The House

Well, after visiting the estate agent again this morning we are on the way to purchasing our new house. He has taken all of our details now and trusted us enough to borrow the keys for another look. We should sign the first contract next Thursday 6 September. We took the opportunity of taking some more photos for the nosy parkers amongst you. Hopefully, they will keep you happy until we return in September.

We are also hopeful that in the next day or so the motor home may get fixed. Barry Caravans came up trumps and have taken another turbo off one of their vehicles and sent it by DHL to the garage here. Its just a shame that Fiat did not have the decency to do something like that before now. Oh well, who cares we have a house!!!!

We also went to the beach yesterday afternoon. Well, I say the beach, it was more of a mud bath for Josh and Kirsty. I am sure that it must be good for the skin though! It was in the Bay of Mont St Michel. Unfortunately, oops, fortunately, Josh and Kirsty did not find one of the many sinking sand sections!!!

We have a house!!

I am not even going to mention the motor home in this message as it is too much of a pain!! I am just going to give you all the good news. We have just ten minutes ago bought a house. For those of you who are nosy it is in a place called La Ferriere Duval and the closest town in Aunay. I will add a few pictures here for you.

The other news, Kirsty lost her first tooth and Peter has grown two more. He is also copying lots of words now, so no more swearing for us!!

Lots of love from a very happy us.

xxx

Its actually sunday that I Wrote this!!

Well, what can I say to follow Tonys message of last week? The weather was bad all week and now Tony has gone home we have glorious sunshine!! My dad always said that the last week in August and the first week in September were the best of the summer. So far, it looks as if he was right. Despite the weather we did have a good time last week. The Bell Foundry was a great visit, recommended to all those who visit Villedieu in the future. The kids thought it was great, being able to ring the huge bells and scare silly the unsuspecting people who did not know that they were in working order!! Sian also caught the only fish of the week, a beautiful rainbow trout. Unfortunately, it was not big enough to feed eight of us and had to be put back for the next family! The campsite must have thought we were mad English people, which of course we are, and put up with us all week. I think we were their best customers (sorry, only customers!) but by the end of the week we had encouraged plenty of other campers to taste the fine food in the café and drink copious amounts of beer! By the end of the week the campsite was reminiscent of Glastonbury but thankfully the Range Rover was not perturbed. Our hire car, however, was found to be the worst off road vehicle wherever we went. At the beginning of the week, before it had even rained for two days, on arrival at the steam fair we had to be pushed IN!! Normally, it’s at the end of the day that people are being pushed, but no, this time it was at the start. Needless to say the steam fair was a wash out and we lasted there all of half an hour. Long enough though for Sian to find the biggest horse possible and fall in love with it. It towered almost five feet above her!! Now, the tale of the motor home. On the Thursday before Tony arrived we were quite happily plodding down the road to Villedieu when the motor home decided that hills were too much like hard work and could not go any further. After a puff of smoke and a bang we arrived at the top of a hill and the motor home refused to go any further. After calling the RAC in France we had to pay 200 euros for a tow truck to come and rescue us. He brought us a few miles down the road to Avranches, which is where the motor home has lived ever since. After a few aborted discussions in French with different mechanics the English mechanic arrived!! It turned out that they thought we had put petrol in the vehicle instead of diesel. We knew that this was not the case, but typical the only receipt that I could not find was the one we needed. However, we were absolutely certain that we had not made a faux pas and they finally put the motor home up on the ramps. After a few minutes they had found the problem, the turbo was one hundred percent bust. Unfortunately a new turbo would not arrive until the following Tuesday! This would have been bearable as they were kind enough to let us sleep in the motor home still, supply us with power and let us use their water. They also said we could have a hire car while it was being fixed at only twenty euros a day. This did not sound too bad as it would be the same cost as a camp site! However, as many of you will probably be aware, garages are not always accurate in their timescales. The new turbo also has to come from Italy, who shut down in the month of August!!! Typical!! Well, we are still sat here in our car park. We have a great view for miles, only slightly spoilt by the motorway which cuts through the middle of it. We are still hopeful that the new turbo will arrive this Tuesday, although we are not holding our breath. We are also learning to drive a left hand drive vehicle, a manual at that. It did however give Andrew several headaches to start with. He said it was due to having to drive on the right and in a left hand drive with the gear stick on the wrong side. Personally I think it was because he smacked his head on the door every time he got in and on the boot every time he put the push chair away, but I could be wrong! He He!! I think the reason we sounded so fed up last week as well was the conversation with Fiat UK. Apparently we should have three years of free AA cover with a new vehicle which also includes hotel accommodation and hire cars!! Great that they tell us this well over a week after we break down. (Barry Caravans watch out in September, I believe you are in for a pasting!!) Whilst here we have still been looking for our new home. We visited two last week which had great potential but did not seem quite right. On Monday we are to visit a large property between Vire and Caen. It has three and a half hectares of land and a beautiful stone property that needs some renovation. Lets hope it is the one! On paper, it is the best we have seen so far. We are also planning to visit four more properties on Thursday, so we are on the case. Today was a first for all of us too, Tractocross. It was great fun, twelve tractors racing as if they were motorbikes on a giant track. We were hoping that King Tony would win but unfortunately he came second! Never mind, it’s the taking part that counts!! Anyway, I think that just about says it all for now. Take care and hope to see you all soon. xx

