, tell him Yes we are still interested but that after seeing these other houses we neededto have another look at this house. ( I really just wanted to wander through it again) Not surprisingly, we still liked it. It has everything we want - it's pretty, it's in a super location, there are no neighbors close by, it has lots of space, and besides all this it has a lovely pigionnier I'd use as a summer studio, as well as a greenhouse, another wood workshop building, and a garage. So we made the offer, Micheal ( the agent) will relay it to the owner, who is currently teaching in Africa, and we will be coming back to the area at the end of next week to sign the Compromis de Vente. Here's a photo of the house, taken from the agency website. (I have about a million of my own photos but they are on my other computer) The photo at the top of this blog is the view looking out the front windows of the house. I'm thrilled. Of course it means we have totally wasted this week, since if we had not come here Micheal would have just called us in Esperaza anyway. C' est la vie, as they say here.


House in Nojals et Clottes

Can't decide! Can't decide! HELP!!!

OK, today we saw two houses that are top of the list. One is quirky but completely lovable - it's an old railroad house de ' guarde barriere' where the person in the house would go out and lower th ebarricade across the road when a train was coming. There's lots of these cute little houses all over France and they are quite distinctive. This one has lots and lots going for it. It's really isolated, having no close neighbors at all, although not far from a largish town, and with other houses up the road, including a horse farm. This house would have enough room for Summertime to live at home, but he could take a little trip up the road if we went away on vacation. The house itself is small, but larger than the lovely house from yesterday. It would need some work - updating the electrics of course, which would be true for every house we've seen and every house we've owned. We'd also have to replace the floor in one downstairs room, which is wood and is in the process of rotting, although still usable currently. The house has a huge new bathroom and separate WC, and a large outbuilding that could easily be made into a great studio. This house is certainly the one with the best air quality - there's no neighbors close enough to bother us, and the land around is some sort of preserve. It's across the road from the Dordogne river - a long ways off across a lovely field. The views from this house are lovely, and the general area has an amazing collection of beautiful Perogourdine architecture - houses, barns, chateaux, churches. The whole area looks like an illustration for a fairy tale. OK, I hear you asking about trains. Well, yes there are trains, and we were worried about this until one went past. These are the electric trains called the "Michelines". They are one car long and go past very quickly and are about as loud as a bus. There are a few in the morning, a couple more during the day and a few more in the evening. The train line serves commuters only and runs from Sarlat to Bergerac. There used to be a stop where the house is but that ended in 2005.

The House



The garden/yard

The other real plus about this house is that it could be had really cheap - possibly even as low as 70,000 euros.

The next house we saw was in a town called Sauveboeuf, also very near the Dordogne river, and about 15 minutes fromt he railroad house. It too has lots and lots going for it. It's huge, it's a Perogordine, it has lots of land. It has a full kitchen, living room, other room next to the living room, three bedrooms downstairs, with full bath and separate WC. Upstairs, there are three more bedrooms! Two have lovely little dormer windows, the third is at the end of the house with a window under the eaves. There's also a large garage. Why are we not immediately jumping at this house? Well, there's one close-ish neighbor - but we admit that there was no smell of wood wmoke at all. What's weird though is that this house seemed in some way impossible to see because it's so lived in, by a family with about 17 teenagers, apparently. There's just so much stuff in the house that you can hardly see the rooms at all. There are for instance, huge windows in each room, giving out onto the garden, but you hardly notice them, or the lovely light coming in them, because there's just so much junk everywhere. Outside is the same. There's weird animal pens everywhere, little quonset hut sort of sturctures filled with god knows what - wood, grain, chickens, junk, junk and more junk. But all that room, and it's not over budget - 115,000 euros, and possibly less. It needs no work at all, other than tidying up after all the junk leaves (presumably!)

The house


Some of the junk, in the garage

Along with all this house viewing, we also of course had lunch! We tried out a restaurant in Lalinde that John had noticed yesterday. Good choice - the place is charming and the food was very good. All started with a tureen of soup, which we're coming to expect by now. It was delicious again, but of course different from others, with a slight flavory of curry powder. Our meals were very good too, JOhn had a steak, from Argentina - which tend to be the best beef you get in France. I had confit de poulet which I had never before seen, altough confit de canard is everywhere of course. Both came with perfectly done home fries and a salad with dressing that I'm sure was made with walnut oil and walnut vinegar. Both are quite common in this region. Here's a photo of the restaurant.



