hunting houses and skiing

Last time I wrote I said I'd write about the church skiing weekend. It was snowy. very very snowy apparently there was over two meters of snow on our local mountain.

The front garden of the house we stayed at.

We signed up to go not really know what it was, and I was added to a whatapp group with so many French messages going back and forth that I ignored them all. I was under the impression it was one nights stay over and two days of skiing, but it was actually two nights accommodation and one day of skiing. The major road was closed due to falling rocks so we had to go the very long way round which is two and a half hours drive (twice as long) so we didn't arrive until late. Once you get to the part where you're driving on snow you have to put snow chains on your car wheels for grip. There was about 30 of us in this big house, we had a shared room with two bunk beds in. 

In the morning we all set off early to ski, after digging our car out of yet more snow.  We went to a ski place called Pyrenees 2000. We'd never been to that one before as a family, we always went to another one called les Angles which I loved so much that I had no desire to try a different one. But it was actually amazing and maybe even better than les Angles in terms of choice of green runs you can do (the easier ski slopes) It was quite confusing at first, Eric had been there that week on his school ski trip and we couldn't find out how to get to the bit he recognised. In the end we worked out that you had to get two different ski lifts to get up to this big hill where there were about eight options of how to get down and a few of them took you down to the part he'd been to before.

 It was so fun skiing together, we're all the same level which is really nice because no one is being held back by anyone else. we tried some blue runs (a bit harder than green) for the first time and there was a very cool run where you could take optional side paths between the trees. There was also a obstacle course one with things you had to try and hit and some jumps to go over. That night we had raclette with everyone. yum. 

The next day most people were going to the hot baths, an outdoor pool that is the temperature of a bath. but we wanted to go skiing again because we had hired the kids ski stuff for the full weekend and we just thought we should make the most of being there, so we went by ourselves. Those might be the only days we go this winter, to go as a four is expensive, but what's nice is we can just do what we can afford each year and that might be just two days. However if we were in England you can't really do it like that. Percy went for another day with his school where he got to try biathlon, (skiing and shooting) snow shoeing (walking in snow with tennis rackets on your feet) cross country skiing and sledging. all that was for a very reasonable price of 35 euros.

Other than snow fun, we've been house hunting, we've started the process of remortgaging our house in Liverpool and that money that we will take out will be the deposit for buying a house here. So far we've seen seven houses. Our main criteria is loads of space, so the boys can have a room each, I can have a space for art/ teaching planning. Dan needs a work space, a room for guests would be amazing, also we got the boys a big football table for Christmas and that needs a space. So were looking at a minimum of four bedrooms. The other tricky thing is area, if we move even 10 minutes away the boys would have to change school. Unless you got special permission to stay which is not guaranteed. but we might move to an area with more going on, that is closer to Dan's work.

This is what we've seen so far: (our budget is around 260,000 euros/ 230 000 pounds)

1) next door, 6 beds! very nice garden with an above ground pool and a outdoor kitchen. sounds perfect right? but the garden is like a court yard so is very shady most of the day. Its 3 floors, so the downstairs is one room, then 3 bedrooms and another beds. There's not really enough room for a good size dinning area and a good sized lounge area. The only access to the garden (except through the house) is by a garage which she doesn't want to sell with it. So it's pretty weird for someone else to have access to your garden and not you.

spot the rabbit

 outdoor kitchen. and next to that behind the rabbit hutch is the garage that they don't want to sell.

2) A 4 bed house with a little garage in the village right by school. It's a bit tatty, I would want to completely renovate it. It was fine but not exciting, it was the cheapest one of the 7.

3) When we pulled up at this house, I thought "this is not going to be it." It was in a random village that was closer to town on the map but because it wasn't on the fast main road, time wise it would only be 2 minutes nearer town by car although significantly quicker by bike. The kids would both have to move school if we moved there. When we entered the house annoyingly it was incredible! big modern kitchen, lovely dinning space, joined with a cosy sitting room. All tastefully decorated in neutral tones, then upstairs there were 5 bedrooms! including one with an ensuite and one that was giant and actually used to be 2 rooms. There was a secret cupboard that went back really far and would make a perfect play house for a 2 year old. I don't currently own a 2 year old but if I made this tiny play house all the two year olds would want to be may friend.  (I mean like my nieces and nephew, I'm not going to just take kids of the street.) it also had a massive loft space which she said you could make into a roof terrace. The outside space wasn't massive, there was some space and it had an avocado tree! I would host so many Mexican dinner parties with guacamole if I had that house.

If it was just me I would like to offer on the avocado house but I feel bad to move the kids from one random village to another. The seller has since accepted an offer on this house but we told her if it falls through let us know, because were still interested.

outside with the avocado tree, the primary school playground is just over the wall so it would be the easiest school run ever.

inside - through the wooden door is a lovely big modern kitchen

4) This house was in an area near town (saint esteve) that I have decided would be good, it had 4 beds and a pool. Somehow it ticked all the boxes but nether me or Dan were excited about it. it was a bit tatty and the garden was quite overlooked. and first world problems but the pool did take up a lot of the garden so in the winter that is wasted space, but I don't know why, we both just didn't feel it.

 

5) In order to see this house the gatekeeper/ estate agent came round for a meeting to ask us everything we wanted from a house and then he said he find us houses. House number 5 was less than 5 minutes away from where we currently live in the next door village of Millas where Percy goes to school, so he wouldn't have to move schools and I would ask for permission for Eric to remain at his current school.

from the outside it was beautiful, very classic French with green shutters, it was a semi, with a really big garden. Inside the upstairs was entirely wallpapered in 70's wall paper. a weird bathroom with a bath directly behind a shower, but that stuff we can change, 4 beds one has a little balcony, very nice light and views. however it was only single glazed, I don't know if that's an issue we would need to fix. And the main issue was the kitchen was very small and I'm not sure if it would be possible to extend or attach two the other room because there was a toilet between the 2 rooms that I would want to join. Overall it had a lot of potential but might be a big project to make it how we wanted it. It was on the cheaper end of the scale though.

 

Do they know you can just put a shower in over a bath? who puts a bath directly behind a shower?

6) Then we had to see more houses that the gatekeeper of houses made us see. One that was a new build in a random village where Percy could stay in the same school but not Eric. 4 beds and a pool, Dan quite liked it. I didn't, the entrance looked like a doctors rather than a house.

7) And finally he took us to see a house that didn't match our criteria at all. Top end of the budget, and a 2 bed! He said you could convert the loft. I personally think he was just trying to show to those clients that he could get viewings. Thanks for wasting everyone's time. It wasn't even a nice house, it had a shower with a glass ceiling so if you were in the loft you could perve on someone in the shower. 

Let me know what you would pick so far. Were hopefully soon going to see one with a garden so big I could start my own farm/ put on a festival.