Renovation project - Going back to France

Renovation project - Going back to France

I wake up feeling quite deflated about our house buying experience in Spain and as John settles to watch the Manchester United football match on his own, I decide to have a quick look at houses in France again, I’m not sure why maybe I just want to make sure we are doing the right thing, we love Spain and we want to stay here, but if we can't find a house it will be impossible.

I have a quick look at Brittany and see some fantastic farmhouses, but we have already done Brittany and the rain is still firmly at the front of my mind, especially as we have been enjoying the constant sun.

I switch the search and go for the entire of France and on the first page of Greenacres see an amazing house with a wonderful history.

It is a village house with so much character and the price is peanuts, it certainly has the wow factor (even though it is in a terrible state) I show John and he thinks it has the same wow factor.

I google the area and it is in the far north east of France, it is only 2 hour from Basel in Switzerland.

I e-mail the agent and wait for a reply.

We sit and talk about the options, our hearts are in Spain but being realistic our head are back in France.

I can wait no more and ring the agent, we have a chat and I e-mail some questions, he replies straight away. We talk some more and decide we have to go and have a look.

Plans are put in place and we work out that at the price of the house we can keep the rental in Spain and buy the house in France (if it is as good as we hope) we will be able to live in France and travel to Spain for 4 weeks at a time.

Could life be any better? Renovate in France again but knowing we will be back to Spain for 4 weeks at a time.

We book a viewing and work out the time frame it is the 8^th August and we have friends coming to visit on the 20^th.

So we book a viewing for the 12th and spend the rest of the evening booking in hotels on the way.

The journey will take 3 days there, stay for 2 nights and 3 days back, perfect.


Our only problem is that we had arranged to help friends tomorrow with some furniture assembly so send them a quick message to say sorry but we are heading to near Switzerland so can't make it, their immediate response was, surely you knew you would be driving to Switzerland?

Well actually, until an hour ago, no we didn't!