Noah and his Busted Turbo

Well, it's official, it's rained for a whole week and we have nearly floated away. We even heard the flood warning earlier today; [Tony typing now - because he is really bored with Jane typing so slowly and inacurately]. In all honesty it has only rained once this week - it started at the beginning of the week and hasn't stopped yet. We looked at three houses this week - two wern't great, and the third had been sold before we had seen it. The wagon is still fu*&£d. The turbo has had it - probably the Pyranees that shagged it. Fiat is a fantastic supplier. They have helped us our not end. They promised faithfully that the new turbo will be delivered within a few days. What they didn't say was that it would be delivered within a few days of Armageddon. Oh deep joy. If you fancy buying a Fiat - don't! I found myself needing to beg a nappy from a neighbour the other night. My French is now so good I offered to trade a baby for a pig instead of a nappy for a bottle of wine. Tony, Sian and Jaden have arrived this week - they brought the English weather with them. On the bright side, it has only rained once since they arrived, and we are sure it will stop soon. Perhaps tomorrow after they leave.

Villedieu Les Poeles

Well, thats where we are! It means 'cooking pot'. A jolly good name for somewhere for us to live, and my mum found it on the map without me spelling the whole thing, so it must be good. She even said it looked close to home on the map, so even easier for visitors.

Well, after a lot of thought we phoned the estate agent again today about the maison de maitre in Domfront, however, it is sold subject to contract. As everything happens for a reason we have moved very quickly on and found an extremely nice English agent in this town who moved here four years ago with a five year old and an eight year old and has not looked back. That sounded like a good start. She may also have found us a great property already. It is close to the town only 20 kilometres from the sea and has 5 hectares of land. That means plenty of room for animals, a toy farm, a camp site, softball pitches and bed and breakfast!!! It also has a lake and a river running through it! (Good news for the fisherman amongst you.)

We are not visiting the property until Friday, so don't get excited too soon. We are also visiting two others, so you never know, by Friday afternoon we may not be homeless!! It is also habitable, so no woodworm we hope!

The town here is lovely. It has a Bell Foundry, that we hope to visit, and is famous for its lace, copper and pewter work. The copper shops in the high street were huge. Josh even found the pot in Georges Marvellous Medicine. (A Roald Dahl book for those of you not familiar).

Anyway, enough for now. Love to all and speak soon.

xxxx

Get 'im Out! Get 'im Out! Get 'im Out!

Well, we are now in Beuzec Cap Sizun I think! Anyway, Brittany, and south of Brest. The sun is still lovely and the beach good enough to burn on again. Todays title of the blog was said very quickly by a male member of our party, who has been desperate to catch a lizard since we arrived. Well, he got his wish finally, only for it to dive straight for the safety of his sleeve. If I was not laughing so much I may have been able to help him. Thankfully, Andrew was able to control himself and remove the lively monster from his armpit!

That is not the only animal that we have encountered on our travels, we have been attacked by giant hairy caterpillars, killer mosquitoes, small biting flies, monster blue bottles, ladybirds, stag beetles, of all sizes, water rats that sound like rustling bags in the middle of the night and POP bellied pigs!!!! (To anyone else they are pot-bellied, but to Kirsty they are POP!!)

I have also done two more things that I have never done before, gone down a giant water slide twice, just to prove it was not a fluke!!, and taken the kids out on two different sorts of pedalos. The second was such a major work out that Andrew and I needed reviving afterwards.

