Bonjour mes dames

As I sit here writing this at 07:10 on Tuesday morning, it feels odd that it was exactly a week ago that Penny and I were sitting on board the ferry Barfleur, patiently waiting to go down to the garage, get in our car and get on with our holiday-cum-house-hunting.

I had already ripped my only pair of jeans, bending over to stick the light converters on the car. Pen was most amused, but I had to wait until we got on board before I could change into trousers. I saw the funny side, but not only was it a bit breezy round the coast at this time, but wandering around with one’s arse hanging out is hardly polite now is it?

This did not bode well for the rest of the trip.

Driving on the opposite side of the road to usual took a bit to get used to, but not that long really–one learns quickly when one’s lives depend upon it. Junctions caused us to think and because it was Pen’s car, she drove (pout). I had to pay attention for overtaking as you can imagine, but other than that, it was fairly plain sailing–if you’ll pardon the pun.

Their road system is much better than ours and no matter where we went the roads were quite smooth. That’s definitely unlike Dorset, which is rather akin to a severe car suspension test zone, where if everything isn’t bolted down, you get where you’re going minus a few important items (like teeth).

Anyhow, once we got used to the signs and stuff, we were able to settle down and watch the stunning scenery drift past. We could definitely see ourselves living here.

Two hours and one detour later, we arrived in Flers.

More awful coffee (instant from a jar–what kind of welcome is that?) and a chat later, we decided to go to our hotel and check in.

Bagnoles de l’Orne is one hell of a place. Like so many of the non-industrialised areas of France, it was pretty, not too crowded and had an amazing patisserie–we do tend to find the important places. There was also a small lake, stunning architecture and some amazing scenery around the spa. Les Camelias, our hotel, was up the road from a large chateau. It was comfortable, quiet and best of all, festooned with its namesake in beautiful vibrant colours.

No time to stop and smell the flowers or drink coffee–even though we were both gasping, as it was off to our first appointment.

We had agreed to see an English estate agent or immobilier as they’re known in France. We knew that the house we had first chosen to view was no longer on the books, but another house came on the market while we were there and she showed us photos.

“Um, isn’t it customary for the trees to be growing “outside”?” I asked, remembering a quip from Kris some time ago (thanks Kris; you should have seen the look on her face!).

“Oh, he’s a wag isn’t he?” she said, sarcastically. “It’s been chopped down and it wasn’t growing inside, it was outside.”

I could see on the picture that the tree–for it wasn’t just a sapling we were talking here, we were talking something that was at least as tall as the house, with several stout branches–was rather close and I wasn’t so sure it was as benign as the agent tried to profess.

Reluctantly, we agreed to go look, but it was mainly because we had nothing better to do.

“You never know anyway.” Pen said.

Sadly, the rain came down and we ended up sloshing through the wildly overgrown area comically labelled “the garden”. A blocked drainage pipe had caused the resultant standing water to allow one wall to sink and it was currently on a fast-track separation programme from the rest of the building. No doors were whole, the roof looked like it had been designed and built by Salvador Dali and the proposed sectioning of the land made us wince.

That tree I mentioned was down to a stump and had been there long enough to become quite substantial. It was evident that its roots were undermining the front wall and contrary to what we were told, putting root destroying stuff on it, would not have cured the problem, but would have further undermined the structure, leaving a void under the wall instead of tree-root.

Satisfied we had seen everything, we were given directions back to where we had come from and parted company, very soggy and wondering what the hell the agent was thinking, or more pointedly, whether she had thought us stupid. I mean okay, we were new to the French property market, but not to building practices. Even Mike Holmes (the Mighty Thor) would have washed his hands of this one.

It would have been cheaper to knock the bugger down and start again than to try and repair the current monstrosity. When adding up the costs, the “bargain house”, wasn’t nearly such a bargain. Not only that, but the village or hamlet had been deserted long ago, save the two or now one die-hards and the one remaining one was definitely odd, that’s for sure. We saw him as he grimaced through his French windows (rather appropriately) at Pen’s three-point turning manoeuvre.

Back at the hotel, knackered and fairly deflated, we booked dinner and ordered coffees. Believe me when I say that this was the best thing we’d tasted all day. It was a shame that there were no facilities for drinks in our room, but it’s apparently something that’s not standard in France, however that coffee was just so welcome.

We watched French TV for a while, bathed and then went to dinner.

This was something we won’t forget in a hurry.

First we were offered an aperitif, which was a Calvados based drink that was like sheer nectar.

Dinner for me was Foie gras with Bagnolesse–a dish of onions done in some special way, toast and salad; steak and fries with a blue cheese dressing and salad; cheese board (called a chariot) and then sweet of profiteroles with home made vanilla ice cream and hot chocolate sauce, followed by coffee.

Having never had foie gras, I was overjoyed to find it was excellent, the steak–superb, the cheese–awesome and the profiteroles–frightening.

The profiteroles I thought would be little golf-ball sized bits of pastry with a chocolate topping and piped cream inside, but these were like tennis balls. Not only that, but they–and it was “they”; all three of them–were swimming in this hot sauce that I would have defended to the death. Each was filled with this unbelievable ice cream and walking afterwards was a severe chore.

The next day, it was off to St. Hilaire du Harcouet and a second English Agent As luck would have it, it was market day there, so there was something else to do other than looking at ruins. So we breakfasted on orange juice, fresh batons, coffee and croissants, gorging ourselves not knowing when we would get to break for lunch or indeed, whether lunch would be on the cards at all.

