"The Eviction" - soon to be showing

There will be a free showing of "The Eviction" at precisely 12.15pm on Thursday 12th June. Free seating and plenty of standing room.

As you guessed the rat is still on our house. We have stopped using neutral or sympathetic adjectives to describe him as we have totally lost our patience and have no more sympathy left in us. Why as he never tried to explain why he is doing this? That would have certainly made it easier for us to handle knowing what we were up against.

We reckon that he is a "Serial Squatter" as he appears to know exactly how the legal system works and is remaining very calm and detached about it all. The courts told him that he had to be out of the house by 23rd May and on that very day he was found having a pint in his local and indicated that he thought he might make the effort to get out before the bailiffs turned up on eviction day!

Well they are turning up...and so are the locksmith...and the estate agents....and the police.

In the meantime, hey ho we have kept ourselves ultra busy with sorting and selling and more sorting and more selling. We now have no beds, no wardrobes, no sofa, no TV and we still have a few weeks before the packers arrive. Every day the kids come home from school and they always start with "OK mum what have you sold today?!"

We also had our leaving party last weekend and it was a brilliant success. We hired out a new bar with views of West Lake in Hanoi and invited about 50 people for farewell drinks and canopes. We couldn't have wished for a better evening apart from the fact that it bucketed down just as people were arriving.


We were planning on having the party on the terrace where we could lounge on huge fluffy cushions under tented canopies and surrounded by the night sky but inside was just as good.


The interior designer certainly has a talent and the red and black velvet decor mixed with brass and gold was really opulent and special, not forgetting the spectacular view of the Hanoi skyline over the lake. Afterwards we went on to have a delicious Thai meal at a local restaurant whilst the kids all headed home with their friends. I lost count of the number of kids that slept over in the end.

So roll on Thursday and shortly after I'll be writing a review of "The Eviction" so come back and read all about it.

Nicole

Next Time: Review of "The Eviction".

Did we finally sell our house in the UK?

No we didn't.

For the past month (5 weeks actually) our tenant has not budged. He doesn't answer his phone, ignores emails, ignores letters and we are all hugely frustrated - 'WE' being us the Tod family, the letting agent, the estate agent and mostly our buyer who is patiently waiting in the wings for which we are eternally grateful.

We swing from moments of anger and frustration to moments of pity and sadness for our tenant. For the past 5 years he has been a model tenant. Paid his rent on time, kept the house immaculate and been amenable and obliging.

So what has gone wrong?.... Nobody really knows but whatever it is, it is not doing any of us any good. Oops another nail bites the dust.

Anyway we are still on a high regarding our family move to Limoux. Everyday we think about it, discuss it and dream about the new things we are going to experience and the new life we are going to be part of. Our flights are booked for 18th August (Stansted - Carcassonne) and basically we have our new life sorted till the 1st September.

Then what?..... Panic maybe!

In the first 2 weeks of our arrival in Limoux, we will have to sort out a long term let, buy a car, settle the kids into their new schools (3 schools for 3 kids), buy housey stuff and also try and have a bit of a holiday. Mind you maybe it will all seem like a holiday...well not sure the kids will think the same way.

In the meantime back here in Hanoi, we have just had a long weekend to celebrate the fall of Saigon in 1975. We made the most of it and flew down the coast to a wonderful place called Phan Thiet. My dad and Bill's parents have also been there whilst they visited us and we have always had a really good time..

We had a lovely surprise when we got to our hotel the Blue Ocean, as not only did we have a sea view villa but it also came with its own poool - we were totally gobsmacked and felt very special!

I found 3 cowrie shells (always my mission when we are on a beach), Sam discovered the thrills of kite boarding, Douglas discovered he looks cool in board shorts, Ellie discovered that she could easily eat the largest red snapper in the restaurant and Bill and I, well we just managed to relax and to not think about our house .... sort of.

I blame it on the free Internet in the hotel which is not good when you want to switch off.





So by the time I next write....