Restaurant Le Petit Loup in Lalinde, Dordogne

Two More Possibles

What a busy day we had today. We met with an agent in Eymet, which is about a half hour west of Bergerac, and he had several other houses lined up to show us as well. The first was in Rouffignac de Sigoules in the midst of the Monbazillac wine region. This house has much to recommend it- lots and lots of space, including a large kitchen, three bedrooms, a fireplaced living room and a huge room that could make a spectacularly light and spacious studio. It also has a full cellar, a roofed terrace and a large garden. So what's wrong, you ask? Maybe nothing, but there is one fairly close neighbor, and the sounds of rock music were coming from that house during the time we were there. In some ways, this house seems to be in two different sorts of location at the same time. If you look to the side with the neighboring house, it seems almost like a boring, 70s-built American suburb. But if you look out the other side, the only views are the vineyards and old stone villages and church in the distance - quite lovely. The house itself is not lovely, but is not disagreable either. Here's photos of the house and the possible studio. (For some reason I can't upload these photos tonight - I'll try again tomorrow)


The house - front part would be the studio.

The studio from inside.

The second house was the one that originally drew us to this agency. It was an old Perigordine style house - with lots of neighbors, very little room and work that needed doing. A nice house, but not what we need. An amusing sight - there was a goat in the fenced yard of the neighbor across the street, in a yard with an impressive assortment of junk on display. When we were leaving, the goat was standing in the house window, perhaps wanting to be let in?

How much is that goat in the window

The third house was in the town of Castilonnes, just over the border into the department of Lot-et-Garonne, right in the midst of the area I like most. It's a gorgeous house, with everything in it perfect, everything beautiful, with two large gardens, fruit trees, two terraces, a garage that would make a lovely studio, views over lovely fields. There is one neighbor, not very nearby and another across the street, Americans who are there only in the summer. So, I hear you ask again, What's wrong? Well, it's small, that's what's wrong. There are three bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, a small laundry room and/or pantry - and of course bathroom and separate WC. What else is good - huge windows, many of them French doors (well of course!) out into the gardens. Another plus is that the gardens are all bordered with high hedges, making them private. Much to think about. And, of course, it being in perfect shape and all it is more expensive - we would have to bid quite a bit lower than the asking price, but the agent says the people are eager to sell and will entertain any reasonable sort of offer.

Castillones House - there's a neighboring barn attached to the let side of it

OK, morning viewings over, we went back to Eymet and had lunch in a delightful little restaurant that had the best potato leek soup I've ever had - rich and creamy and garlicky. Yum!!! We then went to our afternoon appointment in Beaumont, and by now it was pouring down rain. The house turned out to be uninteresting, had lots of neighbors, and a somehow industrial feel to it - could it have been those metal door moldings? A very new house, very well built, very well equipped, very, very, very boring. No point in showing photos!

Morning update - uploading photos seems to be impossible, perhaps because the wifi here at the hotel cuts in and out. If we can find a McDonalds (source of continuous free wifi everywhre in France) I'll upload photos then. OK - here we are at a McDOnalds in Bergerac, drinking beer and using their wifi. Yes, McDonalds in France will sell you beer - but you have to buy food as well. So, 2 beers, one small frites and we're set for as long as we like.

A Definite Possible

Today we had only one house viewing scheduled but ended up seeing two. The first one, which we were told had no close neighbors did in fact have close neighbors. It also had a very strange floor plan where one room led to another so that in order to go to bedroom two or three you would have to go through the preceding bedroom(s), and there didn't seem any way to easily get around this. So, a reject.

But, we ended up in the area much earlier than anticipated, so we wandered around and picked up some of those real estate catalogues that are everywhere. We saw one house that looked interesting and called that realtor after rejecting the above house. The advertised house was sold but he told us he had something he thought would suit us and said he had the keys. (Not often the case - viewings usually have to be scheduled with the owner.) So another hour's drive, but worth it. This house would indeed suit us. It has a large eat-in kitchen, a huge living room /dining room and three good sized bedrooms, one of which coujld be a studio. (Plus bathroom, separate loo.) So th ebasics are there. The house is in very good condition, although needing redecorating - but don't they all! The garden is lovely! There are lots of little interesting areas, two or three terraces, a porch, little mossy stone steps leading here and there, also a large outbuilding as well as a garage. It's not as charming as the houses I love most, the little 'Perigordines' - but there aren't a lot of those on offer in our price range. This house is also well below the limit we can spend, so that's a plus as well. Here's a photo.

