We've landed in Limoux.
Where has the time gone? We have now been here almost 4 weeks and are feeling like we definitely made the right decision to move to France.
The past few weeks have actually been REALLY hectic and gone by in a bit of blur.
However we now:
- have a long term rental
- squashed all our belongings into the garage (we're talking about 30m3 of 'stuff')
- own a car
- bought cooker, fridge, washing machine and TV
- sussed out school transport (well not really as we still don't understand the timetable or lack of it)
- have the kids all in their various schools
- enrolled the kids in various sports clubs
- collected our dog from Toulouse
- sorted all the utilities and bank accounts
- have telephone and Internet
- registered here there and everywhere for all sorts of things
- found time to go to the beach, the mountains, lakes the cinema
- sussed out the town night life of which there seems to be plenty at the moment.....free bands and concerts every night, a fair and circus all this week and next.
Oh yes and we put in an offer on a house!
How I am finding time to write this blog I am not sure but what I am sure of is that Limoux is a fantastic place to live.
People often talk about French towns and villages going into hibernation once the summer is over but here, life seems to go on. In fact life got busier once La Rentree (kids back to school) started. For the past 2 weeks the town has been taken over by a fair, music bands and the all important regional Petanque competition. I nearly bought some balls the other day but then was worried about gouging big chunks out of the lawn in our rented house.
Another French assumption seems to be the 'awful french driving'. In fact it seems safe and sensible to us so far. I am probably in fact the least safe person on the road right now!
We collected our new car (second hand but new to us) 2 weeks ago and I hadn't driven for 8 years so wasn't at all nervous to have to drive it out of the garage forecourt and then drive 25kms straight to Carcassonne! We had to return our hire car the same day so Bill drove that whilst I drove our new car. Was I scared? YES!! Ellie my daughter was with me and she was very good at not pointing out too often that all the other cars were overtaking me.
What about the house we put an offer on?......
We arrived here deciding that we would give ourselves a couple of months to view houses and land (still preferring to build our house and a gite rather than buy ready built) and then by the end of October to have made a decision. Well surprise surprise.....none of that happened.
Firstly several people (yes we know some people now) mentioned about how long self building takes which made us a bit nervous. Sam our eldest has to share a room with his younger brother and he is not too pleased. Nor is he pleased that he is sleeping on cardboard boxes. There is a mattress on top mind you but he feels he's living like a tramp - little does he know! So we feel in all fairness we need to get things moving fast.
Secondly I have been keeping an eye on what's available for the past year - Internet is a wonderful thing - so knew what was available that might suit us.
Anyway to cut a to the chase, we went to visit a house on a hillside and......immediately knew that it was perfect. Well it ticked 9 boxes out of 10 so had to be pretty good.
Box 1: Location, location, location - perfect. 10 mins walk to school for Douglas, 10 mins walk to the boulangerie, 10 mins walk to tennis (free!), open fields around and beautiful view.
Box 2: Large plot (2800m2) plus a building plot attached - perfect.
Box 3: House exactly the size we want and oddly enough it was built by the same building company that we had planned to use and almost to the same spec as the house we wanted to build. Spookey but perfect!
Box 4 - 9: You probably wouldn't be interested about the double garage, basement, study......
Tomorrow we sign the first contract and so you never know we may be in by Christmas.
There is however the little matter about the mortgage which we are working on.......
Next time: Moving out of the honeymoon phase and into autumn living in France.
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7 comments:
Nicole,
Hi - nice blog. You mentioned in your most recent post that you had a builder in place - can you tell me who it is ? Heading to Limoux week after next to start looking for a plot.
Thanks
James
Welcome to France.You've arrived at the very best time of year.
Thanks for the comments and yes Jo we are finding Limoux great at this time of year - clear blue skies, stll got the BBQ out and lots going on in town.
James I have sent you a private message regarding builders.
Hi James
Just realised that your email address on blogger goes to a 'no-reply' address.
Regarding builders, we have decided (at the moment) to go with a building company called OC-Residences for when we build our gite. They have an office in Carcassonne. We visited them in February and were impressed by them and liked their designs. We also visited some of the houses they built and plus by pure chance the house we are in the process of buying was built by them.
Great to see you over here. If you can find time, pop over to my place. There's a little award waiting for you - don't worry if you don't want to pick it up, just thank you for blogging.
I've been following your planning and moving tribulations.
I moved here in 1999 and started a local expat self help website that you are welcome to use : http://the-languedoc-page.com/forum
I may be able to help you with the mortgage query - I've just created a website for a mortgage broker !
I'll keep following your progress !
Bonne chance
Peter
Thanks Peter. Actually just this week we got a bank to give us a mortgage so we are feeling pretty chuffed. Thanks anyway for the offer of help.
And yes I do know your website. I use it regularly for getting info and advice. So thanks again!
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