* hopefully the legal process will have run it's course and our tenant will be out of our house
* hopefully our buyer will be in there with her paint brushes and
* hopefully the exchange rates will move in our favour.

You gotta have hope :-)

Nicole

Exchange Contracts or Exchange Rates?

This morning we were hoping to exchange contracts with our buyer for the sale of our UK house…..

This morning though, there is panic all round. Well I am panicking even if Bill remains calm. Apparently the buyer went round to see the house yesterday which was vacated at the weekend by our tenant, only to find that he is still there, furniture and all.

She was not happy and neither are we. Funnily enough just 2 days ago I had sent a letter to our letting agent telling them how wonderful they had been at keeping us informed abut everything and being so organized and efficient. Hmmmm. Let's just hope it's a minor blip and that there is a very plausible explanation.

The other thing to worry about though is the Sterling-Euro exchange rate. Everyday we see our money falling further and further. Sometimes we feel lucky in at least we have some money to exchange and at least we have sold (???) our house and other times we just reach out for the gin. What to do and what not to do? Any clairvoyants are welcome to make contact.

Apart from those SMALL worries, we are still avidly looking at property websites and dreaming about the house we are going to build in Limoux and the gite we are going to rent out and the garden full off fruit trees, orchids, vegetables and chickens. Not sure they will all get along. Because of our dwindling budget, the gite has now shrunk from 4 bedrooms to 2. But that's OK though as I never wanted to wash all those sheets anyway.

We were talking to some Vietnamese friends last weekend about house buying and comparing notes. Imagine that there were no estate agents and that you discovered a house was for sale by gossiping with your neighbours or whilst buying tomatoes in the market. Imagine that you discussed the price round the kitchen table or round the mat on the floor whilst drinking green tea or maybe a whisky if you are a man. Imagine not asking how many thousands it will cost but rather how many Taels of gold (1 Tael equals approx 37.5gm). Then imagine rushing round your family and friends to see who might be able to lend you a tael here or a tael there. Imagine that you are not really buying or bidding on the house but what you are buying is the land the house sits on. Then when it's yours you are going to knock the house down and build a house for yourself even if it looks exactly like what you just bulldozed down. Maybe you will add an extra floor though and have 5 one roomed floors instead of 4.

Since we have been living here in Hanoi (for 7 years with a year break in the middle), we have never known what it is like to not have a building site within 500m of our house. If there is land, it will be built upon. If you buy a house, you knock it down and build another. Basically land here is like gold dust (!) but building labour and materials costs little in comparison.

I wish buying land in France could be that much fun. "Excusez-moi. How many baguettes do you want for this field and yes another glass of wine would be lovely."

So for the moment we are in limbo but hopefully by the time I next put finger to keyboard, I will have lots of good news.

Next time: Did we dare to exchange our Sterling to Euros?….Assuming our house sale went through.

Was Limoux as beautiful as we had remembered it?

Well we are back from our 10 day lurk in Limoux and what a trip. It seems the kids and the dog survived without us as did the grandparents to whom we are forever grateful.

So was Limoux as beautiful as we had remembered it and do we still want to move to France?........

We had only ever visited Limoux twice and that was 3 years ago and it was just for a pizza (!) and a walk along the banks of the River Aude. It was July and the sun was shining, the sky was a gorgeous blue and we were soaking up holiday heaven.

This time it was February, considered a cold, grey and boring month with the population still suffering from the after-effects of too much Christmas. Well those who 'consider' maybe got it wrong.

Our first encounter with a Limouxin (male Limoux resident as opposed to a female Limouxine) was as we were fumbling by the roadside in our little hired Renault trying to work out where our accommodation was located. A little tap at the window and there was this smiling, rather bulbous face talking in a strange language that was a bit of a shock to the system – was our rusty French really that bad? May he help us was what he was saying and although he couldn't (maybe he wasn't a real Limouxin after all), he paved the way to a non-stop line of helpful people.