We have also been to a great wildlife park in Branfere and a lovely water park where the kids got soaked, fully clothed. Branfere was great and we managed to take a whole DVD. It was all open plan and the animals could roam freely. I have never seen so many peacocks, wallabies and deer, to name a few, that where so close you could touch them.

We have been moving further north again into house hunting territory so hopefully we will be able to find some more suitable properties soon.

Love us. xxx

Hot in France

The weather is great and the pool is manic. It is currently over 30° here. We have found a great site where the kids would be happy in the pool all day. It has a great water slide and the kids have lost count of how many times they have been down it. Andrew is also in heaven as we have finally found wine country. For the wine connoiseurs amongst you we are in St Emilion. For those of you teetotallers, we are near Bordeaux. We have yet to visit a vineyard but hopefully that is not far off! We are moving on to Angouleme tomorrow to a site owned by more English. This current site is made up of 30% Irish, 30% Netherlands, 30% English, 1 Danish and a handful of frogs. The Irish are currently trying to fight with the French over girlfriends!! Not sure who is going to win but is an interesting conversation when neither speaks the other language. Sorry to say I cant put any pictures on today as I am on the site computer. I have, however, learned how to us a dodgy French keyboard!!!! Speak soon. Lots of love, us. xxx

Lourdes, Pyrenees, Spain and Back Quick!!

Well, the title says it all. We continued our journey and reached Lourdes at lunchtime. What can I say, an experience to be remembered. After stopping at the supermarket we managed to find a parking space on a road which seemed to be miles from anywhere. In fact it was right next to the park where the Grotto is situated. We walked the short distance and arrived at the queue to view the Grotto. For once the queue was not too long and after two seconds it was even shorter. A man asked us if we were English and ushered us to the front of the queue. No, not because we were English though, because we had a pushchair. So, the moral of this story is take a pushchair!! On entering the Grotto in silence there was an air of excitement, apprehension, an urgency to pray and all other feelings rolled into one. The stone was smooth were millions of hands have touched before. We then moved on and lit some candles in the area adjacent to the Grotto. Another amazing site. The only bad part to this visit was the commercial centre at the entrance to the park. Hundreds of shops cashing in on the experience. I chose to visit the Catholic shop only and bought a few reminders to bring back, including some postcards. (Yes, they are on the way!!)

We then continued our journey to the Pyrenees. Scary, is all I can say. I am glad Andrew was driving because I had my eyes shut. I have a dvd of part of the journey, so I will at least be able to watch that! The views however, were amazing and even though the sun was blazing there was still some snow to be seen on some of the mountains.

We finally arrived in Spain after a night in the mountains. HOT, HOT, HOT!! Yes, I know we should not complain, and everyone told us it would be, but it was too hot. Andrew commented that it was a bit like being a prisoner, because it was too hot to go anywhere. The views of the castle were fantastic though, including the many eagles and the paragliders. We decided that it was best to return to France as soon as possible as the children could not play freely and poor Sasha was panting continuously. We ventured out at eight thirty in the evening when the restaurant opened and had a lovely meal. The only difficulty we had was understanding the hand written notes on a piece of paper, which was the menu for the evening. My spanish, I am afraid to say, is very poor. Thankfully, the lady who spoke a bit of English appeared and we managed to have an edible meal.

The next day we made an early start for a return to France, and the language that I can speak. The first person I spoke to was the lady on the toll road. Finally, someone who understood me again.

After a whole day of driving we found the campsite. Great! It was closed for an extra lunch hour. We decided to move further north and find another. It was full! I phoned the next one and made a reservation. Great, we were finally going to be able to stop driving. Then, CLICK, CLICK, CLICK. We had something in the tyre!! The good news was that we had made the campsite though. On closer inspection there was a very large nail in the tyre! Oh well, it could have been worse, not sure how though. We phoned the RAC who gave us the number of the European helpline. They were very nice and said they would send someone in the next hour. He arrived with a tow truck and no new tyre. He had no way of fixing it either. Very useful. Steve is desperately needed!! He spoke no English, which made for a great conversation. Finally, we gave up and after keeping our fingers crossed for the night we managed to inflate the tyre in the morning and get to a garage. They were fully booked but after some negotiation and lots of pleases fixed the problem in less than ten minutes. Our faith in the French is now restored!!

What next then? We are now on our way back north on the quest to find more good food, interesting places to visit and a home. Love to all.

And the most important part, I leave till last! HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOB!!! Love you.