Loads of things have happened since I last wrote. Percy turned 12 and went to a climbing wall to celebrate with his friends. His main present from us was a big Harry Potter game, where you can play 7 different versions of the game depending on what year of Hogwarts it is, and you all work together to defeat the bad guys. I did ask him if he wanted a phone because he's now become the only one of his friends without one, but he wasn't that bothered by having one.
My parents also came to stay. Originally we were going to have 2 nights in Andorra together, as well as them staying with us but then Dan has started working and can't just be taking random weekdays off work. So we changed it to one night in Spain at the weekend because its less driving, only 45 minutes to the border. We went to Empuriabrava which is like this town on the water, sort of like Venice and then we went to the very beautiful town of Cadaqués. We swam in the actual sea and it wasn't even that cold!
Back home we did normal half term stuff like going for walks and playing board games and we also went on a second house viewing. I realise I've not updated people much on houses, but the news is we still haven't bought a house.
The last time I mentioned it on my blog I think I said we put in the best offer we could on a house we really liked. Well it turns out those people who say, "try your best, that's all that matters" are wrong. We gave the most we possibly could and it wasn't enough.
I'll tell you some more people who were wrong, people who said: "learn your times tables, because you won't always have a calculator on you." I'm still mad about that.
Anyway. We then saw another house that I thought had potential. It was in Le Soler, which is half way between where we currently live and the city of Perpignan, and I would personally like to move nearer population centres. It was a big house, detached and it had a garden, but as always with those kind of houses, if they are big and in a good area and within our budget, they are going to have some weird stuff going on. So this house was 3 floors, and on the ground floor was the room every one wants to see when they walk into a house: The indoor BBQ room. It's a big room with glass doors that open and a big fire place thing that you can cook on. Very handy for when you're having a nice outdoor party and you can just open up those doors and let the party flow between indoors and outdoors. But I don't know what you would do with that room the rest of the time.
There were 5 bedrooms, but all of them were pretty small. The biggest one had an ensuite and the ensuite was as big as the bedroom but did it have a luxurious bath and a handy toilet? No. It had a shower a sink and a bidet and then in another much smaller bathroom there was a midget bath, like a kind of a sheep dip and another bidet. But it had enough positives, like a really lovely lounge/dining room, that I thought we could make it work and do a few changes.
It was on for 239k. We made a low offer of 210K, which they didn't accept. It seems like to find out the real price of anything, you have to make a low offer, then they told us the real price they would accept: 225K. So then we went back with an electrician to get a quote of what he thought the price of some changes would be. (It needed at least a re-wire and more heating/cooling adding.) This was while my parents were here, so I took them round the town first. We had a lovely walk in the local park and then went to the viewing and I was really hopeful that this would be the one, but the electrician pointed out a load more things wrong with it that we hadn't even spotted, and unfortunately we've decided this house would not be worth the hassle and we couldn't afford to do what it needs to make it not weird.
I was a bit gutted about this because we've been searching for a house for nearly a year now, and I felt like maybe we need to change our searching criteria. So just for a laugh we would go and see "the wild card." There's a house we've seen which is 26 minutes from where we currently live but not in the direction of other people. It was in the direction of nobody. So you go 10 minutes away from Perpignan and the sea, towards the mountains and then you turn off the main road, away from civilisation and you go up and up and round and round for 15 or 20 mins until you're nowhere and there's just wolves howling, and then you arrive at the tiny village of Casefabre which has 44 inhabitants, and some bargain houses.
 |
| That's the whole village right there |
 |
| and the pool and the white house above it is the property we saw online. |
Can you believe that a village of 44 people still has a mayor? What a cushy job that would be, I'd love to be mayor of 44 people. So anyway there's a beautiful house for sale, it's actually kind of 3 connected houses. One needs renovation but has potential, but looks a more like a garage than a house currently. Then there's a 3 bed house with a lovely balcony and then above that is a one bed house with another lovely balcony. And then there's a big bit of land with a massive pool. We're not too serious about it, it would be impractical to live that remotely so we didn't book a viewing, but we thought let's just drive up there and go for a walk, explore the area, and then if we REALLY like it and feel like it's not that far away we could consider asking for a viewing.
