Sunday 11 February 2018
6 degrees with sunny periods
Because it is Sunday I awoke at 5 am. Very dark and no bird song. It is a menace, this waking up early thing. Margaret Thatcher ran the country whilst sleeping only four hours a night and waking at 5 am. How is that possible? Perhaps there was an engine under her hard hat hair do. Theresa May looks like she needs a few lie-ins. Her under eye bags are turning into suitcases.
Running on from Friday's visits, yesterday morning was round 2 with the English clients. The small hotel carpark was nearly empty and they were running late. I had placed them with an English couple who have just started a B and B and need the business. They had had an excellent evening meal and then gone down to the local bar with the owners. 'Bit of a late night' said the lady.
They were heading back to the airport and the house we were seeing was mid way, so they followed me in their hire car. When I say follow, I mean that occasionally we were in the same post code. I empathise with people who are cautious drivers but, 45 kms an hour, seriously? It took a very, very long time to go not very far at all. I kept on losing them as a flow of irritated French drivers overtook and flashed their lights and waved their arms. I picked up a guy who drove an inch from my back bumper for 5 kms on a road where you cant overtake. The house we were going to see was 58 kms away and the motor way was the only option so we took the next junction and really burned rubber at 95 kms an hour. Most people go about 130. The Pyrénées were magnificent with their crisp snow napped peaks. Finally we arrived.
'You were motoring a bit' said the man. The lady said they drove slowly because the last time they had been stopped for speeding. I was stunned into silence. OH thinks I drive like a slug. If he had been driving, they would still be in the other Département. I explained that it is possible, and indeed desirable, to go over 45 kms an hour on a route départementale. The man said 'what is in the barn?'. I got them through the front door before he could start wrenching open the door.
The visit went well but they were still thinking of the second house of yesterday. The late night out had opened their eyes to the social possibilities of living in our little town. The lady said 'what do you think of this house' and the man said 'I dont know'. He went off to climb up to the viewing platform which I had advised not to go on as the decking was green. We stood at the end of the garden and watched him hanging into the rails as his feet skidded about. The lady decided that the house was very masculine. We agreed that that was fixable. The man came back and we looked at the ugly concrete parking area. 'We could gravel it' he suggested. There is a significant incline. I imagined the chips sliding down into the ditch in front of the house.
The lady thanked the owner but the man got in the car and went without saying goodbye. I was embarrassed. Owner is very keen to sell and it is a lovely house. I do wish someone would come along and love it too. A former boulangerie, the old baking room has the original oven and he has just put in a beautiful kitchen. I think of my Ikea kitchen and stroke the pink granite worktops.... If only.
Back home briefly and a bowl of noodles and an orange. OH is painting the kitchen ceiling and the house is in a terrible mess.
To another town, half an hour away in a westerly direction and I find a car full of very jolly French people. They are looking for a gite and house to live in. We get to the first house and the car disgorges the lady, who I like immediately, a teenager with a shiny steel smile and a polite handshake, tattie (auntie) and a stupendously tall man. He could hook cranes with a rake.
We get into the first house and they all follow me round (thank heavens because it is a rabbit warren) and then the man runs around the outside of the building and discovers that the back roof of the house is in fibrociment. I am a shortie and hadnt seen this and the owners hadnt told me (ahem). Fibrociment is a material which is used as roofing tiles and is an asbestos/cement sandwich. Fine if the asbestos is in good nick. A fortune to have taken away the day it starts to deteriorate. The man spends 40 minutes telling me why he doesnt like the house. He rings a friend to find out how much it would be to have the fibrociment taken away.
Finally, I get them back into their car and we go and see the second property and they really like this one (no fibrociment). Many more bathrooms plus a heated pool. A major rabbit warren. We are there 1.5 hours and they ask for me to send the diagnostic reports. The lady starts talking about how she would organise things for running the business. Tattie uses the loo and makes a smell. The teenager climbs a tree. I want to go home. It is 5.30 and I started at 9 and I have done nearly 200 kms.
Back home and it is still a terrible mess and we have the end of the seafood risotto. OH wants to talk about holidays and I fall asleep on the sofa.
Woken by a German seller who had gone silent a week ago and whom I have been ringing and emailing. He doesnt understand the document which the notaire has sent him to sign. He then says something which makes cold chills run up and down my spine. He thinks he is just selling the house and not all the land with it. He signed the reservation contract back in August. We had gone through the contract in great detail. He has been very ill and I think he is confused and so, after about 40 minutes of going round in circles, I say I will get the notaire to email him and set everything out very clearly. OH gives me wine and puts on the rugby. 'He cant pull out and neither can the buyers' he says.
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