OUR KIDS LIFE IN FRANCE, AND OURS, The house hunting begins

Here we were again. Living at mums again. looking for a home again. Looking for schools again. Although we had a little time for the school thingy because it was coming up for the summer holidays, so the pressure wasn't on.

My husbands parents joined us at my mums in their motor home, and we soon set to looking for that perfect property. We knew what we wanted, it was just a case of finding the right place at the right price. As usual with estate agents, we told them the criteria and they showed us places that didn't meet it at all. We wanted a house big enough, or potentially, for 5 people - us. We want some land, enough for us and holiday home guests. We want out buildings to renovate into holiday lets. And it was to be no more than the specified price. Simple....NOT. One estate agent took us to view 3 properties. The first was what used to be an old bar in the centre of town, with no garden let alone any land, and therefore no out buildings. The second was a little wooden 2 very small bed house, with a nice but small garden, and a shed! The third was a huge house with a very large garden and an out building, but it was just 300, 000 euros over budget! A total waste of time.

I think we must have visited just about every house up for sale in the Vendee, but they were either too small, no scope to improve, no potential, wrong location or too expensive. After 3 weeks we were fed up and wondering whether this was the right area after all, maybe things would be cheaper further north, although the weather wouldn't be so good. Just the my mobile rang. It was an agent with whom we were supposed to be visiting a property in a couple of days. She had just had a cancellation for that same property, and would we like to view it now? Yes please!

As soon as we pulled up to the drive I knew it was the one instantly. The keys were at another office an hour away, and she had already explained that to us, but who needed keys, this was the one. The property was huge, with four very large out buildings perfect for gites, and a main house big enough for us and the kids. It was quite run down and hadn't been lived in for 3 years, but that didn't matter. The garden appeared to be large enough for what we needed, but it was hard to tell as the grass was taller than my kids, in fact we lost them in it one or two times whilst we were there! We were curious to see inside so the agent said she would go get the keys, if we didn't mind waiting for an hour or so. You kidding! It'll give us a chance to explore what looked like a lovely little village. We were all very excited, and all very much in agreement, kids included. If the outside is this good, what will the inside hold?....