Spring is Here!

The snow is gone! It started raining yesterday afternoon, just a few drops while we were leaving the monster house, then a steady rain by the time we got back to Bergerac. It continued through the night and, luckily, we are far enough south to have avoided the 'verglas' (black ice) that the TV weather was warning everyone about last night. Even though the Dordogne was one of the 22 departments on orange alert for bad weather and icy roads, the temperatures here are well above freezing - 4 this morning, with a high of 10 predicted for this afternoon. (10C = 50F).

Two strikeouts today

This is the house we were to see this morning. No such luck, as it turned out. When we got to the agency, the woman there knew nothing of our appointment, and told us that many of her agents had not appeared because although there was no problem with major roads, the small back roads had not been plowed and were now impassable. So - an hour's drive and no house to see. We decided not to try again for this one since who wants to live in a house that's inaccessible when there's a few inches of snow. This area of Lot-et-Garonne, although just south of the Dordogne border, is far enough east to be up into the hills. So scratch this area in general.

So we drove back to the Bergerac area, and had lunch at a restaurant in Plaisance, the place where we were to meet the agent to show us the afternoon's house. The restaurant was fun - it's obviously the French version of a truck stop. All the other diners had come either in large trucks or in the ubiquitous white vans driven by virtually all French tradesmen. One of the large trucks was even carrying two small prefab houses. But, back to the restaurant. As soon as we were seated, a big tureen of delicious vegetable soup appeared. What a great welcome on a cold winter day. We were encouraged to take more but we declined, since one can eat only so much. Next there was a salads buffet, with a better assortment of offerings than we usually see on this sort of thing. The specials for the day were tripes (yuk) or boudin noir (not today, thanks) or boulets de boeuf. We both chose the meatballs, which were delicious and were served with a huge helping of boiled potatoes. A hearty, warming lunch.



This second house is in a much better area, about 20 minutes south of Bergerac, and about 2 minutes from the restaurant. But it turned out to be soooooo not what we want! In the first place, even though the agent had told us there were no neighbors, there were in fact two neighbors, both very close to the house. And one of these houses was a horrible little box-like thing that I would certainly not want to look at for the rest of my life. Of course, as John pointed out, this would not be a problem since the house we were looking at had virtually no windows. It also had no floors, no walls that were worth talking about in the interior, and no ceilings. Habitable??? Perhaps there are different interpretations of just what ' habitable' might mean. So, another house crossed off the list.

On the other hand, we had a rewarding trip to the supermarket near our hotel, a LeClerc. We saw fresh bean sprouts!!! I've never seen such a thing in the supermarkets we have access to in the Aude. And Asiago cheese! And four different kinds of cheddar cheese. And provelone! I know, you folks in the US find this quite ordinary, but food offerings in France are not anywhere near as cosmopolitan as those in the supermarkets we're used to. Maybe we'll have more luck tomorrow with houses.

Is this really the Sunny South of France? Why is there SNOW!

Here's a view of our picnic table, with about 8 inches of snow on it. Also notice the large icicle to the left, one of several hanging from the edge of my studio roof.

Westward Ho!

We're off tomorrow to do a second round of house hunting in the southern Dordogne and northern Lot-et-Garonne, two departments in the region called Aquitaine. So far we've arranged to see several houses, and you can see a web page with links to photos of most of them here. I had set up this page to keep track of everything and putting it online turned out to be the easiest way to make it accessible to both John and myself - and now for whoever else wants to see what's going on.

We're hoping that the weather improves. Right now, we have about 8 inches of snow! It has been shockingly cold, with temperatures staying below freezing for the past three or four days. Oddly, last week was warmer on the Atlantic side of the country than here, where usually the reverse is true. According to forecasts this is to change in the next few days - so we're following the cold. Brrrr.