So... I thought I would give a quick run down of my weekend in France... it had a protracted ending... LOL!
So Friday I left right after work (3:30pm) and picked up my wife along the way. Lots of traffic to the airport as rush hour just started but we made it with time to spare. The wonderful thing of online check in and not having check in luggage. Flight was at 7pm.
Got to Bordeaux just after 9pm (flight is just over an hour and France is an hour ahead) and picked up our rental car the next morning. Due to the late booking of everything, we ended up having to rent a higher level car than we normally would. I ended up getting a Lexus CT 200h Hybrid. I was not impressed to say the least. It had over 22,000km but drove like it it was on it's last legs. A bit of a gutless wonder too, the hybrid part was neat. Tonnes of scratches and damage on it (this is not unusual for France in truth but you'd expect this category of car to be in better shape). The built in USB charger was useless as well. When I returned it I told them I wasn't impressed and they apologised saying it wasn't one of their fleet. Most annoying part of this was the fact we only had 500km to play with. We managed but it somewhat limited us in where we wanted to go.
Anyway, the house we went to look at is around this area of France -
Castlejaloux, which is about an hour from Bordeaux, which is where we want to be.
We met the non English speaking estate agent and went to look at the property. It was in a lot worse condition than we first thought but not as bad as things could be. We're getting the property report today, hopefully.
The property that we're interested in is £75,000 and has 1.5 hectares of land. We're hoping to talk them down a touch but you can understand that the price isn't that expensive. The house isn't huge but that's not a big deal, it's the land we're mostly interested in. To give an idea of renovation costs, it's likely it will cost the same price we paid for the property. All things considered, that's not that bad. You have consider that our current house is still more expensive than that! We have a bit to sort out but in general our renovation will be in stages, like I already mentioned.
Luckily the estate agent knew someone who could speak English and we were able to talk some more. He said he was the step son but I'm not sure if that got confused with son-in-law. In any case. We found out some things about the area and found out there's some good grants and subsidies for farming (which is what we will be doing, though specialised) so that's all good. The guy who spoke English works in pharmaceuticals.
So now it's about sorting out the money side and seeing how much we can talk them down in price.
Afterwards we went back to the property to take more photos and some dimensions. To get an idea of things. We were told we could so we did. The place has been abandoned for over two years so no one lives there.
We spent the night at a local hotel and we originally booked two nights (no idea why) but due to some technical issues, our booking was a bit screwy so we were able to get it for one night instead (thankfully) and we booked a hotel close to the airport. Not sure where our heads were at when we booked two nights!
On Sunday we visited the largest town in the area and then we went to the sand dune which I already posted. The sand dune is located here -
Dune du Pilat
Except for traffic, all went well and we stayed for the night near the airport so we could have a smooth run home... or so we thought.
Our plane was supposed to leave at 12:50. It didn't leave until 2:15pm. Then to add to this, Gatwick Airport was closed so our flight got diverted to another airport out near Essex. At first we weren't sure if we were going to get off the plane but eventually there was a decision to let us go because there was a 2 hour delay to get back to Gatwick.
So after getting off, we were told busses were coming but they would be about an hour or so. Eventually we got told we could take a taxi and get reimbursed so we did. We manged to get in the second taxi to get us back to Gatwick. We got in with two other couples and a French gentleman who was supposed to pick up his grandchildren and take them back to France for a holiday.
The trip back to Gatwick wasn't as bad as it could have been, thankfully. However, by the time we got home, it was 8pm. We stopped for dinner. What should have been an early day turned into a really long one! A bit of an adventure and tiring.
So, now it's all about sorting out some bits and pieces to get the house purchase going, that's of course if someone else doesn't come along and buy it!
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