No this isn't something about Craig David, but that's how long we have to wait before the house finally becomes ours, lock, stock and two smokin' barrels.

Actually, it's only six now.

We didn't get to sign for the house when we visited over Easter, but what did happen was that we got some stuff sorted out about when we were likely to be able to move over full time - permanent like; what we were going to be doing when we got there (apart from sipping coffee, eating Brie, Caprices des Dieux and saucisson with our baguettes) and how much was it going to cost to put right the things we knew to be wrong.

The first shock was that central heating was apparently shot. The engineer described it as "la grande mare de chauffage", adding that it was about 35 years old and wasn't supported any longer. How much it would be to put right, update and all that, turned out to be about  £7,000. Once you add the rewiring, plumbing (we want a toilet upstairs too), some re-rendering on the outside where neglect and a huge Wisteria has damaged the wall and of course the conversion from a ex-butcher's shop to a kitchen, we were looking at well over  £10,000, probably double that.

At that point we just wished that the ground would open and swallow us whole.

You see, whilst buying somewhere in France may give the impression that we have oodles of disposable capital that is just burning a hole in our pockets, that's not the case. We can't afford to live in England, it has nothing for us. Unless you have money, there are few alternatives to the one hundred mile an hour pace of English life and that doesn't bode well for our future. France on the other hand, does have opportunities that whilst not glamorous, would allow a couple of old farts like Pen and I to go live a slower-paced life and pursue a few dreams before we're too old to appreciate them.

So there we were feeling that the world had just dropped out of our bottoms or whatever the expression is and were fretting and stressing over what we were going to do.

Within a week however, we'd rethought our plans, decided to knock the idea of the central heating on the head and replace it with a wood-burning stove which would come in at about 15% of the price of the former. The other work would just have to be done when we had the money.

Indeed, it appears that the fates don't want us to miss out on the opportunities that are apparent in the little town in Orne either and last week, we were told that we'd specified far too much work to be done to the flat, most of which was totally unnecessary, so we wound up making savings there too.

Yes there is much work to be done, but we both think it will be well worthwhile and although love at first sight isn't applicable here as we've been to France loads of times, we have fallen in love with Passais and Orne in general. Here's a link to the first of the two pics I've posted on facebook to show what it will look like when we're done and here's the other

Once fixed up, this house will have cost us about 25% of what a house in England would cost and the cost of living over there is substantially less than over here in dear old Blighty The pace is, as I said, slower and it's entirely likely that we'll be able to get our business up and running with what we already have. Okay, so that won't make us rich, but we're not following the American dream but the French one and that's a whole nother kettle of bananas.

Right now, we reckon that March of next year is when we'll be upping sticks and buggering off, but that's only a thought, it may be sooner. It all depends on what happens.