During le not-so-petit déjeuner, an older gentleman came in to the breakfast room and as it transpired, was the father of one of the owners.

“Bonjour mes dames.” He said, making his way to the coffee pot. I just mumbled “bonjour” through my mouthful of baton and butter, while Pen spluttered into hers.

“What?” I asked, completely at a loss to know what had amused her.

“Didn’t you hear what he said?” she asked.

“He said good morning.”

“He said good morning ladies.”

“No!”

“’Fraid so.”

I did have my back to him otherwise it may have been a whole different story. I was shocked–no doubt about it, but well, these things happen and usually, as now, when you least expect it.

We gathered our maps and stuff together, headed to the car and made our way west.

The whole town of St. Hilaire du Harcouet was buzzing and since we were a bit early for our appointment, we went and had a look round. The centre was closed to traffic and we strolled through a wonderful market with all the intoxicating smells of barbeques cooking home-made sausages and cutlets side by side with stalls selling cheese, fish, plants for the garden and a myriad of veggies, fruit, clothes and other sundry bits and pieces.

By just gone nine-thirty, we went back to the Agent’s shop and found it still closed. One thing we had been told was that we shouldn’t be late. The French are apparently sticklers for timekeeping and it’s considered very rude when you don’t get there on time.

When she did arrive, she was sullen, surly and made no apology for her tardy appearance. She did however offer to show us to the property in Isigny Le Buat.

It was like taking a stage in a rally. She was off like the clappers and Pen had to really put the hammer down to keep up. We lost her once and then went past her as she was on her mobile in a lay-by, but eventually, she once again took the lead and within no time–due mainly to moving at speeds approaching mach 3, we arrived at the little colombage we had been looking forward to.

The good feeling disappeared quickly as we discovered that the neatly whitewashed walls shown on the photo, turned out to be pieces of some Formica-type stuff that had been nailed on the outside. The lack of description or pictures meant we had no idea that the house did not have the two bedrooms as stated, but had only two rooms in total plus some unconverted loft space.

The back wall was bowing dangerously and the wattle and daub, which may seem a little out-dated as a medium to use, but perfectly serviceable, was jumping ship. It was not possible to go from one room to another without leaving the house and the loft space–something we discovered was about as much use as an ash-tray on a Harley–was only accessible through a tiny trap door from a very rickety ladder that the miserable bugger of an agent flatly refused to climb.

Our hostess with the most-ess, then showed her wonderful people skills by disappearing as soon as she could, never to be seen again–without so much as a good-bye.

We went back to St. Hilaire and enjoyed a coffee, wondering whether this was normal for people to be treated in the manner we had by our two introductory agents, both of whom as I said, were English.

We still had one more immobilier to see though . . .

Off we went after our coffees to Avranches and to add insult to injury, it was once again teeming down.

We were two hours early for this one, but the young lady was only too pleased to help and took us out in her car, rather than playing cops and robbers, chasing as we had with the other two.

Her car had sat nav and that was something I had never seen before. She stuck it to the windscreen, prodded it a couple of times and then we were off. It was like she was playing a video game. It led us eastwards up hill and down dale until finally, she told us that this was the village our house was in and promptly drove out the other side.

It was some considerable distance further on–as well as a number of left and right turns, up more hills and down more dales before we reached the house. In the howling wind, driving rain and squelching feet, we approached the imposing edifice.

It wasn’t as big as we had originally thought, but it was big. We didn’t take too much notice of the land around as anywhere that wasn’t sheltered was blowing rain in our faces and doing its best to soak us to the skin.

One thing that was easy to see was the fact that there was a crack all the way up one wall at the corner of the property and the roof across the opposite end, which had looked good in the picture, had collapsed over a third. Sevrine looked at the house with some disdain.

“You wouldn’t pay the price they’re asking for this would you?” I asked.

She didn’t answer, but the look on her face spoke volumes. No she wouldn’t.

More driving through the rain followed as we headed west again to our final house.

This one was in better nick, but a shed-sized portion of the right end had been nabbed, which meant that, whatever we did to the remaining seven-eighths would be ruined unless the owners were prepared to finish their end–unlikely.

Not only that, but the sizeable plot was all uphill–unless you’re coming from the top, then it was all downhill, but I suspect you figured that out for yourselves, didn’t you? There would have been nowhere to put a pool (yeah, right) and carrying the shopping up from the car wouldn’t have been something we’d have looked forward to.

So as it turned out, none of the four houses were any good. Perhaps with a building company, several tens of thousands of pounds of disposable cash and unlimited time may have seen two of them habitable, but the others . . . definitely not.

It wasn’t all bad though. It was a good way to cover a lot of ground in a very short space of time, see a lot of the countryside and reacquaint ourselves with the place we want to make our home.

It won’t be Normandy though.

We are planning another trip over this summer, when we will be camping because it's much less expensive and when we received the bill for the "extras" (or food), the dinners for the three days we stayed in the hotel were just shy of  £200 or $400. Okay, the food was good, but not that bloody good for heaven’s sake.

We loved the people and definitely felt at home there–although I fear we may have to invest in British TV as French TV is rather strange and although they do show movies that were made in English, they are all dubbed and Dante’s Peak, Top Gun and Madagascar will never seem the same again and don’t even mention Mr and Mrs Smith!

It’s not put the kybosh on our plan, but has most definitely opened our eyes to what to really expect, what we need to have in place and what the hell we’re going to do once we’re there.

Oh and by the way, Pen’s little MX5 only got to have to roof down once and that was Friday on the way back to the port. We did about 150 miles topless as it were and it was awesome!

Roll on summer!