We were warned about the French bureaucracy and the passing from pillar to post, the non stop forms and the need for insurmountable patience. Well we opened a bank account (2 actually), introduced ourselves in the Mairie, visited 3 schools, popped into and had meetings in the Conseil General and the Academy de Montpellier, visited a few (OK lots) of estate agents, organised a long term rental, visited house building companies and talked to builders and home owners and ….and not once did we get frustrated or feel overwhelmed by the French way of doing things. Admittedly that may change over time but what we did find was that if we were willing to try and speak French and to not expect to be treated as different to anyone else, then everyone we met was willing to help.

One very kind lady in the Conseil General told us specifically to contact her with 'any' difficulties as she knew what it was like to move to a new country and not know the system – she was Italian. Now how kind was that?!

We also met some incredibly kind and helpful foreign residents (thank you Jonathan, Angele, Trisha and Chris) who told us all the ins and outs and ups and downs – We owe you a drink or three.

One of our aims was to find a plot of land to build our house. The choice compared to the UK was incomparable. There were plots here, plots there and plots sprouting everywhere. Actually it seemed like everyone had gone plotty and it was a case of build, build, build. There were also in our opinion rather too many little boxes going up on these unappealing housing estates but another way of looking at it was that it was giving people the chance to get on the housing ladder.

So did we find our dream plot?.....

Yes we did - and it even had a little wooden house on it. Imagine a grassy field, slightly sloping with a wood behind and a field of sheep and donkeys grazing to one side. In front of you and a two minute stroll, the Aude River flows calmly and coolly diving into little secret bathing spots.

Two minutes in another direction and you can be canoeing, playing tennis or swimming in the enormous outdoor pool or maybe a few minutes further and you can be sitting in Limoux town square, sipping an espresso outside a café and watching the world go by. The air was fresh and the only sounds were that of the gentle brushing of the trees and the birds and in the distance, the faint sound of.....….clang, bang, clang.

It turns out that just behind the wood and over the hill (0.25km according to Google Earth) is a clay quarry. After a little bit of delving at the Mairie (town hall), we find out that the quarry has a 40 year lease on the land and is expanding in a big way and they do regular explosions. Bye, bye plot.

And yes the phrase "Location, Location, Location" really does stand true.

Oh well we shall just have to keep on looking when we arrive in August - one way ticket already booked!. If we were able to find our ideal plot in a week, just imagine what we will find in a month. Now both Bill and I are terrible (really terrible) at making decisions and the more plots we have to choose from the more we dither and procrastinate…….I can see trouble ahead.

So in answer to my first question about Limoux, yes we loved the place. We are one hundred percent certain that we have made the right decision in location.

Many people have asked us "Why Limoux?"

You know when you are house hunting and you walk into a particular house and it just feels right, well that sums up Limoux to us. It's our size town, beautiful views and weather, friendly people, lots going on, good transport, good schools and just has a very nice feel to it. Naturally I am sure that there are other places in France that would also fit the bill, but at the end of the day you have to pick one.

It is a town of 10,000 inhabitants and growing and there is an event or festival going on every month. Just perfect for 3 teenage children, 2 forty-something adults and a mad dog. The schools seem great and hugely welcoming and we took trillions (it's amazing what you can get on a digital camera) of photos to show the kids and the grandparents.

Even Lily the dog is going to enjoy it although she will miss the smells and rubbish of the Hanoi streets.

So what's next?......Packing and sorting and chucking sixteen years of expat 'stuff' and of course making lots of lists.

Also off to work on my learn french website. The Limouxins have a very pronounced nasal accent which I need to master....

Next Time: Organising a long term rental, registering at schools and transporting a dog.

We Sold Our House - another step forward

Six months on the market, 3 offers, 3 disappointments, 3 price drops and we finally sold our house. Thank you Mrs Toucan.

It's funny as thrilled as we are to have sold the house, we do feel rather flat about it. We ended up giving it away, well we feel like that, as we had to take a 15 % price drop. Basically we needed to sell and our buyer knew . But what really swung it was that she is a cash buyer and in rented accommodation. Our estate agents reckons 2 months and it will all be signed, sealed and delivered.