So we drove up, and started wandering around and it was incredibly beautiful. You could just see mountains and trees everywhere, very peaceful, and it was a lovely sunny day as it often is here. We spotted the house and you could see a lot of the garden area from the path we took for a walk. As we were wandering back to the car, we saw an old man with a dog, who heard us talking in English and joined in. He was Swiss and he moved to the village because he once saw a painting of it and it looked so beautiful that he decided to move there.
We were keen to find out a bit more about the place, to see if it would really be an option to live there or not. So we asked him if any other kids lived in the village. He said there was one boy who was around 14. Imagine being the only teenager in your village, that sucks. We started talking about the house and he said that everyone thinks it's overpriced (it's 225k). And then he said the pool is so big that it used to use up all the water from the village and so everyone hated the owner for a bit, but now they've sorted a solution so that's not the case. He said the owner is a German woman who only uses it as a holiday house so isn't there a lot of the time but she's in today. Then we said bye and stated walking back past the house and he started calling out to the owner who was in the garden. He explained to her in German who we were and that we we're interested and could we have a house tour!
She agreed and then we were suddenly having a nosy round the garden and massive pool, imagining the parties we could have if only the majority of our friends didn't live 1000 miles away. I feel like with the exception of that old man, people moved to that village for peace and quiet. I bet it's a village of introverts that might not appreciate Jonesfest becoming an annual tradition.
I think it almost could work. I've got online work now and apparently the internet is good there and when I'm not teaching online I could just sit out on that balcony and paint.
Dan would be very happy to get another motorbike to commute on, having people to stay in the summer would be epic. There's plenty of space so friends and family could have a bit of their own space, and the pool would be amazing in the summer. But we would miss being near to friends we have here and it would be super annoying for the kids and I would be constantly driving them places. So I think it's a no, but it was a fun little dream while it lasted.
We're going to see another house this week, so maybe this will be the one. I hope so because I'm so bored of looking now and so bored of being in this weird house we're currently in.
In preparation for hopefully moving one day we have been trying to sort through our stuff. Dan did a vide grenier at the weekend which is like a car boot sale. They're big in France mainly because of the lack of charity shops. We couldn't all go because we wouldn't all fit in the car as well as the stuff and you have to be there around 6 am which is unnecessary for a Sunday morning. When you arrive there's a load of mad people with torches wandering round offering you 3 euros for electrical items that cost 50 new. They all try and buy stuff to sell on, then gradually the more normal people arrive.
So over several hours we sold a few things but not a lot, and it was all a very knocked down prices. But I've got a good story about my lucky shorts. I've had these shorts since at least my big bike adventure in 2013. They still fit but they are looking a bit worn now. So they were in the bag of things people could buy. Dan tells me someone picked them from the pile and had a look but didn't buy them.
Later that day we went to an evening church service and I took all the remaining things that didn't sell and gave them to anyone who wanted them. Several people took stuff, but no one took the lucky shorts because we didn't know they were lucky at that point in time. When we arrived home from church we parked right by a clothes recycling bin thing. So Dan said, "shall we just chuck it all in?" But for some reason, I don't know why, I said, "no I'll give it another sort."
Back at home I started putting things in bin bags. I was sorting it into kids clothes and women's clothes etc. thinking that might be helpful. I wasn't checking any pockets really but for some reason I checked the pocket of my lucky shorts and guess what was in it?
a) some Kuwaiti currency from our 2013 trip
b) a 50 euro note
c) an original Picasso sketch
d) a key to a chateau we have been gifted.
It was B, a 50 euro note. I couldn't believe the amount of times that day I could have lost those shorts, I was trying to get rid of them all day and I do remember a time quite a while ago, where I was aware that I had misplaced a 50 euro note. They shouldn't make paper that's worth that much. No one in the UK ever uses 50's. The only time I've ever seen a 50 pound note is when I was a student and I did a little job picking up international students from the airport and taking them to their uni halls. Most of them were fine, but this one Chinese girl spoke no English and had no accommodation booked. I took her to a hostel where she opened this bum bag absolutely full of 50 pound notes. I tried to explain to her with a map where she had to go and when to register for her course, but it seems unlikely that she made it. It's so irresponsible of John Moores University to accept someone like that. I wonder what happened to her.
Anyway, I've decided to keep my lucky shorts.
No comments:
Post a Comment