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?....

OUR KIDS LIFE IN FRANCE, AND OURS - everything must go

Plan B came in the form of my parents-in-law, and my mum. My mum had since moved to the Vendee on the west coast of France. I had worked near there many years ago but other than that we weren't very familiar with that area. We had helped mum move, (we actually closed the shop for the first time, by this time I didn't much care!), as she was all by herself, and found the area quite pleasant. The children all loved it, very green and clean and there were COWS...something of a rarity in the very barren south of France! My husband's parents were looking to invest some money in property in France and very kindly came up with a solution for us all. We would buy a house together that could generate an income, something we could renovate and hopefully, later on, make a profit on. What a brilliant idea, we thought. We decided on the Vendee, firstly because we liked it, secondly because property is cheaper up there and thirdly we could be near to mum, although she insisted she didn't need looking out for. I suspected this was true, but preferred to be close by, just in case. Mum said we could stay at her house while we house hunted, so it was a pretty good plan.

We still had a bit of time before signing the final contract, and this was spent packing up all our stuff, and trying to clear the stock from the shelves, selling most of it off cheaply. The kids helped when they weren't at school, mainly with the sweet things which mysteriously disappeared one by one, or three by three whichever way you look at it!

The shop looked very sad once all the stock was finally cleared. Mind you, it didn't look much better before with the little trade we had left! We finally closed down, and it was a terrific relief.......I felt like the world had been lifted off my shoulders. We still had more to sell. As the new owner was creating a whole new business he wasn't interested in the equipment we had, so we had to leave the shop entirely empty. This was good for us as it meant more money, provided we could sell it all. 2 four meter long cold cabinets, 2 industrial freezers, a 6m2 cold room, (buyer dismantles), cash register, cold meat cabinet, meat slicer , vegetable stand etc.. Not to mention 120m2 of shop shelving. Little by little everything went. The kids thought it was a hoot, they got their bikes and rode round and round the empty shop. Well I promised them a garden, didn't I!!........