However it does mean we can get on. Get on with planning, looking, researching, reading and just generally getting excited about our family move to France. We now know what our budget is and although less than we had originally planned, at least we know.

In 2 weeks (exactly) Bill and I are off to France for our weeks reckie in Limoux. We can hardly contain our excitement. People always say you should visit your prospective new home in all seasons, well you can't get more grim than February can you? Even Vietnam is grim. The cold front is sweeping across from China and we are having the coldest winter in Hanoi for the past 20 years.

Nest week is the Chinese New Year of the rat. I am a rat!! Does that mean luck? I hope so and I promise to share some of it with you who are reading this.

Nicole

Next time: Is Limoux as beautiful in the cold and grey?

Our Move To France Starts Here - Right Now!

After years of talking about it, procrastinating about it and dreaming about it, we have finally made the decision - "Let's just do it - Let's move to France"!!

Yes like thousands of others before us we have decided to move to France. It's the good life there, you can get a mansion for your pocket money, renovate a barn and own acres of land, stress is a mere whisper in your ear, and life will be so much better not forgetting all that wine. Well I have to admit, lovely as that all sounds that doesn't really describe us although I do like the wine part.

Let me just give you a small taster of who we are and why oh why are we walking the well trodden path to France in the shadows of many before us. Some fallen shadows but many basking in the sunshine and glory of their successes.

My name is Nicole and I belong to a family of 2 adults, 3 kids and a dog, not forgetting the fish. I won't tell you about all my other family members (yet) as that could be a long story.

Since our 15 year old and eldest son was in nappies, we have talked about having a holiday home in France. We holidayed there every year, scoured estate agents windows (even visited a few properties), bored the kids to death with yet "more estate agents" and generally became a nuisance with our promises to buy that special something but then never doing it. It wasn't that we couldn't but between us we could never make up our mind on whether we were doing the right thing, at the right time, in the right place and for the right reasons.

So what changed our minds?........

Well I have skipped a large chunk of our lives. The bit about us living abroad in developing countries for the past 15 years and the fact that our children speak fluent French and are all in the French school system and the fact that we are desperate to have our own place, where we can paint our own walls and plant our own garden and not have to ask the landlord to change the light bulb or to mend the lock on the gate (for the umpteenth time).

The kids too need to settle, to make more physically permanent friends and to learn what a normal life is and to enjoy staying put for a while. Bill (my wonderful partner in crime) dreams of growing orchids and laying a tiled floor and chopping firewood in his new bovver boots (bought last weekend in anticipation of his new life) and Lily the dog dreams of racing around lush green fields and making friends with anything furry - well she would say that if she could talk. The fish though might have to stay behind - sorry fishies.

......So that is why we are doing it now.

Bill has handed in his notice, the kids have told their friends and I am panicking about how it will all work and how we will manage and I am writing lots and lots of lists and then more lists about lists and then lists about......

So today we are 03 January 2008 and it will soon be the Chinese New year of the rat. I'm a rat and so this is going to be my year or so I am told and so I really like to believe.

Our plan so far (in list form naturally):

* Feb 2008 - Bill and I are going to do a 10 day trip to Limoux to sort out schools, open a bank account, find a house to rent, buy some land, sort out builders etc.
* July 2008 - Leave Hanoi and head for England to sort out final bits and bobs and to see the family.
* August 2008 - Hey ho, hey ho, it's off to France we go.....

Now plans never go to plan and already ours are scuppered.

Firstly we need to sell our house in the UK in order to buy in France. We plan to buy some land in Limoux (Aude) and build 2 houses. One for us and one to let out as a gite - yes another gite but...ours will be different so watch this space.


Well our house has been on the market in the UK since July 2007 and as the housing market decide to go pear shaped at exactly that time (probably the exact same date and exact same time that we put our house on the market), we have yet to sell. We have not been short of offers but they have.

I am off now to check the status of our Estate Agents who I think are probably still enjoying their New Years celebrations so maybe I need to wait a week.

Next Installment : Why did we choose Limoux?